Interviews with John Ishiyama and Steven Forde, editors of the American Political Science Review

Foreign opinion

These are two special interviews for the RIAC with John Ishiyama and Steven Forde, editors of the American Political Science Review, the most prestigious research journal in political science. In these interviews Mr. Ishiyama and Mr. Forde discuss the requirements for submitted materials, the main reasons for non-acceptance of materials, and give advice on how to write a publishable paper.

John Ishiyama: submit what you consider to be your very best work
Steven Forde: successful submissions should have a broad theoretical underpinning

Foreign opinion

These are two special interviews for the Russian International Affairs Council with John Ishiyama and Steven Forde, editors of the American Political Science Review, the most prestigious research journal in political science.

In these interviews Mr. Ishiyama and Mr. Forde discuss the requirements for submitted materials, the main reasons for non-acceptance of materials, and give advice on how to write a publishable paper.

Interviewer: Maria Prosviryakova, RIAC

John Ishiyama The Lead Editor of the American Political Science Review Submit what you consider to be your very best work

Steven Forde Editor of the American Political Science Review Successful submissions should have a broad theoretical underpinning

John Ishiyama

John Ishiyama: submit what you consider to be your very best work

John Ishiyama, the Lead Editor of the American Political Science Review, a Comparative Politics scholar and professor at the University of North Texas.

The American Political Science Review is the number one ranked research journal in political science. There must be many scholars submitting their manuscripts to you. What are the requirements for submitted materials?

For the American Political Science review we require the manuscript, a title page, separate tables, figures and graphs. The paper itself should not exceed 45 double-spaced pages. The submissions themselves are made electronically, so we also have a word count limit – approximately 12 000 words. We are open to all different epistemologies and research strategies.

What is the rough ratio of submitted to accepted pieces?

We accept approximately 8% of the manuscripts submitted.

How many of them are from other countries than the United States?

Well, in terms of submissions , this is the first year we are keeping this data. But roughly speaking we are running at about 28% from outside the United States.

Do you recall receiving any materials from Russian scholars?

Not recently, at least not in the last month and a half. In the past we had a couple, but not very many at all.

What are the main reasons for submitted materials to be rejected?

English language quality, or research strategy, quantitative information, mediocre approach – all of these have been reasons we rejected the piece. We do a technical check, before we actually send it out for review to our reviewers. The technical check is to check the language quality, along with other things, because we want to make sure that the piece is of the highest quality, before even asking reviewers to review it. Once it is reviewed all of the above have been mentioned as reasons why pieces had been rejected: the evidence was shaky, the theory was not explicit, the analysis was weak, the question was trivial.

So, if author’s ideas are good, but English language is weak, you don’t work with those pieces.

No, we don’t. The American Political Science Review is the number one ranked journal in the world. As a result, we only publish the very best work. We receive about 870 manuscripts a year, from which we publish only about 8%. So, the pieces that we do publish tend to be the best we can get, of the highest quality. If it is not well done in the first place, it is likely not to be reviewed positively. Even if the idea on the surface is good, but the analysis is weak, or the design is weak, or the evidence is weak, or the written English is weak, then it probably will not pass.

What topics and analysis does the American Political Science Review encourage? What perspectives would be especially interesting for the journal to receive from Russian scholars?

We don’t encourage any in particular, we are open to all. We have pieces from comparative politics, American politics, international relations, formal political theory, normative political theory, methodology, etc. We are open to pretty much everything.

If a Russian scholar wanted to write on something in comparative politics, that would be fine. If he wanted to write on something in American politics, that would be fine too.

What would be your advice on how to write a publishable paper?

I would say, there is no guarantee for publication. You submit what you believe to be your very best work and you make absolutely sure that it conforms to the citation style and the stylistic guidelines of the journal. One thing that we as editors don’t like is having something submitted to us that doesn’t use, for example, APSA citation style, is not formatted along the APSA recommended guidelines, etc.

So, try the very best to make it fit the journal. And also just submit what you consider to be your very best work. Other than that there is no guarantee for publication. We simply look at the best quality available and publish it.

From your experience, how long do you think it might take a young scholars to write a worthy piece?

I think that generally for people who are just starting out in publishing it might take a long time. I recall 23 years ago, when I first started as a professor, it took me a long time to write my very first piece. Now I can write something very quickly. So, it depends upon your level of experience, on what you are working with, on your writing style and so on.

