Political events in the late 1960s and interdisciplinary developments encouraged academic disciplines to return to their roots and be social as well as scientific. Public policy schools were founded at Harvard and Berkeley to build bridges between problems found in journal articles published in the separate disciplines of economics, political science and sociology and the “undisciplined” problems in the In trays of government departments. They are best understood by applying a tool kit of concepts and methods from across the social sciences (Rose Reference Rose1976).

In recognition of the intellectual and practical advantages of combining social science and public policy, I founded the Centre for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde in 1976. It was the first University-based public policy centre in a European university. Five years later the Journal of Public Policy was launched with Cambridge University Press to provide an outlet for social scientists whose research applied generic concepts to real existing problems of public policy. Since new editors will take over with the next issue, it is appropriate to look back on what has been accomplished since then.

The JPP's aim is to promote the use of relevant concepts from any of the social sciences to analyse significant problems facing contemporary governments. Good ideas recognise neither geographical nor national boundaries. Path-breaking ideas in institutional economics have come from examining 17th-century religious groups in England and the understanding of contemporary societies has been advanced by studies of urban politics in Chicago and Oakland, California. In keeping with its commitment to openness, the journal seeks reviews from social scientists in more than a dozen disciplines and countries (see this issue, pp. 409–411). Every article is read by reviewers in more than one country and often two continents. Reviewers for such interdisciplinary topics as social or environmental policy are chosen on the basis of their expertise without regard to the department in which they are based. Reviewers in intergovernmental organizations have a professional interest in substantive significance. Members of the editorial board have been presidents of the International Institute of Public Finance as well as of the American Political Science Association. Whatever its limitations, the JPP cannot be accused of travelling along the tramways of a single academic discipline.

The proliferation of social science journals reflects differences in both their aims and audiences. These are brought out in the mini-symposium on Editing a Journal reprinted below. Charles Jones contrasts editing a general journal, the American Political Science Review, and a specialist journal, the Legislative Studies Quarterly. The former resembles the task of a University president having to make judgments about academics whose expertise is remote from their own whereas the editors of specialist journals can make peer judgments because they are familiar with the field their journal is about. Chester Newland's account of the Public Administration Review shows that the tension between practitioners and academics is perennial, but alters when governments promote private sector values and management techniques and nostrums.

The JPP has never been subject to pressures from professional associations or practitioners. The insistence that generic concepts and methods should be related to problems that are public gives it a distinctive position vis a vis publications concentrating on abstract theories and equations that, unlike a model of an automobile engine, cannot be related to the world as it actually is. In addition to responding to submissions on their own terms, the JPP has also been ready to initiate symposia and special issues arising from collaboration between trans-national groups of social scientists (see e.g. Symposium, 1989). The time needed to publish an academic journal means that articles are assessed for their durable value rather than for their immediate (and potentially transitory) relevance to discussions in op-ed pages of newspapers.

This final issue under the CSPP banner presents some things old and some things new. The new articles reflect the JPP's continuing interest in the transmission of ideas across boundaries, as reflected in the development of the European Union as a public policy actor and in reforms of institutions as traditionally national as the French prefect system started under Napoleon. From an embarrassment of choices, five articles are reprinted. Two from the 1980s show that good ideas are durable across generations. Elinor Bowen rigorously applies statistical logic to demonstrate that the many steps to implement a policy that Pressman and Wildavsky (Reference Pressman and Wildavsky1973) identified are obstacles that can be overcome when the steps are interdependent. Kent Weaver authored the pioneering examination of how politicians avoid blame when the policies that they implement go wrong.

The plight of the eurozone today makes painfully topical the JPP's continuing interest in political economy. A special issue on currency choices in an interdependent world, edited by Artis and Rose (Reference Artis and Rose2002), compared the foreign exchange policies of countries outside the euro, such as Switzerland and Sweden, with countries committed to the eurozone. My conclusion shows how a POP (Politically Optimal Policy) differs from theories of an Optimal Currency Area. The implications of sub-optimal inflexibility in the eurozone are analyzed by Stephen Silvia's 2004 contribution. The article on the role of credit-rating agencies in judging Leviathan by Christopher Bruner and Rawi Abdelal raised issues in 2005 that governments cannot hide from today.

Although the JPP has never been in thrall to quantified metrics, it is right to draw attention to articles most often downloaded or cited in the past year. The durability of ideas is demonstrated by their publication in three different decades. The most downloaded articles are: Paul Sabatier (Reference Sabatier1986), “Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Implementation Research”; Giandomenico Majone (Reference Majone1997), “From the Positive to the Regulatory State”, and Adrienne Héritier and Dirk Lehmkuhl, (Reference Héritier and Lehmkuhl2008), “The Shadow of Hierarchy and New Modes of Governance”. The list of most cited articles includes Kent Weaver's article reprinted herein; “What Is Lesson-Drawing” by Rose (Reference Rose1991); “Iron Triangles, Woolly Corporatism and Elastic Nets” by Grant Jordan (Reference Jordan1981); and Michael Foley and Bob Edwards’ (2000) “Is It Time to Disinvest in Social Capital?”

Over the decades hundreds of social scientists in universities, think tanks and intergovernmental organizations have freely given their time to the anonymous task of reviewing articles. The JPP has reduced the burden by having an instant rejection policy for submissions that, whatever may be their merits, are unsuitable for an international social science publication for reasons of subject matter, length or style. This has made it possible for reviewers and editors to devote more time to submissions that could, with significant effort, be turned into interesting and clearly written publishable articles. In the early years of the journal a significant contribution was made by Dr. Brian Hogwood, formerly of Cambridge University Press and Strathclyde. Edward C. Page, first at Hull and now at the London School of Economics, has served as book review editor and then co-editor. Within the CSPP Isobel Rogerson kept meticulous track of correspondence in the days when communication was on paper, and Ohna J. Robertson has done so in an electronic era. Appreciation is due to everyone – and best wishes to the new editors, Peter John at University College, London and Anthony Bertelli at the University of Southern California.