Political Studies Review: our blog
Political Studies Review (PSR) provides a unique intellectual space for rigorous high-quality peer-reviewed original research across political science and the study of politics in related fields that aims at stimulating wide-ranging debate and cutting edge discussion of current disputes and issues in the discipline within the UK and internationally.
Did the digital divide get worse? The global coronavirus pandemic has revealed how dangerously dependent we have become on Internet access.
Read a recent post by Ryan Shandler published in The Monkey Cage blog (The Washington Post).
The publication is based on a PSR article, that can be found under this link.
“Emphasis on âmaking political science matterâ has also been stressed beyond the academy as funders, politicians and potential research-users place ever-greater emphasis on incentivizing and rewarding âimpactâ, ârelevanceâ and demonstrable âpublic valueâ” – listen to a podcast by Prof. Matthew Flinders based on a PSR article he co-authored with Prof. Leslie A. Pal: The Moral Foundations of Public Engagement: Does Political Science, as a Discipline, Have an Ethics?
Flinders claims that what has been missing from this debate is any sense of clarity around whether what is being demanded is greater engagement by political science as a discipline or greater engagement by political scientists as individuals.
Matthew Flinders is Professor of Politics and Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics at the University of Sheffield. He is also President of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom and a board member of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London
“White, middle-class forms of knowledge are disproportionately valued over others. Working-class, female and academics of colour often find themselves struggling to âfit intoâ the predominantly White, middle-class, heteronormative academic environment.” – Dr Neema Begum (University of Manchester) and Dr Rima Saini (Middlesex University London) speak about the need for the decolonisation of academia and political science, described in their article: Decolonising the Curriculum.
You can also read the PSA’s response by PSA former Chair, Prof. Angelia Wilson. Moreover, PSA Chair Prof. Roger Awan-Scully and Vice-Chair Prof. Claire Dunlop have recently published their statement on #BLM events in the US.
Dr Rima Saini is a Lecturer in Sociology ar Middlesex University London. She completed an MSc in Research Methods at City, the University of London in 2014 following a BA in Politics (SOAS), and an MA in Legal and Political Theory (UCL School of Public Policy). She completed a 3-year post as a City University of London Q-Step Ph.D. Teaching Fellow in the Department of Sociology in September 2017.
Dr Neema Begum is a political scientist researching ethnic minority voting, political participation and representation. Neema is a Research Associate at the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) working on Politics, Representation and Ethnic Minorities.
Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London
A podcast about “the idea of engaged political science which involves quite simply engaging with the public, the media, and the outside world throughout the research process and it argues that engagement, public engagement, is integral to political science research.” Dr Matthew Wood (University of Sheffield) outlines five aspects of engaged political science, described in his article: Engaged Political Science.
Matthew Wood – (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Sheffield. He is interested in how effective policy and democratic governance is possible in an age of distrust and disillusionment in politics.
Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London
“Since he entered the race for the White House in June 2015, the politics of insecurity has also become a central aspect of Donald J. Trumpâs populist discourse about how to âMake America Great Againâ. Key to this discourse is the idea of building a wall on the USâMexico border to protect the country against irregular migrants, who are described as a criminological and national security threat”- the fourth episode of our PSR 140-sec short podcast series by Professor Daniel BĂ©land. The author speaks about his article: Right-Wing Populism and the Politics of Insecurity: How President Trump Frames Migrants as Collective Threats.
Daniel BĂ©land – James McGill Professor; Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC) .
Dr Eliza Kania, Brunel University London
The whole issue 2/2020 can be found here.
The team at Brunel took over the editorship of Political Studies Review in 2019. We inherited a journal that was in a very strong place. The founding editors of the journal and the successive teams had ensured that the journal had gone from strength to strength and we want to ensure that this success continues.
Political Studies Review has developed a core identity and under our editorship, the original aims of the journal remain. But, we are also building journalâs identity and aims. Weâve introduced some new innovations to the journal alongside the existing long-form articles, review articles and special issues which continue to form the core of the journalâs identity. These include short-form article sections on early results, symposia and new ideas, and the null hypothesis. Together these provide authors will a variety of different options for publishing their work and mean that readers can access some great research in a range of different formats.
Weâve also placed great emphasis on promoting articles in the journal through social media. We purposefully hired an established social media professional to take over the managerial reins of the journal (Dr Eliza Kania) and as you will see from this website, weâve very quickly established a strong social media presence and introduced innovations such as podcasts of 140 seconds to disseminate authorsâ work. These initiatives have proved to be very successful, and articles in the journal are promoted very widely in a format which attracts plenty of attention.
As Paul Kelly makes clear, the idea behind Political Studies Review was to create something a little different. Our aim is to take that vision and build upon the fine work of the founding editors and previous editorial teams.
