Editorial Objectives

Our primary role as editors is to encourage the best work to be submitted to IO, and then to manage a fair process of review. In that regard, IO will continue to favor no particular research tradition, theoretical school, or methodological approach. Rather, its hallmark is the theoretical and methodological diversity now so obvious in its traditional core subfield of international political economy (IPE), as well as in international relations (IR) more generally.

All submissions will be subject to the journal's well-established system of peer review, which is rigorous and expeditious. Within that framework, we want to emphasize our commitment to publishing the most important social scientific work in IR and IPE and the most exciting and vibrant new perspectives at their expanding frontiers. We expect that most submissions will focus on original theoretical propositions and empirical puzzles examined against the backdrop of compelling evidence, but we want to encourage the writing of articles that open new pathways for research. Many of the most famous and most frequently cited IO articles stand as examples. At a critical historical moment, when an array of difficult problems confront our world, pioneering scholarship is essential.

The boundaries around IR, IPE, and related subfields are shifting and porous. Ideally, particular issues of the journal will cover a range of topics and approaches. At a time when deep epistemological and even ontological disagreements exist among IO's readers, pluralism will remain evident in the journal. Eclecticism and innovation will continue to feature between its covers. In addition to work within a single subfield, we welcome the very best scholarship that combines, for example, research in IPE and international security, strategic studies, bargaining theory, and conflict resolution, as well as research that links IR to comparative politics, studies of regionalization, economic and social development, environmental and technological change, and human rights. More broadly, we encourage contributors to rise above paradigmatic and methodological divisions that impede scholarly advance.

The range of IO's interests are not, however, unlimited. A typical IO article will remain one that deals with phenomena, puzzles, and problems that in one way or another span the boundaries between discrete polities and societies. Issues of concern might include the privatization and proliferation of massively destructive weapons, systemic crisis prevention and management, the struggle within Islam, migration, the rise of new superpowers, and much more. We think that some of the best future work relevant to such issues will not only combine, or at least take seriously, different conceptual paradigms but will also cross disciplinary boundaries. In the recent past, the journal helped build a bridge between two subfields bearing the label “political economy,” one now identified with the field of international relations, the other with modern economics. We will continue to promote this kind of scholarship, and we will look for similar opportunities involving other disciplines. We know, for example, that promising research is already underway linking political economy with peace and conflict studies. We would also like to encourage border-crossing into such fields as history, political theory, strategic studies, environmental studies, and the natural sciences more generally. Whatever the combination of disciplines, we seek to publish excellent peer-reviewed scholarship that is interesting and accessible to an audience that can be expected to remain focused on global politics.

IO will remain open to studies using diverse research methods. Signal contributions over the past decade have used quantitative methods and formal modeling to significant effect. IO will also remain a forum for advanced research that tests competing qualitative methods. In keeping with IO's name and the kinds of concerns that brought the journal into being, we are especially interested in pieces that apply new and rigorous methods in the quest for systematic knowledge on international organizations and less formal global institutions, including knowledge about their design, their potential, and their unintended consequences.

Finally, we hope that the fact that IO's editorial offices have for the first time moved out of the United States will strengthen the journal's long-standing commitment to academic globalization. The editorial team preceding us moved the journal forward in this respect. Special issues and review articles promise more progress in the near future, and we are keen to see research articles submitted by scholars from many more countries. Anyone visiting universities and think-tanks outside of North America lately is aware that the increased flow of information—not least through the Internet—has already had remarkable effects in academic circles. We believe that maintaining a high-quality and demanding reviewing process is consistent with seeking new opportunities for scholars from around the world to publish in IO. Challenges remain, to be sure, and potential contributors are well-advised to submit work that is as clear and accessible as possible, mindful of the fact that the key constraint is not the editors' aspirations but the anonymous judgments rendered by academic peers.

Associate Editors and the Editorial Board

Final editorial responsibility for the journal rests with us for the next five years, but our distinguished associate editors will help us manage a growing workload. Together, we are committed to maintaining IO's high standards. As editors, the two of us will jointly sign all letters to authors, since we will make all final decisions jointly. In cases where an associate editor has been extensively involved in a particular decision and in the drafting of recommendations for revision, he too will sign. Such procedures worked very well for our predecessors, and we see no reason to change them.

