Introduction

News

Social Science Citation Index

We are delighted to announce that Polity has been accepted by Thomson Reuters for indexing and inclusion in the Social Science Citation Index. We would like to thank the entire editorial team for all of the hard work that made this possible, as well as our reviewers and authors.

Now Online
Special Issue: The 2008 Elections
Guest Editor: William Crotty (Northeastern University, USA)

The presidential election of 2008 was of historic importance. This could be seen on a number of different levels. First, an African-American, Barack Obama, was elected President, a signal moment for a nation long plagued by racial discord. In addition, Hillary Clinton, Obama’s principal opponent for the Democratic party's nomination and the initial frontrunner, was the first woman to seriously challenge for a major party nomination. Second, the out-going Bush administration left in its wake a series of problems of fundamental consequence to the nation, including ongoing wars and a failed economy.

Third, there is the question as to the future direction American politics is likely to take. The potential of the winning Obama coalition for establishing a new era of Democratic party dominance with a long-run party majority in presidential and congressional elections was put forth. The need to restructure the Republican Party and its ideological and policy commitments also became a matter of concern. The papers in this Special Issue of Polity seek to analyse and address these issues.

For a limited time you can read the article Party Change and the Shifting Dynamics in Presidential Nominations: The Lessons of 2008 by Arthur Paulson FREE.

Advance Online Publication (AOP)

Polity is now utilising our industry leading Advance Online Publication (AOP) service. This service enables us to publish online the final version of a paper, fully citeable and exactly as it will be published in the printed edition. In some instances papers are published AOP a significant number of months before appearing in print.
View Advance Online Publication.

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the second Polity Prize for the best article published in volume 39 is Kathleen Arnold for her paper Domestic War: Locke’s Concept of Prerogative and Implications for U.S. “Wars” Today. The award was presented at the Northeastern Political Science Association meeting in November 2008. Click here to download a free copy of the winning paper.

Polity Annual Overview July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009

Polity received 99 manuscripts for the year ending June 30, 2009, a decline from 124 in the previous year. Of the new submissions, 4 were accepted (5.1%); 6 received revise-and-resubmit invitations, and we await the new version or the revision is now under review. Our review process proceeds in two stages. The editor reviews all manuscripts and decides whether to place them under full external review. This initial review process took 7.2 days on average, with a high of 20 days. Full review required on average 58.9 days to complete (with a high of 100 days). Given our goal of two months to decision, our 2008-2009 turnaround time was excellent, a marked improvement over the previous year and a credit to the professionalism of our referees and editorial board members. (Most manuscripts are reviewed by an editorial board member and two outside, anonymous referees.)

About 45% of the 2008-2009 submissions were in political theory, down slightly from previous years; another third were in American politics. We continue to encourage manuscripts in all fields. In 2010, Polity will publish a special forum on the BRICs phenomenon in international relations and another on the role of labor in American politics. Andrew J. Polsky, editor