Call for the Editorship of Political Science Research and Methods, the Journal of the European Political Science Association

The deadline for submissions is June 11, 2017.

The European Political Science Association is announcing a call for the Editorship of the association’s journal Political Science Research and Methods (PSRM). The journal was established by the association in 2012 and the first issue was launched at the annual EPSA conference in Barcelona. Ever since PSRM followed a very steep trajectory establishing itself amongst the top journals in political science not just in Europe butacross the international political science community. PSRM is a general interest journal dedicated to publishing original scholarly work of the highest quality from all subfields ofpolitical science. The journal specifically focuses on research applying rigorous methodsto empirical or theoretical problems and promotes a rigorous scientific approach to the study of politics. PSRM welcomes work at the intersection of political science and related disciplines such as economics and sociology. The journal has made a name for itselfamongst the formal political economy community and scholars applying quantitative approaches to comparative politics, political behavior, international relations, development, and political economy. PSRM is also dedicated to publish purely methodological work developing tools for quantitative analysis.

The EPSA is very much committed to this reputation of the journal and would like toestablish a new editorial team from June 2018 committed to these goals.

About the European Political Science Association

The European Political Science Association was founded in 2010 to pursue the following objectives:

• to represent and promote political science;
• to foster development in postgraduate training of political scientists;
• to promote undergraduate teaching of political scientists;
• to facilitate networking by political scientists worldwide;
• to host an annual general conference of political scientists, with the first to be held in June 2011 in Dublin.

The EPSA has had a very successful history since it was launched in 2001. The Association has now 700 individual memberships. Our recent annual conferences attracted 700-800 attendees, most all of whom will choose to join the professional association.

The Journal

The goals of the journal reflect the overall intellectual orientation of the EPSA which is to:

a) Promote the scientific study of politics by publishing diverse work that includes the major fields of political science with a focus on research that is distinguished by being rigorous and analytical.

b) Further develop and maintain a global reputation for scholarly excellence and innovation.

c) Perform well in the journal performance metrics.

We believe that it is not by chance that journals perform better if they are published on behalf of a large and influential academic association with individual membership. The European Political Science Association has become the largest political science association with individual membership in Europe. Our aim is to ensure that the Association will publish what will rapidly become one of the top five journals in political science. The foundation for this has been laid by the first team of editors: Vera Troeger (EIC), Cameron Thies, Ken Benoit, Francesco Squintani (until 2014), Massimo Morelli, Paul Kellstedt, Daniel Stegmueller.

Our experience with the journal so far has demonstrated that there is a real gap for a journal that is unambiguously scientific, attracts the leading political science scholars, and has substantive interests that are distinctly non-U.S.-centric. Although it is important to sell the journal to top U.S. political scientists, it has also positioned itself as an international journal of political science and avoided any narrow geographic identification.

Editorship

Selection. An editorship selection committee chaired by Ray Duch has been established that consists of the following individuals:

• Ray Duch (Oxford)
• Vera Troeger (Warwick)
• Peter John (UCL)
• Orit Kedar (HU)
• Dominick Hangartner (ETH)
• Ken Benoit (LSE)
• Thomas Plumper (VUE)

This call for editorship proposals will be issued on April 21, 2017. The selection committee will select the editorship for PSRM in the summer of 2017, subject to the approval of the EPSA Executive Council. The editorship will be for the period 2018-2023.

Selection Criteria

The selection process will consist of an open call for institutional applications to house the journal and we will focus on the following primary criteria: adequate finances, the ability to attract (and obviously manage) manuscript submissions and the ability to maintain and further develop the reputation and rigor of the journal and rapidly grow its subscriber base. We emphasize that geography does not matter here, nor does nationality.

We are interested in the strongest editorial team – and these could come from non- European departments.

Editorship Proposal Guidelines

The EPSA is seeking an innovative editorship proposal designed to ensure the successful leadership of its journal. We invite applicants to address the following points:

1) Structure of the editorship

• Describe in detail the editorship model being proposed: The current model has worked very well and therefore we encourage applicants to establish a similar structure or we would like a detailed justification as to why a different model would be more suitable. The current team consists of one editor-in-chief (Vera Troeger, Warwick) who is supported by 5 associate editors at different European and US institutions; Kenneth Benoit (LSE), Simon Hug (Geneva), Massimo Morelli (Bocconi), Paul Kellstedt (Texas A&M), and Daniel Stegmueller (Duke). The different editors roughly cover different subfields in political science and thus allocation of manuscripts follows a portfolio model. The hierarchies are very flat but the EIC allocates manuscripts to associate editors who make autonomous decisions about reviewers, rejections and R&Rs. The EIC approves final decisions to maintain a balance and uphold the same analytical standards across different sub-fields.

• Replication Team: The editorial office includes a team of analysts who are responsible for implementing the replication policies of PSRM.

We are very happy to discuss the established workflow model closely with interested editorial teams. This model has worked well in terms of communication, balance, and ensuring scientific standards.

• Describe the editorial board; your conception of its composition; and its role in the editorship; a current list of editorial board members can be provided and it is possible to extend membership for further terms.

2) Marketing Plan

• The journal has been rolled out successfully. However, to maintain and increase this success a marketing strategy is necessary. Constant advertisement in collaboration with the publisher is indispensable. Currently, 2 media editors (Mary Stegmaier and Laron Williams, both Missouri) support PSRM’s media strategy by publicizing articles through social media and blogs. A publicizing and media strategy needs to be proposed.

• Provide a detailed discussion of your plan for growing the readership of the journal

3) Financial Package

• Include a detailed discussion of the financial support your institution will provide for your proposed editorship. Include discussion of the following points:

o financial support for editors
o teaching relief for editors
o personnel costs – editorial assistants and research assistants
o support for replication analysts
o IT and computing
o Travel and entertainment
o Office expenses

4) Manuscript Review

• What peer review model are you planning to implement? The current model is a single-blind review process. We have very positive feedback and experiences with this model. Please justify in case you want to implement a different review model.

• What strategy you propose for attracting high quality manuscripts;

• How do you propose to ensure a sufficient large and high quality pool of reviewers

5) Journal Policies

The current editorial team in collaboration with the editorial board and the EPSA council have created and implemented a host of policies such as submission guidelines, replication policies and standards, policies for reporting of empirical results etc. Please discuss where you see potential for changes to and amendment of current policies as well as need for additional policies.

6) Personal Statement

Provide a personal statement that describes why you are interested in being the editor of PSRM and why you believe you would be particularly successful at editing a relatively new journal of this kind. As part of this personal statement we would like you to provide us with an indication of your intellectual vision for the discipline of political science. Would you include as part of your personal statement the following items:

• Provide a list of the five articles from political science journals that you believe have had a major impact on the intellectual direction of the discipline;

• Identify programmes, articles or scholarly directions that you would like to explore in order to put this journal on the leading edge of scientific scholarship in political science.

Editorial Proposal Submission

Editorial proposals should be no longer than 10 pages. These should be sent via e-mail to Ray Duch at raymond.duch@nuffield.ox.ac.uk. The deadline for submissions is June 11, 2017.

Applicants should be available for meetings with the Committee at the EPSA 2017 meeting in Milan.