It will undoubtedly continue to be the case that the vast majority of submissions to the journal will not ultimately appear in its pages. Whatever the outcome, the constructive criticism of all submissions sent out for review do constitute a significant and often unacknowledged service to the field as a whole. In the short run, advice on how to improve draft articles is sometimes unwelcome. Over the course of a career, however, most scholars come to realize its high value. We are extremely grateful for the willingness of Edward Mansfield and David Stasavage to commit in advance to doing more than their fair share of this work. We will consult them as well on general operational issues and strategic concerns, and we look forward to developing the kinds of personal and professional relationships that can only strengthen the journal.

While we expect those relationships to be highly valuable and rewarding, the two of us ultimately remain responsible and accountable to the journal's strong editorial board. IO's success owes much to its board members, who are elected through a competitive process and who then serve the journal with great skill and dedication. In addition to providing strategic guidance to the editorial team, overseeing the journal's finances, and assisting in myriad other ways, individual board members play a crucial role in the review process. Although the number of submissions now makes it more difficult, the vast majority of articles submitted are refereed by at least one board member as well as by another external reviewer. This will continue to be the case, and, as with past editors, we expect not to be able to thank our colleagues enough for their extraordinary commitment.

The Past, Present and Future of International Organization

In 1998, IO published a special issue to mark its fiftieth anniversary. The issue looked back, but also more importantly forward as it assessed the journal's continuing contribution to a dynamic discipline. IO actually began in 1947 with a focus on the history and organization of the multilateral institutions that were to flourish in the wake of World War II. By the 1970s, it had become the leading scientific journal in a field that now labeled itself IPE. During the next two decades, it broadened out to be the leading journal centered on international theory and empirical research. Lately, associated debates have been framed around competing “rationalist” and “constructivist” research programs crafted mainly within the field of IR. On the edges of those debates, new research programs developed, for example, on the convergence of international relations and international law, on socialization and the international diffusion of policy practices, and on the relationship between democratization, conflict, and social power. Special issues of IO eventually brought special prominence to such themes. Simultaneously, real world events, from the rise of global terrorism, the enlargement of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), to regional financial crises, prompted new developments in IR theory and much original empirical research. Still, during the past decade the basic points of theoretical and methodological contestation have remained fairly constant. While a few attempts at dialogue between rationalist theories and constructivist theories took place, some of which IO published, a transformative synthesis did not emerge. Substantive and methodological incrementalism, or what many called “normal science,” characterized much of the best rationalist work, especially in IPE. Key constructivist debates, meanwhile, focused on the shaping of social reality not only by ideas and norms, but also be language itself. Constructivists also continued to argue about whether research should be located within or outside the “middle ground” between critical theory and positivist, empirically based analysis. In that regard, many have recently been adopting more rigorous methods, ranging from quantitative agent-based modeling to disciplined discourse analysis.

In the immediate period ahead, IO will undoubtedly attract original research that continues to progress along these two distinct lines. Of special interest, however, will be work that attempts to transcend them, either by shifting the main points of explicit and implicit contestation, or by developing new ontological, epistemological, and methodological insights. The most promising of these will foster renewed dialogue, not only between rationalists and constructivists, but also between the worlds of scholarship and practice. If the past is a guide, we would not be surprised to see such work to be inspired by innovations in cognate fields. Economics and sociology have certainly provided noteworthy sparks for the key debates currently reflected in the pages of IO. In truth, a certain disciplinary eclecticism has always characterized the community of scholars attracted to the puzzles and challenges of international affairs.

We know that IO's readers have a wide range of interests in contemporary policy issues that pose systemic challenges. Although IO's core mandate is to push the theoretical frontiers forward, there is room to promote the publication of theoretically based and methodologically rigorous articles that directly address some of the most pressing problems of international politics today. Recent advances in game theory and in the study of persuasion and socialization, for example, provide opportunities for the development of context-sensitive new analyses of rational behavior and social communication. Specific applications to empirical puzzles are potentially quite promising, puzzles such as how to deter nuclear-empowered states led by religious zealots, how corporate social responsibility might be promoted in a decentralized market system, how the probability of global pandemics might be limited, and how rising powers might be accommodated and the global commons protected in a system less anarchical than hierarchical.

