The SPIL was founded in 1981. In little under thirty years, the association has developed from a loosely organized group of students to a fully institutionalized organization that is an integral part of the academic community in Leiden.

The story commences in 1981 when a group of students contemplates establishing a society for political science students. At this moment in time, political science was merely a subject within the Leiden Faculty of Law. During its very first meeting in ‘De Uyl van Hoogland’ café the society decided on a name. The title of Dutch equivalent of Aleksandr Zinovyev’s Yawning Heights, the book that one of the students was reading at the time, appealed to all who were present, and ‘Gapende Hoogten’ was subsequently registered at the local Chamber of Commerce.

Despite the fact that political science was only a small department within the Faculty of Law, Gapende Hoogten’s activities were well attended. Gapende Hoogten’s very first activity was a showing of the film All the President’s Men. In its second year the society organised its first foreign journey to the heart of the Cold War, Berlin. In those early days lecturers were always given the same gift: a copy of Gapende Hoogten.

In 1983 the Leiden University board decided that that political science would be given an independent program. Subsequently, two other societies for political science students were established. One was internationally oriented (the Leiden Political Science Association, LePSA), while the other published a magazine called Debat.

Then president of the Department of Political Science, Hans Daalder, believed three student societies to be too many. He refused to grant any of them departmental subsidies until they had merged into one association. From 1983 onwards, the activities of Gapende Hoogten, LePSA and Debat have continued under SPIL, the Association for Political Science Students in Leiden.

In order to accommodate the activities of all former societies, the committees for Foreign Affairs, the Interior and Debat were created. Also, the expenses of Debat had to be covered by other means than departmental subsidies. In 1988 SPIL, therefore, teamed up with Kooyker bookstore and started offering its members text books with a discount.

In 1995, SPIL’s tasks were further expanded with the labor congress Political Scientists in Perspective (PiP). The PiP Congress entails a collaboration with its three Dutch ‘sisters’ EOS (VU University Amsterdam), Machiavelli (University of Amsterdam) and ismus (Nijmegen University). The year after, SPIL yet again sought cooperation with other political science associations. During its journey to Rome in the summer of 1996, SPIL and a group of Italian political science students decided to raise an overarching international association for political science students. In 1998 the International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS) was founded at a congress in Leiden.