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©American Political Science Association, 2020
American Political Science Review
Editors’ Report July 1, 2018–February 29, 2020
Thomas König, Lead Editor
Kenneth Benoit, Associate Editor
Thomas Bräuninger, Associate Editor
Sabine Carey, Associate Editor
Leigh Jenco, Associate Editor
Benjamin Lauderdale, Associate Editor
Ingo Rohlfing, Associate Editor
Alyssa Taylor, Managing Editor
I
n this report, we combine the edito-
rial term from July 1, 2018 to June 30,
2019, with the current period from July
1, 2019 to February 29, 2020, to discuss the
journal’s operations. However, to main-
tain comparability with previous reports,
we treat this period separately as the latter
does not constitute a full editorial term.
Therefore, we present these numbers at
the end of this report in a separate section.
As editors of the American Political Science
Review, we continue to provide insight
into our editorial process by reporting on
numbers of submissions, workflow and
turnaround times, and invited reviewers.
We also present numbers on issues which
have raised concerns during our editor-
ship, such as gender mix, (desk rejection)
outcomes, subfield distribution, and schol-
arly visibility.
Before we begin, we would like to start
with expressing our great thanks to Presi-
dents Rogers Smith and Paula McClain,
the APSA staff, the APSA Council, and the
APSA Publications Committee, as well as
to Cambridge University Press for their
continued support and guidance over the
past years. We would also like to thank the
members of our editorial board, who have
provided countless reviews and served as
guest editors during our tenure. Finally,
we thank all of the authors who submitted
their manuscripts and the reviewers who
evaluated them. Without their support it
would be impossible to sustain an effective
review process. We wish the new editorial
team all the best and will help to ensure a
smooth transition for their June 1st start.
EDITORIAL PROCESS AND
SUBMISSION OVERVIEW
In the following section, we present an over-
view of the editorial process and submis-
sions during 2018–19. Similar to previous
reports, we discuss the number of submis-
sions, workflow and turnaround time, and
invited reviewers. We retrieved the data
from our editorial management system.
Briefly summarized, we experienced a
decreasing number of submissions this
year. However, the total number of 1,370
submissions still remains at the second
highest level with an increasing share of
manuscripts in the letter format, while our
workflow increased compared to previous
years. We are particularly grateful for the
support of our reviewers, who helped us
manage this very high number of submis-
sions—admittedly, at the expense of a
higher number of desk rejections.
Number of Submissions
Between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019, we
received 1,174 new submissions, translating
to an average of about 3.2 new submissions
per day. We interpret the high number of
new submissions, especially from authors
outside the US, as both a sign of the jour-
nal’s popularity and international reach as
well as a sign that authors appreciate our
efforts in spite of a high rejection rate. We
received about 7% more submissions in
the same time period of the previous year,
equating to 1,267 new submissions, but the
number of revisions increased to 196 revi-
sions, which is 4% higher than the previous
year’s 189 revisions. Figure 1 shows both the
number of new submissions and the total
number of received submissions when revi-
sions are included per year.
We are proud that our shorter publi-
cation format, letter, continues to rise in
popularity. Letters address an important
research problem or question, showing a
novel perspective on existing research and
encouraging scholarly debate in the disci-
pline. In total, we received 171 letter submis-
sions in this period, constituting about 15%
of the overall new submissions. Figure 2
shows the steady increase in submission
share of letters since their introduction.
In terms of a subfield breakdown, while
our letter submissions do not perfectly
mirror manuscript submissions of a longer
format, they reflect a similar trend. Namely,
Comparative Politics makes up 29% of letter
submissions (32% of manuscripts), Inter-
national Relations 10% (14%), Formal 9%
(5%), and Other 9% (10%). The main differ-
ences are seen in American Politics, which
makes up a noticeably larger proportion
of letter submissions at 27% than manu-
script submissions at 16% and Methods
at 10% compared to 4% of manuscripts.
The proportion for Normative Political
Theory letters is 12% lower than manuscript
submissions.
Workflow and Turnaround Times
One of our editorial goals is to sustain an
efficient workflow that reduces the time
taken to render the first decision. Given
the very high number of submissions and a
relatively limited reviewer pool, this is not a
trivial task. In 2018–19, it took an average of
three days until a manuscript was first tech-
checked after first receipt. We tech-check all
submissions regarding their technical stan-
dard in terms of length, figures, tables, etc.,
and eventually inform authors about their
need to correct their submission. The over-
all duration from first receipt until a manu-
script was forwarded to our lead editor was
four days including the approximate 27% of
manuscripts returned to authors for “tech-
nical” issues.
