Number of Submissions

Between August 25, 2016 and August 24, 2017 , we received a total of 1,204 submissions, translating to an average of about three submissions per day. During that same time period the previous year, the number was about 24% lower or 971 submissions. As also indicated in figure 1, it is the highest number of submissions received by the APSR. Note, however, that figure 1 presents submissions for terms running from July 1 to June 30 to ensure comparability over time, whereas later tables and figures are adjusted to change in term duration due to the transition process.^{Footnote 1} In addition to the new submissions, we received 114 revisions and took over 156 manuscripts from the UNT team. Figure 1 shows both the number of new submissions and the total number of received submissions when revisions are included. As the graph indicates, the general trend of increasing submission numbers was already observable in previous years and continues to reach new records each year.

Figure 1

Submissions per Year (by First Receipt Date)

Each term runs from July 1 to June 30.

As part of our editorship, we introduced a new submission format, letters, and while it is still in its infancy, we already received 123 letter submissions in our first year, constituting about 10% of the overall submissions. This number has shown a steady increase since letters were introduced (figure 2). In terms of a subfield breakdown, while our letter submissions do not perfectly mirror normal submissions, they refiect a similar trend. Namely, Comparative Politics makes up 29% of letter submissions (31% of manuscripts), International Relations 10% (14%), Formal 4% (6%), and Other 7% (8%). The main differences are seen in American Politics, which makes up a noticeably larger proportion of letter submissions, at 30%, than manuscript submissions, at 18%, Methods at 8% compared to 3% of manuscripts, and Normative Political Theory which is ten percentage points lower than manuscript submissions. We were excited to have published our first letter in Volume 111(4) and currently have four additional letters in our accepted pipeline. We look forward to publishing more letters in the coming year.

Figure 2

Letter Submissions per Month since September 2016 (by First Receipt Date)

Workfiow and Turnaround Times

One of our primary goals as an editorial team has been to create an efficient workfiow which would reduce the time for a first decision to be rendered, even with the number of submissions increasing. In order to do so, we altered our workfiow from that of the previous UNT team, which means our turnaround statistics are no longer as easily and directly comparable. Previously, APSR submissions were distributed among associate editors with specialized expertise. Since August 2016, we replaced this model with a bilateral decision-making model, where the lead editor decides in a first round of inspection on initial desk rejection before the manuscript is passed on to the field-specific associate editors. To maintain comparability over time, we, therefore, calculated the times for “editor assignment” as the editor who made the first decision rather than the lead editor who receives the manuscripts first, as is in our current workfiow.

It took us on average four days until a manuscript was first tech-checked after we first received it. The overall duration from first receipt until a manuscript was forwarded to our lead editor, Thomas Koenig, was seven days. In total, we have to send back about 28% of manuscripts for “technical” reasons.

Usually within one day, the manuscript was then either summary rejected by our lead editor or passed on to one of the associate editors. From the assignment of an associate editor until the first reviewer was assigned, it took, on average, another 11 days. Alternatively, the associate editors took, on average, six days to summary reject manuscripts.

Table 1 provides details on the development 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 a desk rejection or not), starting 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 journal first received a manuscript without it having been sent back to the authors due to formatting issues.

Table 1

Journal Turnaround Times (in days)

* 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 24, 2016 as well as 16-17 which runs from August 25, 2016 to August 24, 2017.

Two things are worth pointing out:

1. 1. The change of the workflow from the previous team becomes apparent when comparing the turnaround times from the initial submission to editor assignment and from editor assignment to first reviewer invitation. While it took the previous team longer until the responsible editor was assigned, they were faster in inviting reviewers after assignment. All things considered, however, the numbers are similar–17 days for the last year of the UNT team versus 15 days for the first year of our team until reviewer invitation.

2. 2. Despite the increasing number of manuscripts our editorial team has to manage, we were able to decrease the time until a first decision from 72 days to 60.^{Footnote 2} This decrease is mostly driven by our higher desk rejection rate, as the time until a manuscript is desk rejected was five days faster in 2016/2017 than in 2015/2016.