Special Issues, Research Notes, and Review Articles

IO will continue to push research frontiers forward mainly by publishing stand-alone articles. At times, however, our predecessors have stimulated new developments by commissioning review articles, promoting symposia comprised of a few articles on a common theme, and welcoming select research notes. Such efforts will continue, and the ideas behind them will come mainly from the community of interested scholars. In light of contemporary currents in the field, we would not be surprised if proposals for disciplined, theoretically informed explorations covered such topics as: the power, validity, usefulness, and reach of competing and complementary qualitative (positivist and postpositivist) methods and their rigorous application to IR research; the causes and likely consequences of power transition in East Asia; the prospects for and implications of deep transformation in the Muslim world; the potentially system-reshaping nature of policy linkages across the traditional issue-areas of IPE; and new thinking on what Thomas Schelling called “strategies of conflict” but now in an era not only of super-empowered states, but also of potentially super-empowered terrorist networks.

All proposals will get a fair hearing. In cases involving a significant allocation of scarce journal pages and even scarcer editorial energy and resources, the board will certainly be involved. Given those scarcities, symposia will be easier to accommodate than special issues, which in any case will remain rare. Articles proposed for publication in symposia or special issues will each be refereed individually in accordance with normal practice.

On this point, it is worth noting that the journal has experimented with publishing symposia electronically in Dialogue IO. Although this initially proved useful and potentially interesting for the future, the journal's limited resources do not permit us to continue this particular experiment in the immediate period ahead.

Review articles are another matter. Many of our predecessors have tried to develop a review section in IO, and they did occasionally succeed in publishing seminal contributions. These have been difficult to replicate, but two facts now confront us. As we contemplate the many issues noted above, it is clear that many of the subfields represented in the journal are in flux. At the same time, each is currently facing a rapid expansion in the volume of publications from university presses, new and established journals, and online sources. Accordingly, there is a need for high-quality guidance and synthesis. The audience is there for first-rate review articles, and we would like to respond. With that objective in mind, we have invited an outstanding board member, Etel Solingen, to take on the role of review editor. She will stimulate and move thematic ideas forward, commission the best people in the field to write review articles aimed mainly at using relevant published work to set new research agendas, and, mindful of precedents established by our predecessors, work with us and the board to ensure constructive and rigorous procedures for review.

Submission Procedures and Editorial Manager®

IO will continue to publish only original articles. Authors should refrain from submitting articles that have been published elsewhere, either in whole or in substantial part. IO will also not accept manuscripts for review that are concurrently sent for review to other journals. Articles containing quantitative data sets should specify in detail procedures that will provide access to those data sets, permit independent assessments of reliability, and enable the replication of associated tests. The same principle applies to qualitative data gathered, for example, from interviews conducted under open terms of attribution. Submissions cannot exceed 14,000 words, including references and footnotes. Authors should follow the detailed style guidelines published annually in the Winter issue of the journal. Those guidelines are also available on the Web at http://journals.cambridge.org.

Previous editors have deservedly taken pride in keeping average turnaround times much shorter than other journals in the field. We intend to maintain that tradition, and we count on the assistance of our associate editors, the members of our editorial board, our managing editor and graduate assistants in Toronto, and most importantly on the generosity of colleagues from around the world who will provide peer reviews. Our goal of expeditiously providing all authors with decision letters has been rendered more realistic by the advent of the electronic system, Editorial Manager®. Thanks to the system developers and to the Harvard team preceding us, the system is now running smoothly and is continually being improved and upgraded. All articles should be submitted through that system, which is accessed at: http://io.edmgr.com. If you encounter any technical difficulties in doing so, please contact our editorial offices at:

International Organization

The Munk Centre for International Studies

University of Toronto

1 Devonshire Place

Toronto, Ontario M5S 3K7

Canada

international.organization@utoronto.ca

In conclusion, we encourage authors to send us their best work, and readers to send us comments and suggestions. It is an exciting time for IO and for scholarship in its expanding domain.