Usually within a very short time, the
manuscript was then either desk (summary)
rejected by our lead editor or passed on to
an associate editor. This first round of desk
rejections by the lead editor almost exclu-
sively concerned submissions which either
speak to another, more specialized audi-
ence or do not fit within our two publica-
tion formats. From the assignment of an
associate editor until the invitation of
the first reviewer—which reflects the time
required for researching reviewers—it took
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©American Political Science Association, 2020
on average another 13 days. Alternatively,
the associate editors can also desk reject
manuscripts, which took on average eight
days after they were assigned. These desk
rejections mostly concern studies that will
likely not be successful in peer review, in
particular when the editor is confident that
the appropriately selected reviewers would
reject it.
Although desk rejections have raised
criticism, there may be several reasons for
this decision. Most often authors either
failed to reflect on existing knowledge,
selected weak methods, the research did
not speak to broader questions or debates
in their respective fields, or move the needle
in the debate. This process is subjective
because it pertains to experience, there-
fore we respond to authors who object to a
desk rejection by the lead or the associate
editor by reviewing the author’s comments
and often requesting a consultation from
another (second) editor.
Table 1 provides details on the devel-
opment of the turnaround times. It shows
the duration between the main stages of
the editorial process, from submission to
editor assignment, first reviewer invitation,
from editor to first decision and submission
to first decision (distinguished between
whether it was desk rejected or not), start-
ing with the initial submission date. In
contrast to the “First Receipt Date,” which
is the first time we receive a manuscript,
initial submission refers to the date our jour-
nal first received a manuscript without it
having been sent back to the authors due
to formatting issues.
Partly due to the increasing workload
that our editorial team has to manage, the
time until a first decision increased from
66 days in 2017–18 to 71 days in 2018–19.
If we exclude desk rejections which are
processed rather quickly, the time to first
decision increases to about 110 days. A
Figure 1
Submissions per Year (by First Receipt Date)
Figure 2
Letter Submissions as Share of Manuscripts Received per Semester (by First Receipt Date)
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major reason for this is that we often have to
“chase” reviewers to submit their feedback
in a timely manner. For example, the aver-
age time from first reviewer invitation until
at least three reviewer reports are submitted
has increased from 61 days in 2016–17 to 70
days in 2018–19, an increase of about 15%.
The time increases further when we receive
diverging recommendations and we need to
collect additional reviews, thereby increas-
ing the wait until the last review arrives
before making a final decision.
Invited Reviewers
In total, we invited 3,717 reviewers in the
term 2018–19. While 768 of the invited
reviewers declined, 2,519 reviewers accepted
their invitation to review. The remaining
reviewers were either terminated after
agreeing or a response to our invitation is
pending. Based on the reviews completed
during the period from July 1, 2018 to June
30, 2019, it took the reviewers on average
37 days after invitation to complete their
reviews. We are happy that the share of
reviewers who completed their review
remained stable (see table 2). We also
consulted our editorial board members with
respect to 90 distinct manuscripts, send-
Table 1
Journal Turnaround Times (in days)
09-10 10-11 11-12 12-13 13-14 14-15 15-16* 16-17* 17-18 18-19
Initial Submission to Editor Assignment 11 11 14 2 7 8 16 4 3 3
Editor Assignment to Reviewer Invitation 7 7 4 1 1 1 1 10 12 13
Editor Assignment to First Decision 68 72 60 44 46 48 55 62 64 68
Reviewer Invitation to 3 Completed Reviews 67 69 67 51 49 50 56 61 68 70
Initial Submission to Desk Rejection (DR) 15 17 16 3 6 7 14 9 8 9
Initial Sub. to First Decision without DR 95 98 88 58 69 74 92 97 106 110
*Terms run from July 1 to June 30 of the following year except for the term 15–16 which runs from July 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016 and the terms 16–17 which runs from September
1, 2016 to August 31, 2017.
