Evaluation of Publication in Political Research

Goals

The Evaluation of Publication in Political Research study continues and expands the classic research into journal and publisher rankings carried out by Micheal Giles and James Garand.

Scholarly journals and books constitute the principal means by which researchers in contemporary academia communicate. Yet understanding the place of journals and publishing houses can tax researchers’ ability to communicate. The growth of the discipline means that it is harder than ever for researchers to know what publication in a particular journal entails for members of a given research community. Reliance on indirect measurements such as journal impact factors can often penalize researchers in smaller or newer communities or from traditions in which research is carried out more slowly. Researchers beginning their career may also lack a good sense of what constitutes a good venue for their research; those advanced in their career may not know about shifts in perceptions over time.

Our goal is to provide a public good for scholars of political science and international relations: a transparent and widely sourced dataset regarding how communities of researchers regard publishing outlets and publishers. This should help improve the quality not only of department-level personnel decisions but of the ability of departments to communicate with other stakeholders in universities while simultaneously enabling better conversations across the discipline.

For more about earlier iterations of this project, see

  • Garand, James C., and Micheal W. Giles. “Journals in the discipline: A report on a new survey of American political scientists.” PS: Political Science & Politics 36.2 (2003): 293-308.
  • Garand, James C. “Integration and fragmentation in political science: Exploring patterns of scholarly communication in a divided discipline.” The Journal of Politics 67.4 (2005): 979-1005.
  • Giles, Micheal W., and James C. Garand. “Ranking political science journals: Reputational and citational approaches.” PS: Political Science & Politics 40.4 (2007): 741-751.
  • McLean, Iain, et al. “Comparative journal ratings: A survey report.” Political Studies Review 7.1 (2009): 18-38.
  • Garand, James C., and Micheal W. Giles. “Ranking scholarly publishers in political science: An alternative approach.” PS: Political Science & Politics 44.2 (2011): 375-383.