APSR a Reflection of Its Submissions for Better and Worse.(American Political Science Review)(Brief Article)

[Gregory Kasza's letter of November 3] raises a number of important issues that need to be addressed by our membership and deliberated by the APSA committees and Council, but here I'd just like to provide some information on the Council's decisions in August, some or which responded to the position [Kasza takes], which was conveyed to and shared by the Strategic Planning Committee.

I believe that the SPC said that it believed that what was published in the Review did not represent the range of excellent work done across the discipline. I know that this is my view and, more importantly, that it is the view of Lee Sigelman, who has just been selected as the new editor of the Review. (It may be worth noting that he was the unanimous choice of the selection committee chaired by Peter Gourevitch, whose other members were myself, Gary King, Arlene Saxenhouse, and Katherine Tate.) Furthermore, although we lack good data, everyone I talk to believes that this skewing of the accepted essays reflects not--or at least not so much--biases in the referees but rather the self-selection process of what is submitted. Anticipated reactions and self-fulfilling prophecies are familiar to us and seem to be very strongly at work here. [Sigelman] explained to the Council that he will work to break this cycle, and I hope you will help him in this endeavor.

[Sigelman] also stressed to the selection committee and to the Council his commitment to seeing that articles in the Review are accessible to as many of our members as possible. He believes--as I do--that even "technical" articles can be written in a way that explains their significance to scholars who use different approaches and are interested in different substantive questions.

The Council also passed the following resolution:

The APSA will publish expanded book reviews and more integrative essays no later than January 2003 in a form--electronic and/or ...