Table 2
Number of Invited Reviewers and Completed Reviews (By Invitation and Completion Date,
respectively)
09–10 10–11 11–12 12–13 13–14 14–15 15–16* 16–17* 17–18 18-19
Completed 1,707 1,575 1,659 2,028 2,284 2,258 2,858 1,969 2,458 2,269
Invited 2,986 3,051 3,590 4,482 4,657 4,370 5,599 3,316 4,072 3,717
Share 57.2% 51.6% 46.2% 45.2% 49.0% 51.7% 51.0% 59.4% 60.4 % 61.0%
*Terms run from July 1 to June 30 of the following year except for the term 15–16 which runs from July 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016 and the term 16–17 which runs from September
1, 2016 to June 30, 2017.
ing out a total of 94 invitations, of which
61 were completed, 20 were declined, and
the remaining were either terminated or
our invitation is pending. Additionally, we
are grateful to the five board members who
stood in as guest editors for manuscripts
that could not be handled by our team over
this term.
SCHOLARLY DISCUSSIONS AND
EDITORIAL OVERVIEW
In the following section, we aim to contrib-
ute to hotly discussed issues in and outside
of our discipline. Similar to our previous
efforts, we discuss gender, subfields and
methods, outcomes and desk rejections,
and visibility of scholarly publications by
our numbers. We retrieved the data from
our editorial management system.
Gender in the APSR
Gender has become a hotly debated issue
in and outside political science, including
the gender gap in scholarly journals. In our
reports, we differentiate first by aggregating
solo and coauthorship and then between
submissions from women only, men only,
and mixed-gender teams. We were able
to classify gender of 1,267 submissions
which the APSR received during the edito-
rial term. During 2018–19, 64% of submis-
sions were authored by men (solo or team),
while 22% were submitted by mixed-gender
teams, and 14% by women (solo or team)
authors. Put differently, 86% of submis-
sions had at least one male author and 36%
at least one female author. Figure 3 shows
the general trend over time. Accordingly,
the share of male contributions slightly
decreased, while the share of women solo or
team submissions remains low, yet, with an
increasing trend for mixed-gender teams.
Because one point of gender gap criti-
cism concerns editor bias, we consider
our overall decision making with respect
to gender by presenting a breakdown
of submissions that received their final
decision in the previous term (figure 4).
Although the distribution is highly skewed,
the main predictor of whether a manu-
script gets desk rejected is whether the
manuscript is male solo-authored. 47% of
male solo-authored submissions are desk
rejected, followed by 40% of female solo-
authored submissions. In general, team
submissions experience a lower desk rejec-
tion rate (38% female, 33% mixed, and 31%
male teams). Regarding final acceptance
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Figure 3
Submissions by Gender for Manuscripts Submitted Between July 2008 and February 2020
Figure 4
Percentage Share of Final Decision Outcome by Type of Authorship Between July 2018 and
June 2019
* The percentages in the brackets underneath the subplot titles denote the relative manuscript share.
rates, team-authored manuscripts seem
also more successful, with much higher
success rates for male single-sex teams
(11%) than mixed-gender teams (5%) or
all-female teams (3%). Yet, solo-authored
submissions by women had a slightly
higher acceptance rate than solo-authored
work by men (6% solo female vs. 5% solo
male). Despite the different proportions
of accepted papers among single male and
female authors, the number of decisions
is not large enough to conclude that this
category may fail to predict differences in
acceptance rates (p=0.77).
On this regard, out of the 75 submis-
sions that were accepted in the last term,
19 publications were solo-authored by
men and 36 publications were co-authored
by full male teams. Twelve publications
were work by mixed gender teams. Seven
submissions were solo-authored by women
and one publication was co-authored work
by a full female team. For comparison
over time, table 3 shows the mix of gender
among accepted manuscripts for the past 10
years. The shares of accepted manuscripts
correspond to the share of submissions.
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Table 3
Gender Mix of Accepted Papers (in percent of total)
09–10 10–11 11–12 12–13 13–14 14–15 15–16* 16–17* 17–18 18-19
Female (Solo and Team) 8.3 14.3 21.3 8.9 13.3 22.5 20.4 19.2 12.7 10.7
Male (Solo and Team) 72.2 71.4 63.8 66.1 62.2 62.0 66.7 53.8 7 0.4 73.3
Mixed Gender Team 19.4 14. 3 14. 9 25.0 2 4.4 15.5 13.0 26.9 16.9 16.0
*Terms run from July 1 to June 30 of the following year except for the term 15–16 which runs from July 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016 and the term 16–17 which runs from Septem-
ber 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017.
