As of this writing, the Russian war on Ukraine continues with little sign of abating and violent conflicts are raging once again in the Middle East. These are difficult times, and our thoughts remain with our colleagues and contributors who are affected by these and other tragedies across the world. With this firmly in mind, we are continuing our efforts to engage directly with current events and to leverage the breadth and depth of the scholarship we publish to help readers understand and contextualize the contemporary world.
This is particularly true for the conflict in Ukraine. Nationalities Papers was founded by Ukrainian scholars, and it remains a focal point of the work we publish. The special issue Russia’s War on Ukraine, edited by Oxana Shevel and Maria Popova, is scheduled to be published this year, as is Ukrainian Social and Cultural Responses to the War in the Donbas, edited by Serhy Yekelchyk. In 2024, we will publish two more topical special issues: Nationalism and Racial Hierarchies, edited by Bridget Coggins and The Post-Communist Far Right, edited by George Soroka and Nina Paulovicova.
The peer-review process remains the foundation of our journal. We rely on the immeasurable expertise and patience of our volunteer reviewers, who provide an invaluable service to their fields, and we list their names in this issue in recognition of their deeply appreciated contributions. These have been vital to the journal’s continued success. The average time from submission of an article to a first decision decreased from 77 in 2022 to 36 days in the first quarter of 2023. Nationalities Papers’ Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) impact factor for 2022 was 1.2, up from 1.067 in 2021. The journal is now ranked 10th out of 101 in History, 36th out of 84 in Area Studies, and 138th out of 187 in Political Science. This reflects the incredible work done by our authors and reviewers.
It is a great privilege for me to work with our editorial board, publishers, and staff to publish these theoretically driven, empirically rich pieces, which continue to shape the field of nationalism studies. Two outstanding examples won the 2023 Huttenbach Prize: “Regional Fracture and Its Intractability in World Politics: The Case of the Late Ottoman Empire,” by Anna Ohanyan, and “Victims of the Pandemic? European Far-Right Parties and COVID-19,” by Jakub Wondreys and Cas Mudde. I encourage you all to read them both, as they are exemplars of the remarkable and varied research we publish.
Our editorial board has witnessed some changes over the past year. Associate Editor Paul Goode, who worked tirelessly on our very successful State of the Field articles, stepped down in April, and Zeynep Bulutgil has moved into the role. We cannot thank Paul enough for his contributions to the journal. We have also been joined by new editorial board members, and I would also like to extend a warm welcome to Yoni Abramson and Elise Giuliano. Jamie Magyar, our incredible content manager at Cambridge University Press, has recently stepped down, and we welcome Angharad Thomas, with whom we very much look forward to working.
We have just introduced a new article type, Research Notes, which will be overseen by Associate Editor Ellie Knott. These are shorter than regular articles and either engage in a theoretical debate, advance a new theoretical argument, discuss new sources of data or empirical material, or explore a new methodological approach or approaches to fieldwork. We also continue to stay in touch with our authors and readers in multiple ways. Our journal’s CUP marketing contact, Jim Ansell, has been critical in this respect, both on social media and through special collections on our Cambridge Core page, which we encourage you to explore. We continue to expand our webpage with new content, including separate pages for the winners of the Huttenbach Prize and our Photo Contest, which provides our journal with its beautiful and thought-provoking covers. We will soon be publishing reading lists of articles on specific topics, to facilitate the work of researchers, teachers, and students and improve exposure for our rich archive. We are active on social media, and we now have a new account on Bluesky @nationalitiesp.bsky.social and encourage you to follow us for news and content from the journal and to engage with colleagues and other readers.
Last, I would like to announce that Nationalities Papers will enter the new year as a fully digital journal. We are committed to minimizing our environmental impact, and recent trends among our ASN membership have shown a conscientious choice to abstain from physical paper copies, aligning with our shared aspirations for a greener future and responsible resource management. In this spirit, and in response to membership feedback and discussions with Cambridge University Press, beginning in January 2024, our journal will be available in a digital-only publication format. We know some of you (and some of us) will miss the paper copies of the journal, but we firmly believe this pivot is an important evolution in advancing our commitment to sustainable practices and global citizenship.
I look forward to receiving your manuscripts and special issue submissions and hope to see you in person at the ASN convention in New York this coming May. I wish you all the best in the new year.
Sincerely,