Not long after I came to LSE in Autumn 1995 the PSA Executive Committee put out a request to all departments for proposals for a new journal to add to the portfolio of PSA Journals which at that time comprised Political Studies and Politics, the latter of which was geared towards graduate students and had been partly founded by a young Patrick Dunleavy in the mid-1970s. I was already interested in journal editing as I had been involved in the founding of Utilitas by my PhD supervisor Fred Rosen and published by Oxford University Press. I went on to become a reviews editor.
Through the world of journal editing and publishing I had seen changes in the demand for journal space for research articles as a consequence of the RAE (what is now REF) and the desire of early-career faculty to publish review essays and review books as part of establishing their personal reputations. At this time APSA was also considering and change to its own journals that resulted in the launch of Perspectives on Politics.
The LSE Government department allowed me to put together a proposal for a new journal called ‘Political Studies Review’ that would split the existing journal and launch a separate review and discussion piece journal. I was unsuccessful in the competition as the Executive was looking for a new journal and I was seen, I suppose, as treading on the toes of the existing editorial team which at that time was at the University of Manchester and edited by Mick Moran. The PSA eventually chose Dave Marsh’s plan for the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, which has gone on to great things.
Although the initial proposal was unsuccessful it did get the attention of Patrick Dunleavy at LSE, who is one of the more entrepreneurial political scientists in the UK. When the call for a new editorial team for Political Studies went out in 1998 we put together a proposal for the Journal to come to LSE with Patrick as General Editor and me as Executive Editor. The roles didn’t previously exist but we both planned a significant expansion of the existing Journal. Despite suspicion by some members of the executive committee of PSA we got the support of Rod Rhodes, Mick Moran who was becoming chair of the Journals subcommittee and of course John Benyon the treasurer. John was always one of the more entrepreneurial figures on the PSA executive and he could see the opportunity for a significant benefit to the members in terms of the return from the publisher (Wiley Blackwell) and in terms of a benefit of membership – four Journals.
With the support of the executive Political Studies came to LSE with some help from non-LSE colleagues such as Helen Margetts then at UCL. Perhaps the most important early decision was the appointment of Jane Tinkler as the Journal Manager, Jane had known Helen from Birkbeck College. Patrick, Jane and I set about expanding and professionalising Political Studies to increase the volume of research articles that could be published. As the original contract with Wiley Blackwell had a fixed page budget we could not just expand each issue so back came the original idea of Political Studies Review but this time on the back of a strong editorial team and with the confidence and support of Sarah Phibbs at Wiley and John Benyon on the PSA Executive, and plenty of visits to Blackwells headquarters on Cowley Road.
We planned the rollout of Political Studies Review as the signature of our second term as editors of Political Studies and it appeared in print in 2003. By shifting space to PSR as we always called it, we could increase articles published in the main journal, but we now had a blank canvas to explore the other general support we could give the association through publishing commissioned pieces on the state of the discipline, extended reviews and review essays by young or established figures which were difficult to do in the main Journal and of course to expand the book review section considerably.
Although the journal has not quite been in existence as long, I have lived with versions of it for twenty-five years and its original vision is still there in the work of the current editorial team and their great stewardship of PSR.
Prof. Paul Kelly
When innovating in academic publishing, space is the key alongside protecting the brand of an existing title. In my previous life as an early-career faculty member in Swansea (and of course before on-line really took off) I was acutely aware of the value of the reviews section as a way of keeping up with what was being done across the disciplines that make up political studies. The extra space for reviews was also attractive to publishers who could be confident that more of their work would be reviewed and reviewed quickly. But our vision was not simply to produce more traditional reviews but to expand the research support and contribution to academic debate and what we now call research dissemination through creating debates, returning to classic debates and constantly rehearsing and promoting progress or advances in the sub-fields of political science.
Establishing the journal was a joint effort and whilst Patrick and I claim credit, much of the work was really done by Jane Tinkler who built up an extraordinary network across the UK profession and amongst academic publishers. There was a lot of work, but it was also enormous fun and something for which I am most proud of. PSR has now been edited from a number of departments and is no longer seen as Political Studies part B. It has grown in its own right and transformed itself further as all the PSA journals are responding to on-line and e-publishing. Although the journal has not quite been in existence as long, I have lived with versions of it for twenty-five years and its original vision is still their in the work of the current editorial team and their great stewardship of PSR.
The COVID-19 pandemic is worrying and unsettling for us all. While we are striving to keep any disruption to a minimum, some is almost certainly likely to occur. Referees may need longer to review items, authors may need more time to make revisions, and our editorial team and publishers may also experience delays. All of us are in uncharted waters, but we will do all we can to minimize disruption. Please bear with us, as it may take longer than normal to deal with papers. We will of course be understanding of the difficulties and pressures that everyone faces. To our authors and referees: if you have difficulties meeting a deadline, or if you are facing disruption, please let us know and we will do our best to help in these difficult times.
The whole special issue 1 of 2020 can be found here.