Table 4
Submitted Papers by Subfield, Approach, and Location of First Author (in % of total)
09–10 10–11 11–12 12–13 13–14 14–15 15–16* 16–17* 17–18* 18-19
Comparative 29.0 28.8 29.7 31.1 35.9 29.7 28.8 31.0 28.9 31.7
American 23.2 20.9 22.5 20.3 21.6 18.3 18.7 19.7 18.0 18.0
IR 15.9 17. 5 16.8 18.8 16.2 14.5 16.8 14.3 14.6 13.6
Normative 17. 4 16.6 15.5 1 5.6 15.0 14. 9 16.4 14.1 16.3 13.3
Other 1.5 2.5 0.7 2.5 0.1 9. 9 7. 5 7. 8 8.9 9.7
Formal 6.3 6.3 7.4 5.8 3.9 5.8 4.1 5.7 5.7 6.0
Race/Ethnicity 2.5 3.8 3.8 3.7 3.7 3.6 4.5 3.9 3.5 3.0
Methods 4.2 3.5 3.4 2.3 3.4 3.3 3.1 3.4 4.2 4.6
Formal 8.4 9.4 6.8 4.8 7.6 5.3 7. 0 6.6 8.0
Formal and Quantitative 9.8 12.4 9.3 7. 5 7. 8 4.7 4.6 4.6 2.1
Interpretative 28.1 19.4 21.5 19.1 21.4 24.4 19.2 20.2 1 7. 9
Other 0.2 0.1 3.5 3.2 2.2 1 .7 0.7 1.0 0.6
Qualitative 1.7 5.0 7.4 8.6 8.8 10.6 5.3 3.9 5.3
Quantitative 49.1 53.5 58.0 63.8 59.6 59.9 62.8 62.4 64.6
Small-N 2.8 0.4 1.6 1.2 3.0 0.8 0.6 2.5 3. 1
Non-US 27. 3 28.8 3 3.8 32.8 33.1 34.0 35.5 36.2 40.3 39.2
*Terms run from July 1 to June 30 of the following year except for the term 15–16 which runs from July 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016 and the term 16–17 which runs
from September 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017.
The number confirms the currently low
share of publications authored by women
only (both solo and team authored). We
will continue to follow this development
closely to detect whether this trajectory is
systematic.
Mix of Submissions
As already mentioned, the distribution of
submissions and publications by subfield
is difficult to compare as our authors deter-
mine the classification of their manuscripts.
However, it remains a central task of the
lead editor to assign an associate editor
with the highest expertise for selecting
reviewers and evaluating their reviews. In
particular for the subfields of Comparative
Politics and International Relations, this
makes identifying trends difficult.
Like in previous terms, the share of
submissions is highest from Comparative
Politics, followed by American Politics,
Normative Political Theory, and Interna-
tional Relations. The first section of table
4 shows the pattern of submissions by
subfield over time. Overall, the distribution
of submissions across subfields remained
stable.
Most notably, Comparative Poli-
tics submissions increased to 32%; while
submissions in Normative Political Theory
decreased to 13%. The share of methodologi-
cal submissions continues to rise, increas-
ing to 5%. The high increase in “Other”
suggests that the journal is expanding repu-
tation in other fields.
