Open access (OA) publishing makes scholarship more accessible to readers but also presents additional hurdles for authors. This article examines determinants of OA publishing in well-respected, subscription-based journals. We find that research funding provides the strongest explanation for OA publishing, although various aspects of authorship and an author’s affiliation with a European versus a US institution also matter. We discuss the implications of our findings for publishing in scholarly journals in political science.

Has the global COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the scholarly productivity of academics? Do gender and parenting magnify its effect? To obtain insight into the changes the pandemic has wrought in the lives and careers of women and parents in academia, we surveyed scholars in political science and international studies. The survey was in the field during the period in which many academics were experiencing shelter-at-home orders and adjusting to a new reality. It captures initial reactions to changed circumstances as well as the fears and anticipated consequences of the disruptions. We find that perceptions of a negative impact are broadly shared. The open-ended responses suggest that the pandemic may widen the gender and parent productivity gaps. Although further analysis is needed to better understand the effect of the pandemic on scholarly productivity, we conclude that the pandemic exacerbates existing structural inequalities.

Dutch political science curricula integrate the acquisition of knowledge of the discipline and transferable skills. This makes it an interesting case for US political science education, especially in light of Wahlke’s (1991) recommendations for a structured political science curriculum that incorporates skills training in addition to knowledge of the field. Although some of Wahlke’s recommendations were widely adopted, US political science curricula remain relatively loosely structured and often do not explicitly focus on transferable skills.

This article argues that the Dutch example may help US programs revisit how to best achieve learning outcomes that allow students to acquire both knowledge and transferable skills. This is not an argument for “going Dutch” wholesale; instead, the article suggests modest modifications to US political science curricula.

How international in scope is publishing in political science? Previous studies have shown that the top journals primarily publish work by scholars from the United States and, to a lesser extent, other global-north countries. However, these studies used published content and could not evaluate the impact of the review process on the relative absence of international scholars in journals. This article evaluates patterns of submission and publication by US and international scholars for the American Political Science Review—one of the most selective peer-reviewed journals in the discipline. We found that scholars from the United States and other global-north countries are published approximately in proportion to submissions but that global-south scholars fare less well. We also found that scholars affiliated with prestigious universities are overrepresented, irrespective of geographic location. The article concludes with observations about the implications of these findings for efforts to internationalize the discipline.

Is the peer-review process at academic journals gendered? The answer to this question has important implications for the advancement of women in the political science profession. However, few studies have had access to data that can evaluate whether the peer-review process is gendered. We investigate this for papers submitted to the American Political Science Review across two editorial teams to identify trends over time. We evaluate overall differences across gender, but we also present more fine-grained data to evaluate gender differences across subfield, methodology, and submitting author’s institutional affiliation and academic rank. Furthermore, we show that prior service as a reviewer is associated with a higher acceptance rate for first-time submitters. We demonstrate that the review process is not gendered. Women’s share of submissions and acceptances has risen but remains lower than their presence in the discipline.

As new academic journals have emerged in political science and existing journals experience increasing submission rates, editors are concerned that scholars experience “reviewer fatigue.” Editors often assume that an overload of requests to review makes scholars less willing to perform the anonymous yet time-consuming tasks associated with reviewing manuscripts. To date, there has not been a systematic investigation of the reasons why scholars decline to review. We empirically investigated the rate at which scholars accept or decline to review, as well as the reasons they gave for declining. We found that reviewer fatigue is only one of several reasons why scholars decline to review. The evidence suggests that scholars are willing to review but that they also lead busy professional and personal lives.

APSA is pleased to announce the next editorial team for the American Political Science Review. The new team, to be located at the University of North Texas, will begin their term on July 1, 2012. Their Editorial Statement follows.

What determines whether a country has more or less restrictive policies regarding intercountry adoption? Despite the growing importance of intercountry adoption as a political issue, and as an explicitly human face of globalization, there is virtually no systematic empirical work on intercountry adoption. We introduce a measure of the restrictiveness of the adoption laws in Sub-Saharan African countries and test possible explanations for the variations in legal restrictions on intercountry adoption among these countries.

Factors that are commonly cited as explanations for the restrictiveness of intercountry adoption policies do not hold up very well in our assessment. Openness to adoption is not determined by the severity of the orphan crisis or the AIDS crisis within the sending country, nor are democratic countries more responsive to the needs of their orphans. Additionally, African signatories to the Hague Convention, which aimed to increase transparency and accountability in intercountry adoption, tend to be among the most restrictive. On the other hand, a stronger connection with the global economy is associated with greater openness to intercountry adoption. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for orphans and for intercountry adoption.

