Dr Hylke Dijkstra wins Van Poelje Prize

Congratulations to Dr Hylke Dijkstra, who has received the G.A. Van Poelje Prize for his dissertation (Maastricht, 2011) on EU foreign policy. This prestigious award is given annually for the best PhD thesis defended in The Netherlands and Flanders in the field of public administration.

In his PhD thesis, Hylke Dijkstra examined the emerging bureaucratic structures in the European Union dealing with sensitive foreign policy matters. This topic is innovative, as it has long been assumed that EU foreign policy is solely made in national capitals such as Berlin, London and Paris. After interviewing more than a hundred senior EU officials, Dijkstra found, however, that Brussels has considerable impact in determining the foreign policy agenda.

The award ceremony took place during the annual conference of the Dutch Association of Public Administration in Utrecht on 28 February 2013. The chairman of the jury, Prof. Mark Bovens of Utrecht University, praised the clarity of the argument and the thorough empirical analysis. The jury assessed in total 29 PhD theses. The prize is named after G.A. Van Poelje a former civil servant, member of the Dutch Council of State, and one of the founding fathers of the public administration discipline in The Netherlands.

Following the announcement of the award, Hylke Dijkstra commented that it is a great honour to receive this award for my dissertation. It shows how prominent the study of European integration has become in public administration. The public administration literature not only helps us to better understand the fine details of EU legislation, but indeed also how we organise cooperation in the sensitive field of foreign policy.

Dr Hylke Dijkstras dissertation The Role of the Council Secretariat and the European Commission in EU Foreign Policy was awarded a distinction on 15 June 2011. Previously, he also won the Otto von der Gablentz Academic Prize.