In terms of the approach of the submit-
ted manuscripts—coded by classification
by the editorial teams—the second section
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of table 4 shows that the share of Quantita-
tive approaches continues to constitute the
largest proportion of submissions, nearly
65%, while the share of submissions clas-
sified as Interpretative/Conceptual is the
second largest with almost 18%. The share
of Formal papers increased to 8%. The
share Qualitative/Empirical submissions
increased (5%) as did the share of Small-
N studies (3%). Note that the coding of
submissions in previous terms were non-
exclusive (multiple mentions are possible)
which makes a thorough comparison over
Table 6
Accepted Papers by Subfield, Approach, and Location of First Author (in percent of total)
09–10 10–11 11–12 12–13 13–14 14–15 15–16* 16–17* 17–18 18-19
Comparative 38.9 26.5 36.2 3 7. 5 42.2 3 3.8 35.2 34.6 39.4 40.0
American 22.2 3 0.6 21.3 21.4 13.3 18.3 16.7 11.5 18.3 21.3
IR 13.9 10.2 8.5 10.7 11.1 15.5 5.6 11.5 1.4 5.3
Normative 16.7 18.4 17.0 23.2 24 .4 26.8 31.5 30.8 15.5 9.3
Other 2.8 0.0 2.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.9 3.8 4.2 2.7
Formal 2.8 12.2 8.5 3.6 4.4 0.0 1.9 7.7 9. 9 13.3
Race/Ethnicity 2.8 2.0 2.1 0.0 2.2 2.8 1.9 0.0 5.6 4 .0
Methods 0.0 0.0 4.3 3.6 2.2 2.8 5.6 0.0 5 .6 4.0
Formal 0.0 15.2 5.5 4.5 2.9 2.0 15.4 9.9 14.9
Formal and Quantitative 0.0 6.1 5.5 6.8 10.3 11.8 11.5 1.4 4.1
Interpretative 33.3 15.2 27. 3 22.7 32.4 3 7. 3 34.6 15.5 9.5
Other 0.0 0.0 1.8 2.3 0.0 3.9 0.0 0.0 1.4
Qualitative 0.0 6.1 9.1 11.4 8.8 13.7 3.8 2.8 1.4
Quantitative 66.7 54.5 61.8 61.4 54.4 45.1 38.5 73.2 70.3
Small-N 0.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Non-US 13.9 26.5 19.1 19.6 22.2 18.3 20.4 26.9 29.6 22.7
*Terms run from July 1 to June 30 of the following year except for the term 15–16 which runs from July 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016 and the term 16–17 which runs from September
1, 2016 to June 30, 2017.
Table 5
Outcome of First Round (in percent of total)
09–10 10–11 11–12 12–13 13–14 14–15 15–16* 16–17* 17–18* 18-19
Desk Reject 18.9 19.7 19.7 21.0 24.6 2 7. 0 26.2 37. 2 39.8 38.9
Reject after Review 72.0 73.7 74 . 2 70.5 68.4 66.0 6 8.7 55.3 51.5 54.8
Invite R&R 8.3 6.1 5.4 8.0 7. 0 7. 1 5.1 7.4 8.6 6.3
Conditional Accept 0.7 0.6 0.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.0
Accept 0.1 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
*Terms run from July 1 to June 30 of the following year except for the term 15–16 which runs from July 1, 2015 to August 31, 2016 and the term 16–17 which runs from September
1, 2016 to June 30, 2017.
time difficult.
Similar to previous reports, we have also
gathered data on the nationality of authors.
To indicate the global reach of the journal,
we use the share of submissions from insti-
tutions of the corresponding author outside
the US (see last row of table 4). During this
term, the share of non-US submissions
remained almost constant at 39%. After the
US, the countries with the most submis-
sions are the United Kingdom (9.2%) and
Germany (3.6%). Although the criticism of
editor bias also refers to descriptive char-
acteristics, it would be too far to conclude
that the composition of our editorial team
is responsible for this British/German
dominance.
Outcomes and Desk Rejections
Regarding outcomes, a current point of
criticism concerns desk (summary) rejec-
tions by either the lead or associate editor.
In general, these rejections pursue two
purposes. First, they prevent the limited
reviewer pool from overuse on manuscripts
which fail to fulfill scholarly standards or
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Figure 5
Impact Factor since 2007
speak to a more specialized (different)
readership; second, if these criteria are not
met, to respond to the authors in a timely
manner so that they can polish their manu-
scripts and/or submit it to another schol-
arly outlet.
Table 5 displays the outcomes after the
first round. The number of desk rejections
has risen during our editorship in compar-
ison to the rejections after review as it is
a specific goal of ours to reduce the over-
all turnaround times for authors and avoid
“reviewer fatigue.” Accordingly, the share of
desk rejections remained high at about 39%
during 2018–19. The share of rejects after
review increased to 55%. In total, however,
we end up with comparable numbers of
rejections over time—around 90% since
2007. At the same time, the share of R&Rs
reduced compared to the last term from 9%
to about 6%.
Between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019
our editorial team accepted 75 manuscripts.
