Photo credit: Esma Numanović
Could you please introduce yourself?
Hello, My name is Bas Bouman. I am 25 years old, I graduated in 2021 and did the internal honours track.
What did you do during your fifth semester?
I was accepted for the exchange program at Fudan University in Shanghai, but this was cancelled because of the COVID pandemic. Instead, they offered the courses online, which I decided to take. I was happy to still have this chance to study ‘at’ Fudan, but at the same time it was quite surreal, because they maintained a strict attendance policy. Due to the time difference, I often had to wake up in the middle of the night to go to class. Once I was drinking some beers with my roommates when I got a text from my Fudan classmate reminding me that we had a lecture, so I had to quickly turn on my laptop to attend. It was interesting to see how different the Chinese education system is - the professors were mostly sending their information, with little room to ask questions, much less critical ones about political developments.
What are you currently doing, and where?
I currently work at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a policy officer for the Western Balkans. In my daily work, me and my colleagues shape the Dutch foreign policy towards this region, where I focus on three specific countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia. I am the first contact person for the Dutch embassies there, and receive updates on the local political developments from them. This is important for us to shape the bilateral relations with these countries, but also to coordinate the Dutch position at multilateral fora such as the EU, UN or NATO. Additionally, I draft responses to questions from the Dutch parliament about the region, or prepare the foreign minister for parliamentary debates, for example on the Dutch contribution to the EU protection mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. When the foreign minister went to Bosnia and Herzegovina to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide, I was also part of the Dutch delegation. Talking with the grieving family members there and hearing from them how they were reconciling with this horrible past was very touching.
What did you do between PPE and now?
After PPE I did a master’s in Law and Politics of International Security at the VU. As part of that programme I also did an internship at the Dutch Embassy in Washington DC at the economic department. After my master’s, I started working at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the consular and visa department. There, I dealt with Dutch people abroad having issues with their travel documents. I saw this job as an opportunity to gain more experience working at the Foreign Ministry, and switched after a year to my current position.
How does PPE come up in your daily life now?
In a practical way, the European institutions course by Özlem is very useful in my current job because it gave mea better understanding of policy making processes in the EU, including the accession process of the Western Balkan countries that are EU candidate member states. Moreover, I believe that by nature, interdisciplinary thinking is critical thinking - lately, there have been a lot of talks about the responsibilities of civil servants, and the ethics classes are useful to reflect on this.
What was your favourite course in PPE?
Probably the thesis - it was nice to use everything you learned in those 2,5 years and apply it to a topic that you are really passionate about. I wrote my thesis on the effectiveness and morality of economic sanctions. Turns out sanctions are more effective if they apply to a broader part of the population (including mostly innocent civilians), which then makes it difficult to justify them from a moral point of view...
What advice would you give to yourself when you were in PPE?
Sleep is important! During exam week, I would lock myself up in the study area to study and thus sacrificed sleep… But going to borrels and parties is also important! (Although we did not have many of those due to COVID, sadly). In the end, friends and fun help you make it through tough study times.
What is your best memory of PPE?
KallioPPE once organised a hitchhiking competition to Luxemburg. I was in a group with two of my friends, a French guy and a Dutch girl. At first, the three of us had trouble getting picked up, but later discovered that females are more likely to be picked up by cars than men. So our strategy was to have our female friend stand at the side of the road, and when people stopped for her, the other guy and me would suddenly appear out of the bushes. We talked to a lot of different people, including some who were part of the Dutch Love Island film crew. Another one had 10 different phones positioned around his steering wheel that he was all using at once while driving, we did not stay with him very long. Sadly, we lost the competition but when we finally arrived, it turned out to be a national holiday in Luxemburg. Everybody was dancing and drinking on the streets, which did feel like a big reward for the exertion of the day. So we partied through the night, slept a few hours in the cheapest hostel we could find and took the bus back the next day.
How are you still connected to the people from PPE?
This is a little classic, but we have a group chat with my friend group. It is really nice that I was able to make friends from different nationalities at PPE, and now I am taking advantage of the fact that they are spread all around the world where I can visit them. For example I went to Prague, Vienna, and China, and in February I am going to Thailand to see my PPE friends.
What are your plans for the future?
I am really enjoying working for the Foreign Ministry right now. I hope I can stay and make a career there. I am also hoping to be able to work at an embassy somewhere abroad, as I did for my internship.