The Coevolution of American Political Science and the American Political Science Review

Abstract

In November of 1906, the 3-year-old American Political Science Association, boasting a membership of “nearly four hundred” (Shaw 1907, 185), launched a journal devoted to scholarship, reviews, and news of the profession. The fledgling American Political Science Review was not the first political science journal, having been preceded by Political Science Quarterly (founded in 1886) and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1890). Nor, at first, was it even the foremost political science journal. Its founding editor, W. W. Willoughby of Johns Hopkins (1906–1916), and his immediate successor, John A. Fairlie of the University of Illinois (1917–1925), faced numerous challenges, not least that of finding enough papers to fill each issue; even after two decades the Review was still publishing “nearly all of the papers which have come to the editor…as well as articles from other sources” (Fairlie 1926, 182). For some time thereafter, Fairlie's successor, Frederic A. Ogg of the University of Wisconsin, handled just three dozen or so manuscripts per year (Patterson 1994, 6).

Profile of Contributors to the American Political Science Review, 2010

“…Kaba's (2011c) study of four Ivy League political science departments mentioned above shows that: "Europe is the only continent apart from North America, whose universities sent graduates to teach at these four institutions, 18 (9.1%) [out of 198], with the majority of them from the United Kingdom (Oxford University has 7 or 3.5% of total)." (Note 6) Sigelman's (2006) article on contributors to the APSR in the 20th century shows that apart from North America, especially the United States, Europe is the only other region or continent that received attention in the journal, or with scholars who have had visible presence as authors in the pages of the journal. This is especially the case with the United Kingdom:…”

“…6, No. 2;2013 2008; Dolan et al, 1997;Erne, 2007, p. 307;Fowler et al, 2007;Garand & Graddy, 1999;Hix, 2004;Ishiyama, 2010;Kaba, 2011c;Katz & Eagles, 1996;Lopez, 2003;Mann, 1998;Masuoka et al, 2007ab;McCormick & Rice, 2001;Oprisko, 2012;Schmidt & Chingos, 2007;Sigelman, 2006). In a study entitled "Demographics and Publication Productivity of Ivy League Political Science Professors: Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and Yale," finds that as of October 2005: "Of the 198 professors for whom data for university of graduation were available, 102 (51.5%) are from institutions in the Northeast and 39 (20%) are from the West…" (Note 3) According to Masuoka et al (2007b): "… in the early decades of the discipline, political science Ph.D. production was largely confined to institutions located in the Northeast and Midwest.…”

“…The APSR like the top economics journal in the U.S., the American Economic Review (AER) are known as international journals, which means that students and scholars, policy makers and other elites in the U.S. and abroad tend to read them and the authors that publish in them are from all over the world. So once one publish an article in the APSR, he or she can become internationally known, which benefits the institutions that employ them (Ballard & Mitchell, 1998;Breuning & Sanders, 2007;De Rond & Miller, 2005;Evans & Moulder, 2011;Finifter, 1998;Fisher et al, 1998;Garand et al, 2009;Garand & Graddy, 1999;Garand & Giles, 2003;Grofman, 2009;Marshall & Rothgeb, Jr. 2011;Miller & Tien, 1996;Plümper, 2007;Rogowski, 2012;Schmidt & Chingos, 2007, p. 523;Polsky, 2007;Sigelman, 2006;Tang & Chamberlain, 2003). Fisher et al (1998) note of the efforts of political scientists to study various aspects of their profession: "Political scientists have a tradition of reflecting on the evolution and state of their discipline.…”

Blockages on the Road to Relevance: Why has Political Science Failed to Deliver?

“…In his review of 100 years of political science publishing and the evolution of the profession in the United States, Lee Sigelman (2006) points out the dominant leitmotif has been fragmentation, or perhaps more neutrally specialization, within the discipline. That specialization has brought some advances, it could be argued, and could in theory have better equipped academics to offer policy-relevant work, given the enhanced intensity and focus of their expertise.…”

“…But by the early 1960s, 'prescription had almost entirely vanished from the Review. If "speaking truth to power" and contributing directly to public dialogue about the merits and demerits of various courses of action were still numbered among the functions of the profession, one would not have known it from leafing through its leading journal' (Sigelman, 2006). In the case of international relations, the idea of relevance was at the very heart of its foundation (Brown and Ainley, 2005) -to grapple with issues of sustaining peace between nations -but a substantial and growing gap has been identified as characterizing the relationship between theory and practice for several decades (Walt, 2005).…”