Mr. Ishiyama, thank you so much for this interview for the Russian International Affairs Council.

It is my pleasure.

Steven Forde

Steven Forde: Successful submissions should have a broad theoretical underpinning

Steven Forde, editor of the American Political Science Review, political theorist and professor at the University of North Texas.

The American Political Science Review presents peer-reviewed research articles by political scientists of all subfields. What types of research articles does APSR publish?

A lot of the work that is published in the American Political Science Review is quantitative, with statistical analysis. But not all of it. There is even some political philosophy, qualitative analysis and case studies.

Actually, we are the new editorial team that has taken over the journal just this past summer. One of our mandates is to try to broaden the types of works that get published.

So, for example, some people in the world of American political science think that the American Political Science Review has been too heavily statistical; that we should have more works of different types. Thus, we are open to receiving submissions with various types of research approaches.

What are the main reasons for submitted materials to be rejected?

Well, there is a number of reasons. Sometimes, the writing is not clear enough; or the work basically repeats the research that has been done already. Otherwise, we take the submitted pieces and send them out to three outside readers. And it is a completely blind review process: the readers don’t know the author of the article is; and then when the authors get the reaction back, they don’t know who the reviewers were. That is in order to maintain anonymity and to allow the frank assessment of the pieces.

So, when we send it out to the reviewers, there can be many reasons why the reviewers say they don’t like it. The requirements are pretty high. The acceptance rate for this journal historically has been less than 10% of the manuscripts submitted. What the reviewers look for is the research that is of significance to politics or political science; that represents something that is in some way really new, something that hasn’t been published before; we look for something that has this kind of broad theoretical underpinning.

In other words, there could be an article or a submission that is a perfectly good study of some narrow topic - that might not be accepted by the reviewer simply because we are looking for pieces that address issues of wider theoretical significance. For example, somebody is going to do a piece on movements of popular dissent in Russia or in the former Soviet states. Although, I think that one thing that foreign submitters often run into the understanding of political science as something that produces historical narrative, for example: here is what happened in Moscow and here is what happened in Kiev and so forth. That would be perfectly fine, but it is not the kind of thing we are looking for.

What we are looking for is that when you take the same set of facts and tie to some kind of theoretical analysis. Say, here is what we learnt about the way that popular dissent is mobilized, here is what we learnt about the way that things are evolving in this present world. So, something with a kind of theoretical explanatory framework, rather than just a historical rundown of the facts. Many times foreign scholars submit things without understanding that this is specifically what we are looking for.

Is there any feedback or interaction with the author regarding their submitted material for correction and improvement? Or do you just reject material for not fitting criteria?

Actually, the way the process works is: we send manuscripts out to the three anonymous readers, and either manuscript is rejected on the basis of negative reviews or the reviewers come back and say that the essay is worth publishing, but there are certain problems with it. So, if the author makes corrections or the author expands certain parts of the analysis, it will be worth publishing. Then it goes back to the author, the author gets a chance to revise the essay and resubmit it. So, there is definitely a part of the process when the author gets to change the work or improve the work in response to the criticism by the original readers.

How long does it take from submitting material to having it published?

When we get an article or a submission and assign outside readers to it, we give those readers about 4 weeks to produce their review. Sometimes, they take longer than 4 weeks. But let’s suppose that everything works as planned, we would get our first set of reviews back in a little more than a month after it was first submitted. Then the most likely positive outcome would be “revise and resubmit” situation. The author can take another month or more to make those revisions. Then, they resubmit it to us and we send it back to those readers again. So, at the end of that process there would be final acceptance or non-acceptance decision. The time when it actually appears in print will depend partly upon where we are in a publishing cycle for a given issue.

Is there any financial compensation for submissions?

No, because we don’t pay our reviewers anything. There isn’t any financial reward for the authors, unfortunately.

What would be your advice on how to write a publishable paper?

If you have a good idea that you think is worthy of publication, you need to write that idea up. And if it is to be published in the American Political Science Review it has to have a kind of broad theoretical underpinning: you have to sort of explain, why the events that you are describing or the phenomenon that you are studying is tied into a broader series of political behavior somehow. It has to be well-written, argued clearly and organized well. If you have done all those things, by all means, send it to us and we will review it.

Mr. Forde, thank you so much for this interview for the Russian International Affairs Council.