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State of Independence: Explaining and Maintaining the Distinctive Competence of the British Journal of Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2010

Jack H. Nagel
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Abstract

Uniquely among leading generalist journals in political science, the BJPolS is independent of any professional association. Although organizational sponsorship confers great advantages, the BJPolS has thrived during its first forty years because able editors exploited their independence to adopt policies that were less feasible for official journals subject to membership pressures – a distinctive focus on contemporary theory, receptivity to overseas contributors, flexibility about longer articles and dual submissions, and active editorial discretion. These practices should continue to serve the journal well despite challenges posed by technological change. In responding to specialized competitors, the BJPolS should maintain its aspiration to publish papers that address ‘problems of general significance to students of politics’ by connecting analytical models to empirical evidence and enduring normative goals.

Type
Fortieth Anniversary Contribution
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 711 - 724
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Goodin, Robert E., ‘The Career of a Generalist Journal’, British Journal of Political Science, 40 (2010), 1–10, pp. 3–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 I have borrowed the words ‘State of Independence’ for the title of this article from the tourism advertising slogan of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The ‘independence’ it refers to is, of course, of America from Britain. As my comments will emphasize, America and Britain are not so independent in the history of the BJPolS. Nor are they so independent in the history of Pennsylvania’s slogan. It was chosen in 2004 as the best of almost 22,000 entries in a public contest. The clever winner was Tristan Mabry, then a doctoral student in political science at the University of Pennsylvania who had just transferred to Penn from the London School of Economics, along with his mentor Brendan O’Leary. As for the subtitle, I use ‘distinctive competence’ in the sense introduced to organization theory by Selznick, Philip, Leadership in Administration (New York: Harper & Row, 1957)Google Scholar.

3 I base this comparison group on surveys of American and British political scientists reported in McLean, Iain, Blais, André, Garand, James C. and Giles, Micheal, ‘Comparative Journal Rankings: A Survey Report’, Political Studies Review, 7 (2009), 18–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The four journals American respondents rate highest are (in order) the APSR, AJPS, JOP and BJPolS. British respondents rate the BJPolS highest, followed by the APSR, Political Studies, International Organization (a specialist journal) and AJPS. These rankings are based on a measure of ‘impact’, defined as the sum of the mean score for quality plus the product of the quality score multiplied by familiarity (the percentage of respondents who evaluated the journal). Rankings on this measure are dominated by the second term. ‘Impact’ thus defined should not be confused with ‘impact’ measures based on citations.

4 Harrison, Wilfred, ‘Editorial’, Political Studies, 1 (1953), 1–5Google Scholar, at p. 4. Aversion to the word ‘science’ reappeared amusingly in the symposium issue marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Political Studies Association, Political Studies, 23 (1975). In the list of contributors, Brian Barry and Tony King are mis-identified as editors of the British Journal of Political Studies (sic). However, the journal title is given correctly in the Editor’s introduction to the issue.

5 Goodin, Robert, ‘The British Study of Politics’, Oxford Handbook of British Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

6 See the ‘Editorial’ statements by Sharpe in Political Studies, 24 (June 1976), pp. 101–2; 25 (March 1977), pp. 1–2; and 25 (June 1977), p. 159.

7 Norris, Pippa and Crewe, Ivor, ‘The Reputation of Political Science Journals: Pluralist and Consensus Views’, Political Studies, 41 (1993), 5–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McLean et al., ‘Comparative Journal Rankings’.

8 As measured by ‘impact factor’ (see fn. 3 above for an explanation). The pattern among Canadian political scientists is similar but not so extreme – the BJPolS ranks third (behind the APSR and International Organization, but ahead of the Canadian Journal of Political Science), while Political Studies ranks nineteenth.

9 For the story of the founding of the BJPolS, and Brian Barry and Tony King’s successful defence of its title, see Weale, Albert, ‘Power with Justice: Brian Barry’s Legacy to Political Science’, British Journal of Political Science, 40 (2010), 477–85, pp. 477–478CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 [Hayward, Jack], ‘Editorial’, Political Studies, 36 (1988), 5–6Google Scholar.

11 The board gained another member based in the United States in 1990, when Carole Pateman moved to UCLA.

12 In this respect, the American Journal of Political Science is the mirror image of Political Studies. From its founding (as the Midwest Journal of Political Science) in 1957 until 2006, the AJPS Editorial Board consisted entirely of scholars based in the United States. The board now includes seven (out of sixty-eight) members from outside the United States, including two from Essex – Han Dorussen and Kristian Gleditsch. The current Editorial Board of the Journal of Politics has only four members (out of seventy-six) based outside the United States – including the ubiquitous Kristian Gleditsch. Not surprisingly, these two journals have lesser reputations in Britain than in the United States. The AJPS ranks fifth in Britain, compared with second in the United States; and the JOP is fourteenth in Britain but third in the United States (see McLean et al., ‘Comparative Journal Ratings’).

