Seeing Your Name in Print: Unpacking the Mysteries of the Review Process at Political Science Scholarly Journals

In: PS: political science & politics, Band 40, Heft 3, S. 539-543

Abstract

"Publish or perish." Every graduate student has heard the phrase.
Many junior scholars understand that it reflects the cold reality of
professional survival in any political science department that bases
tenure and promotion decisions, in whole or in part, on a record of
demonstrated scholarly achievement. Despite occasional
pronouncements by college presidents or faculty committees that
teaching should be given greater weight in personnel decisions, the
pressure to publish will not soon subside. If anything, it may be
becoming more acute, as graduate students entering the job market
struggle to publish some portion of their dissertation in a
respected scholarly journal so as to distinguish themselves from the
pack of applicants presenting otherwise similar credentials. I wish to thank Jack Jacobs, Lenny
Markovitz, Michael Hiscox, and the graduate students at the CUNY
Graduate Center and Harvard University for many useful
suggestions and comments on the presentations that served as the
basis for this article. I have incorporated ideas offered by Jim
Jackson, Marianne Stewart, and John Geer at an editors'
roundtable in which we participated at the 2006 Midwest
Political Science Association meeting. Bob Lineberry and two
anonymous referees helped me to clarify certain points in the
manuscript. I am responsible for any errors that
remain.