Bibliometric (in)visibilities in the global social sciences: Revisiting regional dynamics across Web of Science,Scopus,and OpenAlex (1980–2023)

Abstract

The global structure of the academic social sciences is often theorized as a center-periphery system dominated by a North America-Europe duopoly. In 2014, Mosbah-Natanson and Gingras provided influential bibliometric evidence for this model, analyzing publication, collaboration, and citation patterns from 1980 to 2009 using Web of Science data. Since then, both bibliometric database coverage and research capacity in the Global South have expanded. Drawing on three major bibliometric databases—Web of Science, Scopus, and OpenAlex—I revisit and extend Mosbah-Natanson and Gingras’ analysis through 2023. I show that exclusive reliance on the Web of Science Social Science Citation Index has distorted our understanding of global social science publishing, obscuring the scale, centrality, and autonomy of knowledge production outside North America. My findings indicate that the dominance of United States and Canada is increasingly unstable, while the centrality of Europe, the rise of Asia, and the autonomy of Latin America and North Eurasia have been systematically underestimated. These results challenge prevailing accounts of global social science hierarchies and pathways of academic dependency, underscore how bibliometric infrastructures shape perceptions of power, and demonstrate the declining usefulness of categories like North-South and center-periphery for characterizing today’s academic landscape.