Robert Jan (Rob) Mokken (born 28 April 1929) is a Dutch

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Methodology at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

Biography

Born in

Batavia, Dutch East Indies Batavia was the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The area corresponds to present-day Jakarta, Indonesia. Batavia can refer to the city proper or its suburbs and hinterland, the , which included the much larger area of the Residency of Batavia ...

, Mokken began his studies at the

Royal Netherlands Naval College The Royal Naval College was the service academy of the Royal Netherlands Navy. From 2005 it is part of the ("Royal naval institute" or KIM) as part of the ("Netherlands defence academy") in Den Helder. It offers a program of four or five year ...

in Den Helder from 1949 to 1952. He proceeded to study at the

, where in 1957 he obtained his BA in Political and Social sciences, in 1961 his MA, and in 1970 his PhD with the thesis entitled "A theory and procedure of scale analysis: with applications in political research" under the supervision of Jan Hemelrijk.Robert J. Mokken
at Mathematics Genealogy Project. In 1954, Mokken started as a research assistant at the

. From 1961 to 1966, he worked at the

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica The (abbr. CWI; English: "National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science") is a research centre in the field of mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is part of the institutes organization of the Dutch Research Cou ...

. After another three years at the University of Amsterdam as a research assistant, in 1970, he was appointed Professor at the University of Amsterdam in Political and Social Science, and since 1979 in Political Science and Methodology. Among his about 20 doctoral students were

Frans Stokman Frans is an Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish given name, sometimes as a short form of ''François'' or ''Franciscus''. One cognate of Frans in English is ''Francis''. Given name * Frans van Aarssens (1572–164 ...

(1977), Robert de Hoog (1978), Willem Saris (1979), and Meindert Fennema (1981). In 1994, he retired and is still working as an ICT consultant concerning statistical and quantitative methods. Mokken published the book ''Theory and Procedure of Scale Analysis'', in 1971, in which he proposed a measure later named after him: the

Mokken scale The Mokken scale is a psychometric method of data reduction. A Mokken scale is a unidimensional scale that consists of hierarchically-ordered items that measure the same underlying, latent concept. This method is named after the political scientist ...

. In 1990, Mokken was awarded a knighthood in the

Order of Orange-Nassau The Order of Orange-Nassau () is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands. The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has performed acts of special merits for ...

Publications

Mokken has published several books and many articles.CURRICULUM VITAE PROF. DR. ROBERT J. MOKKEN
Accessed 20 December 2009. A selection: * 1971. ''A theory and procedure of scale analysis with applications in political research'' * 1975. ''Graven naar macht: op zoek naar de kern van de Nederlandse economie''. With H.M. Helmers, R.C. Plijter & F.N. Stokman. * 1997. ''Technologie en management: bestuursstructuren in industriële ondernemingens.'' With B.L. Icke and H. Disk.

References

External links

Robert J(an) Mokken
profile, University of Amsterdam
Prof. dr. R.J. Mokken, 1929 -
at the

''Album Academicum'' website {{DEFAULTSORT:Mokken, Robert Jan 1929 births Living people Dutch social scientists Dutch political scientists Royal Netherlands Naval College alumni University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam Knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau People from Batavia, Dutch East Indies