Valediction for Herbert Gottweis

Abstract

We, like many colleagues, were deeply shocked and saddened to hear of Herbert Gottweis' untimely death on the 31 March this year. While we were aware of Herbert's illness, we also hoped that, against the odds, he would recover in his typical, buoyant style. This was not to be. A few days after receiving the terrible news, we began a discussion of ways to commemorate our colleague. This special section is the result. We invited a selection of Herbert's many collaborators, colleagues and former students to reflect upon the impact that his life and work has had upon their own. We wish to convey his significance to our field and our community, and to commemorate his unique presence.As anyone who has met Herbert will recall, he wore his erudition lightly, and conducted his scholarly work with a wonderful, ironic charm and sense of fun. An indefatigable networker and generous host of innumerable seminars and workshops, Herbert treated even the most rigorous academic exchanges as serious pleasure, to be celebrated in memorable locations and, at the end of the day, excellent restaurants. Many colleagues in our field first met each other at one of Herbert's marvelous events, traveling from around the world to find ourselves in a Moorish school in Grenada or an Alpine chalet, where, among the spectacular surroundings we enjoyed enriching intellectual exchanges. Herbert's capacity to recognize early career talent ensured that each such event introduced promising young scholars to their more senior peers. He has nurtured some of the leading young academics in the field, including several of the authors writing here. For example, he introduced one of us (BP) to Adele Clarke, in whose Department she spent 5 invaluable months while doing her doctoral work.These collegial relationships, formed across not only Europe but also North America, East Asia and Australia, are enduring bonds and tangible testimony to Herbert's scholarly life and work. As the collected essays here attest, Herbert also left an important legacy of substantive scholarship. His scholarship has had its most significant impact in two main areas. 1 First, he strengthened and expanded the foothold that governance studies had within the field of 1 These are summarized in an obituary published earlier this year (see Prainsack, 2014).