It aims to provide access to current academic debates and draw on critical intellectual arguments, but its hallmark is the use of plain English, avoiding theoretical and technical jargon.

Former editors include Leonard Woolf, Andrew Gamble, Kingsley Martin, Sir Bernard Crick, Michael Jacobs, and David Marquand.

Titles include Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth by Michael Jacobs and Mariana Mazzucato (2016) and Defending Politics.

[4] The journal was, in its initial manifestation, founded and edited by W. G. S. Adams and first appeared in February 1914 under the imprint of Humphrey Milford at Oxford University Press.

The cessation was lamented by Adams's friend Harold Laski when, in his inaugural lecture at the London School of Economics in 1926, he referred to the resultant lack of any journal of political science.

[6] Such lack was remedied with the revival of the title four years later in what Arthur Salter described as a "continuation" of Adams' Political Quarterly and a "living tribute to his fruitful initiative".

Kingsley Martin and William Robson, who were then junior members of the teaching staff of the London School of Economics and Political Science, took the lead in bringing the idea to fruition.

As William Robson later wrote: "We felt the need for a forum where a philosophy, a policy and a programme could be hammered out for the socialist movement, which was growing in strength but was lacking a coherent body of ideas.

Martin, Robson and Woolf persuaded a number of their friends and acquaintances to contribute sums varying from £5 to £150, but the total came to less than half the amount needed.

But it has been planned by a group of writers who hold certain general political ideas in common and it will not be a mere collection of unrelated articles..."[10] The year before the financial crisis of 1931 was a difficult moment at which to launch a new periodical.

[8] During the 1930s, the Political Quarterly carried articles by such noted figures as Leon Trotsky, C. P. Scott, R. H. Tawney, Bertrand Russell and Mary Stocks.

Of the original nine members, John Maynard Keynes, G. Lowes Dickinson, Harold Laski, Kingsley Martin and Leonard Woolf continued to serve until they died.

A. L. Rowse was a member of the Board for a short time between 1943 and 1946.”The Political Quarterly had an instrumental role in assembling centre-left ideas during and after World War II.

About half of the Board continued, along with the then chair, Bernard Crick, to stay with Labour, while others, including the editor at the time, Rudolf Klein, and one of the founders of the SDP, Shirley Williams, went with the new party.