Invited Reviewers

During these first 12 months, we invited 4,082 reviewers. While 881 of the invited reviewers declined, 2,723 reviewers accepted their invitation to review. 76% of those who responded to our review invitations agreed to review, which is slightly higher than the 71% from the same time period in the previous year. 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 August 25, 2016 to August 24, 2017, it took the reviewers on average 34 days after invitation to complete their reviews, which is the same average completion time the UNT team experienced in their last year as editors.

Furthermore, despite the substantive increase in submissions, we have managed to decrease the overall number of reviewers we have invited (see table 2). This results from our policy to increase the number of desk rejections. We hope that this effectively saves our reviewer pool and, while not necessarily a direct intention, also decreases turnaround times for authors. At the same time, the share of invited reviewers who agree to review has risen. We also consulted our editorial board members with respect to 102 distinct manuscripts, sending out a total of 102 invitations and receiving 72 reviews.

Table 2

Number of Invited Reviewers and Completed Reviews (By Invitation and Completion Date, respectively)

* 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 24, 2016 as well as 16-17 which runs from August 25, 2016 to August 24, 2017.

Mix of Submissions

Like in previous years, the share of submissions is highest from Comparative Politics, followed by American Politics, Normative Political Theory, and International Relations. The first section of table 3 shows the pattern of submissions by subfield over time.

Table 3

Mix of Submissions by Subfield, Approach, Location of First Author, and Gender (in percent of total)

* 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 24, 2016 as well as 16-17 which runs from August 25, 2016 to August 24, 2017.

Within our first 12 months, Comparative Politics submissions slightly increased to 31%, while submissions in American Politics and Normative Political Theory remained stable with about 19% and 15%, respectively. The share of submissions of International Relations slightly fell to about 13%. All other submissions remained close to previous levels.

The second section of table 3 shows the breakdown of the submitted manuscripts’ methodological approaches. Editorial teams are responsible for coding the approach during the technical check process.^{Footnote 3} The table shows that the share of quantitative approaches continues to constitute the largest proportion of submissions at about 62%, while the share of submissions classified as interpretative/conceptual is the second largest with about 21%. The share of formal papers has remained constant around 7%, which is similar to formal/quantitative (4%) and qualitative/empirical (5%). Note that codings of submissions are non-exclusive (multiple mentions are possible).

Similar to previous reports, we have also gathered data on the internationality of authors. To indicate the diversity and global reach of the APSR, we use the share of submissions from institutions of the corresponding author outside the US (see last row of table 3). During our term, the steady trend of increased non-US submissions rose to 36%, which is the highest since the data has been available.^{Footnote 4} After the US, the countries with the most submissions are the United Kingdom (8.2%) and Germany (4%).

Gender in the APSR

To classify the gender of the authors and reviewers, we used the “genderizeR” package by Wais (2016)^{Footnote 5} to determine the gender of all first names and middle names that are saved in the “People” and the “Author” database in Editorial Manager. The main advantage of this package compared to other available packages in R is that it relies on the highly international ”genderize.io” database which covered 216,286 distinct names from 79 countries and 89 languages at the time of analysis.^{Footnote 6} Then we merged the gender classification of names to authors’ and reviewers’ first and middle names, respectively. If we were not able to identify the gender using the R-package or if the gender of the first name and middle name contradicted each other, we hand-coded these cases by searching the authors and reviewers online.^{Footnote 7}

Figure 3 shows the general trend over time. The share of male contributions has slightly decreased over time, while mixed gender team submissions has been slowly increasing. The share of female authors’ submissions remains low. Note that we are currently writing a separate report and collaborating with other journal editors to go into detail about gender in the editorial process.

Figure 3

Submissions by Gender for Manuscripts Submitted Between June 2007 and June 2017

Each term runs from July 1 to June 30.

Out of the 55 submissions which the new editorial team of the APSR accepted between September 2016 and December 2017, 17 publications were single authored by males and 19 publications were coauthored by full male teams. Eleven publications were work by mixed gender teams. Eight submissions were single-authored by female scholars and no publication was coauthored work by full female teams. For comparison with previous years, see table 6.

Table 6

Gender Mix of Accepted Papers (in percent of total)

Note: Terms run from July 1 to June 30.