Abstract
As the 2024 publishing cycle of Political Studies begins and we approach 7 months of assuming editorship, we wanted to take the opportunity to present our editorial vision and share some of the innovations we will be undertaking in the months ahead. First, we would like to extend our appreciation to the previous Editorial team for their work with the journal and to the Political Studies Association (PSA) for supporting us in our new role. We also thank all of our peer reviewers, without whom all scholarly publishing would cease.
From the beginning, the foundation of our approach to editing Political Studies has been to strike a balance between diversification of the journal while maintaining the highest standards amidst universal pressures in facilitating the review and publication process.
Although we recognise that the journal’s editorial team is based in the UK and the journal is the flagship publication of the UK’s PSA, our editing strategy is built around the priority of diversifying the journal’s audience, authors and substantive content. The four joint Editors-in-Chief (EICs) not only span subfield boundaries within the discipline, our own work draws on a wide range of methodological approaches (normative, experimental, quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods) with foci in a wide range of countries, institutions and actors. A key consideration of our original partnership as EICs was how best to bring diversity to the forefront of our tenure at the journal’s helm. To us, although the journal is widely read and highly cited, it would benefit from broadening its substantive and methodological offerings, with a complimentary eye on increasing the representation of early career, minority and women’s authorship. Our first 7 months on the job suggest that these goals of diversifying the journal’s content and authorship are both compatible and coincidental, and we believe that expanding and diversifying the journal’s audience is a likely extension of diversifying its content and authorship.
As an editorial team, we are working to proactively engage beyond the journal’s existing networks, especially by connecting with partners and editors in the Global South and from journals representing a range of specialisms within the discipline. Our aim is for this engagement to encourage submission by researchers outside of those who already read and submit to the journal, including authors based at institutions in the Global South or who use methodological approaches (e.g. network analysis, policy intervention evaluations, etc.) that have been less commonly utilised or published in the journal. We are taking a relatively hands-on approach to editorial decisions, particularly with early career researchers (ECRs) and those who come from institutions outside of the journal’s typical sphere of influence. One example of our more proactive approach to supporting ECRs is a workshop hosted by York later in 2024, led by the four EICs, that will examine the publishing process and provide tips for maximising the chances of publication. Another example of these efforts is the newly-instituted use of ‘Reject and Resubmit’ decisions, especially where an initial submission addresses a promising topic or important case that likely would make a substantial contribution to the field but yet fails to meet some particular expectation(s) of a stand-alone research article in politics. Issuing a ‘Reject and Resubmit’ decision enables us to direct authors to areas of their manuscript that we think need quite substantial revisions that we would typically assess to be too extensive to justify with a ‘Revise and Resubmit’ decision; authors can then choose whether to make the necessary changes and submit ‘as new’ rather than being desk rejected with no possibility to resubmit. In undertaking this type of editorial activism, all of which occurs prior to the point at which we send a manuscript out for review, we are adding no additional burden to the pool of reviewers.
This new decision option exemplifies part of our approach to tackling the balancing issue: The publishing climate brings numerous pressures that our editorial team faces, as do all current editorial teams. The system of academic publishing relies on a tremendous amount of voluntary service to the discipline, since each manuscript we send out for review requires the time and effort of individuals who have agreed to serve as financially uncompensated referees. Increasing the number of submissions through proactive engagement and diversification activities, and particularly increasing the number of high-quality submissions that undergo the full review process, subsequently requires increased demands on aggregate reviewer time. Given that reviewed manuscripts receive a minimum of two reviews, this means that we need at least twice the number of reviewers as submitting authors. However, we often encounter two distinct problems in facilitating and expediting the review process: (1) We often receive submissions from individuals who decline review invitations; and (2) there are bottlenecks at certain times of the year – particularly the summer months – when we see extraordinarily high rates of declined referee invitations due to annual leaves/holidays, causing many manuscripts to languish in review limbo. We understand that declined referee invitations are due to our extremely busy schedules, and many individuals who decline to review during summer holidays often agree at other times of the year. However, these issues are leading to longer wait times in review and heavier burdens for everyone willing to share the reviewing responsibility.
Other editorial teams have addressed these issues in different ways, such as increasing desk rejection rates to minimise taxing the reviewer pool or adding requirements to commit to reviewing manuscripts when a submission is made. We considered a range of factors when trying to adjudicate between these pressures and our goal of diversification, particularly in trying to account for varied experiences and concerns of authors and referees at different career stages and in different career circumstances. Our team continues to be amenable to reasonable reviewer extension requests, particularly since such requests tend to expedite, rather than elongate, the overall review process. To that end, we encourage invited referees to consider requesting a longer review window rather than simply declining our invitation when they are faced with short-term time constraints. And beginning in 2024, the journal will take an annual summer ‘hiatus’ for the month of August: Manuscripts already under review will continue to be processed, as well as decisions rendered by the editorial team, but new manuscripts will not be processed for review from 1 to 31 August 2024.
As ever, our goal with these policies is to improve the publishing experience for our authors and reviewers while elevating the journal’s standing via a continued commitment to publishing ground-breaking and excellent work in political studies. We will continue to introduce new innovations, such as alternative formats to the traditional stand-alone research article submission, and join or co-host publishing-oriented panels at workshops and conferences. Please watch out for updated information about exciting events and opportunities posted on the journal’s homepage and social media feeds throughout the year.