Of these 75 articles, the highest share with
30 publications was from Comparative
Politics, followed by 16 manuscripts from
American Politics, and 7 manuscripts from
Normative Political Theory. We published
10 Formal Theory articles, three method-
ological contributions, three manuscripts
on race and ethnicity, four papers from
International Relations, and two Others.
Re- garding the publication rate of letters,
with respect to articles, we accepted 15
letters, making a share 20% of acceptances
which is comparable to the submission
share.
VISIBILITY & TRANSPARENCY
In addition to the number of submis-
sions, incoming reviews, and acceptances,
the academic impact as well as the public
outreach of research published in the APSR
is a major concern. In general, academic
impact and public outreach remains diffi-
cult to measure and compare objectively
for many reasons. For example, a jour-
nal’s impact factor may be disproportion-
ately affected by co-citation patterns of
symposia and special issues—publication
formats not offered by the APSR in order
to comply with the typical standard of a
premier disciplinary outlet. Nevertheless,
available scores and indices may still flag
potential shortcomings in a journal’s edito-
rial process or document how a journal’s
impact is affected by editorial changes like
our decision to introduce FirstView. In the
following section, we therefore discuss the
development of APSR’s annually published
impact factor as well as the Altmetric atten-
tion score. Although impact factors suffer
from time lags, both measures together
may provide us additional insight into how
the journal’s quality is perceived from the
outside.
Impact Factor
The impact of a journal (and scholarly
work in general) is typically evaluated
based on the number of its academic cita-
tions of articles published in one year for
the period thereafter. This idea lies at the
core of the impact factor, which is both
available for the two-year and the five-
year period. For a long time, the APSR has
been ranked among the top three gener-
alist outlets in political science according
to both measures. For example, the APSR
had the highest two-year impact factor of all
three major journals between 2007 and 2014
(with the only exception of 2008).
However, compared to other scholarly
outlets, the APSR impact factor declined
over the past years. This has become visible
first by the relative decline of the two-year
impact factor. The 2018 two-year impact
factor measures, for example, the number of
citations in 2018 of manuscripts published
in 2016 and 2017 (divided by the number
of publications), but, it is only published
in 2019. According to figure 5, this recent
decrease of the two-year impact factor has
now stopped and even slightly increased
in 2018. Nevertheless, the APSR still ranks
second among the three major journals with
a two-year impact factor of 3.9 compared
to the American Journal of Political Science
with an impact factor of 4.4 and the Jour-
nal of Politics with an impact factor of 2.5.
Moreover, while we observed a drop in the
five-year impact factor in 2017, it increased
again in 2018 and is about 6.6. It remains
to be seen in the coming years whether our
editorial team was able to influence the
impact factor as publications in 2018 were
the first ones which were fully handled by
us.
Altmetric Attention Score
In addition to the long-term scholarly
impact, editors and publishers care about
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Table 7
Top 10 Manuscripts Published in Print in 2019 According to Altmetric Score
Rank Title Altmetric Score
1Local News and National Politics 587
2Legislative Staff and Representation in Congress 380
3Wealth, Slaveownership, and Fighting for the Confederacy: An Empirical Study of the American Civil War 185
4Demand Effects in Survey Experiments: An Empirical Assessment 159
5Does Exposure to the Refugee Crisis Make Natives More Hostile? 150
6Political Ideology in European Mass Publics, 1981–2016 134
7Cosmopolitan Immigration Attitudes in Large European Cities: Contextual or Compositional Effects? 129
8The Fingerprints of Fraud: Evidence from Mexico’s 1988 Presidential Election 119
9Education and Anti-Immigration Attitudes: Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Reforms across Western Europe 119
10 How Do Immigrants Respond to Discrimination? The Case of Germans in the US During World War I 85
Figure 6
Sum of Altmetric Attention Scores by Year of Publication
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the short-term outreach of their publica-
tions more generally—their public rele-
vance, media coverage, and whether a
publication is being discussed on social
media. This is where the Altmetric atten-
tion score shines. It is sourced from the
internet and based on an automated algo-
rithm and is provided for each publication.
In essence, the score is a weighted count
of the number of attention a publication is
receiving, among other things, in the news,
on research blog entries, in policy docu-
ments, and on Twitter. Moreover and in
contrast to the impact factor measure, the
attention score provides immediate feed-
back on the level of outreach upon online
publication (even though we must stress
that the measure does not allow to draw
conclusions about a publication’s scholarly
quality).
