The Profession

Ranking Scholarly Publishers in Political Science: An Alternative Approach

James C. Garand^a1 and Micheal W. Giles^a2

^a1 Louisiana State University

^a2 Emory University

Abstract

Previous research has documented how political scientists evaluate and rank scholarly journals, but the evaluation and ranking of scholarly book publishers has drawn less attention. In this article, we use data from a survey of 603 American political scientists to generate a ranking of scholarly publishers in political science. We used open-ended questions to ask respondents to identify those scholarly publishers (1) to which they would submit “a very strong book manuscript” in their area of expertise, and (2) that they “read regularly or otherwise rely for the best research” in their area of expertise. Based on these results, we created rankings of scholarly presses based on publication and reading preferences. We find that certain high-profile university presses constitute a clear first tier in American political scientists' preference orderings, followed by a mix of university and commercial presses that represent the second tier and beyond. Moreover, we confirm the validity of our approach by comparing the results of our rankings (based on open-ended questions) with results from previous research based on respondents' evaluations and derived from close-ended lists of scholarly presses. Our results demonstrate that the rankings of scholarly publishers are similar for both approaches. These rankings can be used to guide political scientists as they decide where to send their best book-length work.

James C. Garand is the Emogine Pliner Distinguished Professor and the R. Downs Poindexter Professor of Political Science at Louisiana State University. He has published extensively in the field of American politic and on the sociology of the political science discipline. He is the former editor of the American Politics Quarterly, former president of the State Politics and Policy section of the APSA, and former president of the SPSA. In 2006, he was named the LSU Distinguished Research Master in the Social Sciences. He can be reached at pogara@lsu.edu.

Micheal W. Giles is the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Political Science at Emory University. His research focuses primarily on courts and judicial behavior and currently concerns the institution of en banc rehearing in the U.S. Courts of Appeals. He has served the profession in many positions, including as president of the SPSA, chair of the Law and Courts section of the APSA, and editor of the Journal of Politics. He can be reached at mgiles@emory.edu.