The Australian Political Studies Association is calling for submissions as part of its 2022 review of the journal list. All Australian departments and individuals working in Australian departments engaged in politics research are invited to make submissions proposing revisions to the list. Revisions might include: incorporating new journals and excluding journals from the list as well as promotion and demotion of particular journals from one category to another.
The APSA journal list, last updated in 2019, groups journals from the 4407 (previously 1605) and 4408 (previously 1606) Fields of Research into broad quality categories. This list is intended to forestall the judgement of politics journals by other disciplines or interested groups, is used internally within several universities, and serves as a guide for publication strategies. A survey of political scientists by Anika Gauja and Carolien van Ham prior to the last review found that a clear majority supported APSA maintaining the list. An account of the 2019 review is available here.
To keep the list updated, the APSA Executive has established a committee of Katrine Beauregard (ANU), Selen A. Ercan (Canberra), Shahar Hameiri (UQ), Duncan McDonnell (Griffith). Will Jennings (Southampton) will advise the committee as an external international expert.
The committee will decide on all submissions regarding the journal list. It will not consider aspects of the list for which there are no submissions. The committee will strive for unanimity. When this cannot be reached, the members will vote and, if required, the external expert will be tie-breaker. To retain the credibility of the list, the overall shares of A*-ranked journals (5%), A-ranked (15%), B-ranked (30%), and C-ranked (50%) will be kept constant. In order to facilitate transparency, the names of departments and academics that make submissions will be public.
The submission process is now open and will close on 11 July 2022. Submissions should be sent directly to Duncan McDonnell (d.mcdonnell@griffith.edu.au). The results of the revision process will be released at the beginning of September and will be put up for approval by the membership at the annual general meeting during the annual APSA conference in Canberra later that month.
The following two criteria apply to submissions. Submissions not meeting these will not be considered.
1. Each submission regarding an individual journal must provide multiple types of evidence. These might include data such as acceptance rates, citation rates, 3-year & 5-year Impact Factor, prestige of editorial team or board, and other quality indicators. Please note that referring to Impact Factor alone or simply arguing “everyone knows this journal is good” is not sufficient. Arguments for the classification of a journal based solely on its sub-field or area of study will also not be considered.
2. All individuals or groups making a submission must declare whether or not they have an interest in a journal (e.g. as editors, member of boards, or as authors with previous publications in it or forthcoming ones). Please note that if this conflict of information is missing, the submission will be discounted as the committee lacks the resources to check all potential conflicts of interest.
Finally, please alert the committee to errors in the list – all care has been taken in its composition, but the magnitude and complexity of the task mean errors may have inadvertently been made.
2022 APSA Journal List Review Committee