For a first tentative impression as to
how much attention APSR publications
have been receiving over time based on
this measure, figure 6 shows the sum of
Altmetric attention scores for all articles
based on their year of publication. It is
important to note that these numbers
should be taken with a grain of salt since
articles published before 2011 are naturally
less likely to receive attention in retrospect,
although they sometimes do. Nevertheless,
the numbers hint at an increase in public
outreach of articles published in the APSR,
in particular in 2018, for which the sum of
attention scores is more than twice as large
as in the year before. However, also for 2019,
we see a higher sum in the attention score
compared to 2017.
Looking only at articles published in
2019, we are able to highlight a few addi
-
tional insights. The median attention score
of manuscripts published (in print) in 2019
is 18 (as of March 6, 2020). In comparison,
the article with the highest score, “Local
News and National Politics,” written by
Gregory J. Martin and Joshua McCrain has
an Altmetric score of 587. Table 7 shows the
top 10 articles with the highest attention
scores. It is interesting to note that all of
the top 10 articles are based on quantitative
approaches and emphasize in the majority
of cases (but not exclusively) causal iden-
tification. With respect to news coverage,
according to Altmetric seven APSR arti-
cles published in 2019 are mentioned in 50
news reports. This is fewer than the arti-
cles published in 2018, of which 11 publi-
cations have been mentioned in news
outlets. Together, these numbers suggest
a constantly high level of attention of the
APSR in recent years.
SUBMISSIONS BETWEEN JULY 1, 2019
AND FEBRUARY 29, 2020
In this final section, we discuss the jour-
nal’s operations from July 1, 2019 to Febru-
ary 29, 2020. We have data available on this
period that we want to share with our read-
ers. However, the period does not constitute
a full editorial term which makes compa-
rability with previous terms difficult and,
thus, requires separate treatment.
In terms of submissions, the APSR
received 863 manuscripts between July 1,
2019 and February 29, 2020, 726 of which
were articles (84%) and 137 were letters
(16%). This corresponds to, on average,
about 3.6 submissions per day during
this period which is more than during the
editorial term 2018–19. In addition, we
also received 173 revised manuscripts after
review.
Regarding the gender distribution of
authorship (among new submissions), solo
male authors constituted the largest share
(32%), followed by all male teams (29%). We
received 198 mixed-gender team submis-
sions (23%), 111 submissions from solo
female authors (13%), and 25 submissions
from all-female teams (3%). The share of
submissions which have at least one woman
author is accordingly 39%, three percent-
age points higher than during the previous
editorial term, 2018–19.
Turning to the distribution of subfield
classifications, 29% of these submissions
were Comparative Politics, 20% American
Politics, 14% Normative Political Theory,
15% International Relations, 6% Formal
Theory, 4% Race/Ethnicity and 7% Other.
Moreover, 42% of submissions received
were from corresponding authors whose
institutions lie outside the United States.
In the eight months since July 2019,
our editors invited 2,589 reviewers, 67% of
whom accepted the invitation, which is a
comparable rate to previous years. In addi-
tion, we received 1,547 completed reviews.
In the first round of decisions, the APSR
editors desk rejected 46% of submissions,
a higher rate than in the previous terms.
46% were rejected after review and 8% were
invited to “Revise and Resubmit.”
With respect to final decisions, 54
manuscripts were accepted for publica-
tion. In contrast to the gender distribution
among new submissions, all-male teams
(37%) and mixed-gender teams (26%) consti-
tuted the largest share among accepted
manuscripts in this period, followed by
solo-male authors (22%). Female authored
manuscripts constituted the smallest share
with 11% of publications authored by solo-
female authors and 4% by all-women teams.
Thirty-one percent of these accepted manu-
scripts came from the subfield of Compara-
tive Politics, 28% from American Politics,
and 11% from Normative Political Theory.
In addition, we accepted five International
Relations papers (9%) as well as four papers
from Formal Theory and Methods each
(7%). Two published papers are concerned
with Race and Ethnicity (4%) and one
papers is classified as “Other.” With 40
manuscripts, more than two thirds of the
acceptances took a Quantitative method-
ological approach, six manuscripts were
Interpretative/Conceptual, five manu-
scripts had a Formal approach, and three
manuscripts used a Qualitative approach.
CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
Overall, our editorial numbers indicate an
effective editorial process in spite of the
increasing number of submissions. The
letter format shows increasing popularity
and consists of about 20% of our submis-
sions. In addition to our workflow and turn-
around times we are very happy about the
support of our reviewers, who continue to
support the editorial process with a high
acceptance rate of invitations and a high
share of completed reviews. As we know
from correspondence with other editors,
this is not the conventional development
in many other scholarly outlets.
Like other scholarly outlets, we are also
confronted with hotly-debated issues. We
still find a low submission rate of manu-
scripts (co-)authored by women. Exist-
ing explorations of our data suggest that
this gender gap is not associated with the
editorial process. Another issue of discus-
sion concerns the mix of subfields and
approaches. Although we find that four
subfields dominate the mix of submis-
sions and publications, we still cover a
large proportion of other subfields. This
is different for approaches, where quanti-
tative studies dominate our submissions
and publications—however, interpreta-
tive approaches come in second, and for-
mal shows an increasing trend. Regarding
desk rejections, we recognize criticism, in
particular when we invite recently rejected
authors to review. We take a second look
when authors challenge our decisions,
and we acknowledge when we are incor-
rect. However, we also need to make quick
decisions on manuscripts, which are very
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096520000633 Published online by Cambridge University Press
602 PS • July 2020
News
©American Political Science Association, 2020
unlikely to survive the review process.
Oftentimes, authors fail to pay close atten-
tion to our publication formats or the schol-
arly discussions which take place in- and
outside the APSR and therefore do not fit
their manuscript into the broader politi-
cal inquiries presented in their respective
subfields.
Finally, public visibility is becoming a
more important concern. When we started
our editorship we were already confronted
with this trend and responded to it by intro-
ducing FirstView and the letter format. The
development of the impact factors revealed
that the APSR had lost its prominent posi-
tion when compared to other scholarly
outlets in political science. In addition to
letters and FirstView, the availability of
the data and materials used in these arti-
cles may further increase the visibility and
attractiveness of APSR publications. In
2015, APSR submission guidelines were
updated to incorporate DA-RT principles.
Today, we host 181 published datasets and
materials, of which approximately 158 have
been updated during our tenure, with addi
-
tional datasets in the pipeline to be released
with the publication of the corresponding
article. That being said, several contribu-
tors maintain their own Dataverses or data-
hosting site, and where we have not been
able to link the dataset to our Dataverse,
we keep a list of APSR articles with their
Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
Although at times we may seem aloof,
we continue to listen and respond to crit-
icism and the meaningful discussions
taking place in the profession. While peer-
review changes slowly—remember it still
takes over a year from submission to accep-
tance for articles to be published, so change
cannot occur overnight—we are hearing
concerns and adjusting where possible
to make APSR a more inclusive environ-
ment for all researchers. We welcome the
new team to the APSR and will help them
launch a successful start when they offi-
cially take over in June 2020. We thank you
again for your continued support as read-
ers, authors, reviewers, board members, and
future editors. ■
NOTES
1. Please note that the turnaround times for
the current term may get longer as they are
determined by comparing date received and
decision rendered, and not all submissions have
had a decision rendered.
2. We used the genderizeR in R to identify gender
and, then, handcoded all non-identified cases.
3. Starting in July 2010, the UNT editorial
team began gathering information on the
methodological approaches of the submissions
they received.
4. Please note that these statistics are dependent
on user information saved in Editorial Manager.
While our team may from time to time update
our contributors’ user data, we do not have
the capacity to keep all records up-to-date.
We therefore recognize that information on
contributors’ whereabouts will not, and cannot, be
completely accurate.
5. Whose manuscripts passed the technical check.
6. In our experience, the most difficult cases of desk
rejections concern manuscripts of authors who
we almost simultaneously invite to review other
manuscripts.
7. See https://help.altmetric.com/support/solutions/
articles/6000060969-how-is-the-altmetric-score-
calculated for details.
8. The Altmetric attention scores for this report were
downloaded on August 7, 2019.
9. A great resource to view a journal’s altmetric
attention scores is located at https://app.
dimensions.ai/discover/publication.
10. The following data presented excludes any
archived material that is hosted on private
researchers’ websites.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096520000633 Published online by Cambridge University Press