The editorial team is pleased to release the Spring 2021 issue of Politics and the Life Sciences (PLS), the first issue of volume 40 and the first in its fortieth year. It includes a variety of articles that meaningfully advance science and provoke thought. True to PLS tradition, articles cover both political behavior and institutions. Notably, this issue offers the journal’s first bound analysis regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, an article that conceptualizes the viral outbreak in terms of national security (Albert et al., Reference Albert, Baez and Rutland2021). And true to the editorial team’s desire to promote open science, it contains a registered report (Ksiazkiewicz, Reference Ksiazkiewicz2021) and a pre-registered study (Wuttke, Reference Wuttke2021). It also includes the journal’s first Research Note (Rugeley et al., Reference Rugeley, Frendreis and Tatalovich2021). As conceived by the editorial team, these are shorter articles that provide advances in research that are likely to stimulate further investigation but do not meet the level of theoretical and/or empirical contribution expected in Research Articles. Finally, and regrettably, in the last pages Steven Peterson recounts the life and scientific contributions of Albert Somit (Peterson, Reference Peterson2021), one of the founders of the discipline of biopolitics. As always, the editorial team thanks the reviewers, who generously gave their time and expertise on behalf of the contributors, the journal, and the scientific endeavor.
The editorial team is also pleased with volume 39 of the journal, which was published in 2020. In review, the journal received submissions from 17 countries including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Slightly less than half of the submissions came from contributors based in the United States. While the acceptance rate varied by article type, the combined acceptance rate for Research Articles and Research Notes was about one in three. Seventy-two scholars provided reviews and guidance to authors and editors. The editorial team’s thanks and appreciation go to the following scholars for their peer-review contributions in 2020:
Finally, the editors thank the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, the scientific society that founded and supports PLS, and Cambridge University Press, the journal’s publisher, for the tireless support they provided to the journal and editorial team in 2020.
