by Laurențiu Ștefan

What greatest honor and implicit professional acknowledgment than to be invited to join the quasi-exclusive club of participants to the „good-bye” conference organized in honor of one of the best (note the pun!) scholars of political elites.

The conference took place in late September in Jena, Germany (where else?). The University of Jena is my second academic home after the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest, followed probably by the University of Cambridge (although I feel now more of an emigrant in relation to it) and the IWM in Viena.

The group of Jena scholars who were keenly dedicated to the study of political elites „adopted” me since 2002 and kept me busy ever since. I owe them a great deal of my scholarly contributions. Heinrich Best is the patron saint of this group, while Michael Edinger, Stefan Jahr, Lars Vogel and Elena Semenova his disciples and – for years – my friends.

Participants included John Higley, Jan Pakulski, Ursula Hoffmann-Lange, Gyorgy Lengyel, Gabriella Ilonszki, Luca Verzichelli, Jean-Pascal Daloz, Daniel Gaxie, Irmina Matonyte.

Professor Higley is extremely friendly. I was able to contribute to his knowledge about Matei Dogan’s beginning as a young researcher in Romania. Apparently, Dogan kept silence about his first studies on Romanian legislators that he carried out in early 1940s. Neither Higley, not Jean-Pascal Daloz (who is a board member of the Mattei Dogan Foundation) were aware of these biographic details.

Professor Pakulski questioned the normative framework of Elite Theory in his quest to find out more about the „good elite”.

Heinrich impressed us with his encyclopedic knowledge and brought us back in time in the nineteenth century to the moments that turned him forcefully to the study of political elites.

I introduced the audience to my recent investigation of expert and non-political ministers.

A rewarding experience. Kind of a professional climax…