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In Memoriam Bart Tromp
June 21, 2007. Bart Tromp was a critical and creative thinker on a wide variety of issues, but above all a stimulating colleague with a warm personality. He joined Clingendael's staff in September 2003 as visiting Senior Research Fellow. Since 2005 he was a member of the Clingendael Diplomatic Studies Programme, where his research focused on the evolution of international relations in a historical perspective. This was the latest step in a long and fruitful relationship with the Institute. He had lectured at Clingendael since the Institute's very foundation in 1983, and in the 1970's he was Vice Chairman of the Dutch Institute of Peace Studies, one of Clingendael's constituent organisations.
Bart Tromp studied Political Sociology at Groningen University. After graduating cum laude in 1971, he first taught Sociology at the Eindhoven University before moving to Leiden University to lecture in Political Science. He published a wide variety of works, including books on Thomas Hobbes and Karl Marx, European integration and cultural policy, the Balkan wars of the early 1990's, the evolution of Dutch social democracy, and a handbook on political science. He also was a political commentator and columnist for many years for Dutch newspapers Het Parool and De Gelderlander and weekly Elsevier.
Since 1978 he served on various advisory councils of the Dutch government on matters of peace and security. He was also a member of the Committee on Peace and Security of the Advisory Board of International Affairs.
In addition to his work for Clingendael, Bart Tromp was a Professor in the Theory and History of International Relations at the University of Amsterdam by special appointment of the Netherlands Society of International Affairs (NGIZ).
We will remember him as an independent, creative spirit, who has contributed immensely to both the Institute's research and its training activities, and whose original and critical input will be sadly missed.