On June 1, 2020, a little more than two months after the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 pandemic declaration, our editorial team assumed the leadership of the American Political Science Review (APSR). Although this confluence of events makes it difficult to isolate the pandemic’s effect on new submissions and review processes, this article describes submission and review patterns in the two and a half years before and after the onset of the pandemic and the editorial transition. It describes our preliminary observations regarding what the patterns suggest about the pandemic’s impact on the APSR.1

Recent studies identified gendered citation gaps in political science journal articles, with male scholars being less likely to cite work by female scholars in comparison to their female peers. Although journal editors, editorial boards, and political scientists are becoming more aware of implicit biases and adopting strategies to remedy them, we know less about the proper baselines for citations in subfields and research areas of political science. Without information about how many women should be cited in a research field, it is difficult to know whether the distribution is biased. Using the gender distribution of membership in professional political science organizations and article authors in 38 political science journals, we provide scholars with suggested minimum baselines for gender representation in citations. We also show that women represent a larger share of organization members than the authors in sponsoring organizations’ journals.

Research in advanced industrialized democracies on social attitudes toward same-sex marriage suggests that intergroup social contact and positive media coverage play an important role in promoting tolerance and support for same-sex marriage. Using AmericasBarometer survey data for eighteen countries in 2010, 2012, and 2014, this article examines the ways in which individual-level Internet use interacts with news exposure, country-level quality of democracy, Internet penetration, and their association with support for same-sex marriage. The results suggest that not only is Internet use associated with greater support for same-sex marriage, but that among those who both use the Internet and pay more attention to the news, the positive effects are amplified. In addition, national level of democracy, economic development, and Internet use are also associated with overall higher probabilities of supporting same-sex marriage. We find that Internet use has a strong positive association with the probability of supporting same-sex marriage as the percentage of the national population on the Internet increases. These findings extend our understanding of social and political tolerance of same-sex marriage in Latin America.

Accumulated evidence identifies discernible gender gaps across many dimensions of professional academic careers including salaries, publication rates, journal placement, career progress, and academic service. Recent work in political science also reveals gender gaps in citations, with articles written by men citing work by other male scholars more often than work by female scholars. This study estimates the gender gap in citations across political science subfields and across methodological subfields within political science, sociology, and economics. The research design captures variance across research areas in terms of the underlying distribution of female scholars. We expect that subfields within political science and social science disciplines with more women will have smaller gender citation gaps, a reduction of the “Matthew effect” where men’s research is viewed as the most central and important in a field. However, gender citation gaps may persist if a “Matilda effect” occurs whereby women’s research is viewed as less important or their ideas are attributed to male scholars, even as a field becomes more diverse. Analysing all articles published from 2007–2016 in several journals, we find that female scholars are significantly more likely than mixed gender or male author teams to cite research by their female peers, but that these citation rates vary depending on the overall distribution of women in their field. More gender diverse subfields and disciplines produce smaller gender citation gaps, consistent with a reduction in the “Matthew effect”. However, we also observe undercitation of work by women, even in journals that publish mostly female authors. While improvements in gender diversity in academia increase the visibility and impact of scholarly work by women, implicit biases in citation practices in the social sciences persist.

Latin America has been at the forefront of the expansion of rights for same-sex couples. Proponents of same-sex marriage frame the issue as related to human rights and democratic deepening; opponents emphasize morality tied to religious values. Elite framing shapes public opinion when frames resonate with individuals’ values and the frame source is deemed credible. Using surveys in 18 Latin American countries in 2010 and 2012, this article demonstrates that democratic values are associated with support for same-sex marriage while religiosity reduces support, particularly among strong democrats. The tension between democratic and religious values is particularly salient for women, people who live outside the capital city, and people who came of age during or before democratization.

Recent changes in government policy making and the labour market have created new opportunities for political scientists, provided that we have the skills to respond to them. We argue that changes need to be made in the area of methodology training in order to capitalize on these opportunities. Canadian political scientists should ensure that all our students acquire basic quantitative competencies, in addition to research design and qualitative analysis training, and that those graduate students interested in more sophisticated quantitative methods have the opportunity to develop those skills. We explain how expanding and deepening training in quantitative methods is one strategy for ensuring a role for political science in evidence-based policy making, for expanding labour market options for students, and for keeping apace with disciplinary trends. We caution, however, that special care needs to be taken to ensure that all political scientists have equal opportunities to develop such skills.

Weblogs (or blogs), as a form of communication on the Internet, have recently risen in prominence but may be poorly understood by both faculty and students. This article explains how blogs differ from other online communication tools and how political science faculty can make use of blogs in their classes. The focus is on using blogs as part of class assignments to reinforce important skills, including critical thinking, political engagement, and essay writing. We also discuss existing academic and professional blogs that may be models for student blogging in political science.

This study models the sub-national pattern of coca cultivation in Colombia following the implementation of Plan Colombia (2001–2005). The results suggest that aerial eradication reduces coca cultivation primarily through creation of significant displacement and that coca cultivation is less intense in areas with a significant state presence. Further, coca cultivation appears to be more common in less developed, agricultural regions where access to legal markets precludes other forms of agriculture. Poverty has a significant, non-linear effect on coca cultivation; cultivation is most intense in regions of moderate poverty. Based on the findings, efforts to reduce coca cultivation should emphasise developing local public infrastructure and market access in conjunction with poverty reduction efforts and investment in alternative development.

Retiring the State: The Politics of Pension Privatization in Latin America and Beyond. By Raúl Madrid. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. 336p. $65.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

Since the Pinochet regime in Chile privatized its public pension system in 1981, several Latin American countries have enacted public pension reforms, usually incorporating some structural reform or privatization. Why have some countries privatized their public pensions (Chile, Mexico, Bolivia), while others add optional private pensions (Argentina, Uruguay), create parallel systems with both public and private pensions (Colombia, Peru), or fail to enact any structural reform (Brazil)? Retiring the State will be required reading for those interested in the answer to this question.