This paper represents a broad survey study of assessment models usedin political science programs at 50 universities and colleges acrossthe country. We examine the most frequently used assessmentactivities and then investigate whether differences betweeninstitutions is a function of institutional characteristics. Whatare the techniques currently employed by departments across thecountry?

How well are women authors represented in the most-recognized journals in political science? To what degree does the presence of women authors mirror women's presence in the discipline? Although a few studies have sought to provide data on the presence of women authors in political science journals (Young 1995; Kelly et al. 1994), more recent work on the visibility of women in the discipline has focused on gender and authorship of edited volumes (Mathews and Andersen 2001), on the participation of women in the APSA annual meetings (e.g., Gruberg 2006; 2004), and on the status of women in the discipline (Sarkees and McGlen 1992; 1999; Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession 2001). All are useful endeavors. This paper analyzes the presence of women authors in six volume years (1999–2004) of eight prestigious political science journals—American Political Science Review (APSR), American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), Journal of Politics (JOP), World Politics (WP), International Organization (IO), Comparative Politics (CP), Comparative Political Studies (CPS), and International Studies Quarterly (ISQ).

Participation by women in the roles of chairpersons, papergivers, and discussants on the panels and roundtables, as well as the poster sessions, that convene at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) has long been tracked by Gruberg (see, for example, but not inclusive, Gruberg 1992; 1993; 1994; 1995; 2001; 2002; 2004; 2006). His reports provide a welcome record of women's increasing presence at the APSA's annual meetings. This study seeks to supplement Gruberg's efforts by providing a comparative perspective with data from the most recent annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA). The ISA's annual meeting provides a useful comparison for two reasons. First, a very large percentage of its members are political scientists, thus offering a comparison to an association consisting of people with comparable training and research agendas as represented at APSA. Second, the APSA has in recent years sought to forge international connections, making ISA an increasingly relevant sister organization.

Although in recent years there has emerged a renewed interest in teaching and learning issues in the APSA, relatively little attention has been paid to the structure of the undergraduate political science curriculum. In this article we conduct a broad survey of articles that appeared in the APSR from 1906 to 1990 and find that (1) in the past the association paid much attention to the undergraduate political science curriculum; (2) over time attention shifted from a conception of the major as promoting substantive knowledge to a conception that emphasized skills; and (3) current concerns regarding skills, sequencing, and capstone experiences were all discussed several decades before the appearance of the “Wahlke Report” in 1991. We offer an explanation for the ebb and flow of the attention curricular issues received historically in the APSA, and suggest what the future may hold for current efforts to reexamine the structure of the undergraduate political science curriculum.

Internationalization is a hot topic on college and universitycampuses today. It is also one of the hot button topics facing theAPSA (see Varshney 2004; Breuning 2005). Although relatively recentto APSA, internationalizing the higher education curriculum has longbeen a concern of educational scholars. Arum (1987) identifies three areas in which campuses canpursue internationalization: promoting the international content ofcurricula, tracking the international movement of scholars andstudents, and providing technical assistance and educationalcooperation programs that engage American education in effortsabroad. Rivers (1994) adds a fourthdimension: promoting awareness of other cultures and ways ofthinking through extracurricular cross-cultural experiences, whichwould ideally include outreach to the surrounding community.

In the July 2004 issue of PS, Ashu Varshney discussed theinternationalization of the APSA and made a number of valuable suggestions. I applaud theAPSA for bringing the discussion about internationalization into the association andVarshney for reporting a list of suggestions. Here, I would like to offer a perspective thatsupports the initiative but speaks from a different perspective in two ways:

1. I am a faculty member at a primarily undergraduate public liberal arts institution, the sort of institution that Varshney correctly claims needs the assistance of the association to take advantage of the opportunities offered by international connections. My institution is located in the Midwest, which is of some relevance for the argument.

2. I am, in Varshney's definition, an international scholar. I obtained my Ph.D. in the U.S., but was born and raised in the Netherlands.

Quite often, people make jokes at the expense of political science majors. These jokes suggest that political science majors—and especially those graduating from liberal arts colleges and universities—have not acquired the necessary practical skills to make a living, let alone to acquire a lucrative career.