Editors' perceptions of ethical and managerial problems in political science journals

Abstract

Within the medical and physical sciences journals evidence suggests that problems of authorship ethics and journal management bedevil the editors of these journals. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that similar problems persist in political science, the extent of these problems within political science is not well established. Here we report the results of a survey of political science journal editors' perceptions of ethical and managerial issues associated with their journals. We find that unlike ethical publication concerns in the clinical and natural sciences fields, these issues are not of significant concern among our sample. Ethical problems are of low concern and editors report high levels of confidence to address these problems. Managerial problems, such as the adequacy of reviewer pools, are of higher concern to our sample. © 2012 American Political Science Association.