Looking back at 50 years Acta Politica: Editorial

Acta Politica – Tijdschrift voor Politicologie was first published in 1965/1966,Footnote 1 under the auspices of the Nederlandse Kring voor Wetenschap der Politiek (NKWP, Dutch Political Science Association). The then president of the NKWP, Professor L.G.A. Schlichting of the Catholic University of Nijmegen, explained in a preface that the association, which had been founded in 1950, aimed at addressing a broader audience. In the Netherlands, academic programmes in political science had started only after World War II. By 1965, political science had ‘become increasingly attractive and … there are several hundreds of graduates who took political science as a major or minor’ (Schlichting, 1966, p. 1; translation KA/IvB). These considerations also justified the expectation that a scientific journal of its own would be economically viable.