13 [Festenstein, Matthew and Smith, Martin], ‘Editorial’, Political Studies, 54 (2006), 1–2Google Scholar.

14 [Festenstein and Smith], ‘Editorial’, p. 2.

15 Examples include: Taylor, Michael, ‘Mathematical Political Theory’, British Journal of Political Science, 1 (1971), 339–382CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barry, Brian, ‘Review Article: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty’, British Journal of Political Science, 4 (1974), 79–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nurmi, Hannu, ‘Voting Procedures: A Summary Analysis’, British Journal of Political Science, 13 (1983), 181–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weale, Albert, ‘Review Article: Social Choice Versus Populism? An Interpretation of Riker’s Political Theory’, British Journal of Political Science, 14 (1984), 369–385CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McLean, Iain, ‘The Divided Legacy of Mancur Olson’, British Journal of Political Science, 30 (2000), 651–668CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McLean, , ‘Review Article: William H. Riker and the Invention of Heresthetic(s)’, British Journal of Political Science, 32 (2002), 535–558CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McLean, , ‘Review Article: In Riker’s Footsteps’, British Journal of Political Science, 39 (2009), 195–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I have chosen a theme that reflects my own interests. Other readers could undoubtedly extract additional theoretical skeins from the journal’s history.

16 [Sigelman, Lee], ‘Notes from the (New) Editor’, American Political Science Review, 96 (2002), viii–xviGoogle Scholar, at p. x.

17 Nagel, Jack H., ‘Populism, Heresthetics and Political Stability: Richard Seddon and the Art of Majority Rule’, British Journal of Political Science, 23 (1993), 139–174CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Social Choice in a Pluralitarian Democracy: The Politics of Market Liberalization in New Zealand’, British Journal of Political Science, 28 (1998), 223–67; Taylor, Andrew, ‘Stanley Baldwin, Heresthetics and the Realignment of British Politics’, British Journal of Political Science, 35 (2005), 429–463CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Tsebelis, George, ‘Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism’, British Journal of Political Science, 25 (1995), 289–325CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 ‘Notes from the Editors’, American Political Science Review, 103 (2009), iii–vii, at p. iv.

20 Two important examples (with a common theme) are Powell, G. Bingham and Vanberg, Georg S., ‘Election Laws, Disproportionality and Median Correspondence: Implications for Two Visions of Democracy’, British Journal of Political Science, 30 (2000), 383–411Google Scholar, which appeared the same year as Powell’s, Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 2000)Google Scholar; and McDonald, Michael D., Mendes, Silvia M. and Ian Budge, ‘What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median Mandate’, British Journal of Political Science, 34 (2004), 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which was followed the next year by McDonald, and Budge, , Elections, Parties, Democracy: Conferring the Median Mandate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Journal of Politics also applies a more flexible version of the dual-submission policy.

21 This practice has been made more difficult in recent years by the replacement of ‘paper rooms’ by electronic depositories, which are harder to scan.

22 [Sigelman], ‘Notes from the (New) Editor’, p. x.

23 The growing tendency to judge the importance of articles (and journals) by counts of downloads and citations is already a move towards direct evaluation by readers.

24 For compatible conclusions, see McCartan, Patrick, ‘Journals and the Production of Knowledge: A Publishing Perspective’, British Journal of Political Science, 40 (2010), 237–248CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Two exceptions are International Organization and World Politics. The latter is only semi-specialized, as it publishes articles in both international relations and comparative politics.

26 Giles, Micheal W. and Garand, James C., ‘Ranking Political Science Journals: Reputation and Citational Approaches’, PS: Political Science & Politics, 40 (2007), 741–751Google Scholar. The measure is the ‘robust ISI Impact score’, which is defined as the number of citations in 2003 and 2004 to articles published in a journal during the preceding five years, divided by the number of articles that appeared in the same journal during that period. Citation counts are from the Institute for Scientific Information. The three international relations journals are International Organization, World Politics and International Security, which respectively ranked first, second and fifth. I have omitted the Journal of Political Economy, which otherwise holds second place on the Giles and Garand list, because it is read primarily by economists.