A gender bias in the European Journal of Political Research?
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A gender bias in the European Journal of Political Research? Emiliano Grossman1
© European Consortium for Political Research 2020
Abstract Publications have become the single most important factor of career evaluation in the social sciences, as well as in most other academic disciplines. This has in turn led some scholars to examine the existence of potential biases in peer-reviewed publications. Teele and Thelen (2017) have shown that political science is not free from such biases. This article examines publication patterns and the peer-review process for the European Journal of Political Research. It relies on data on more than 5000 submissions between 2006 and 2017. I look at possible biases at the different stages of the publication process: submission, desk evalauation, review and acceptance. Results show that the journal’s processes are free from bias, but confirm that submission patterns remain different, despite convergence in recent years. Keywords Peer review · Gender · Bias · Publication
Introduction Recent years have seen a growing awareness of the extent to which apparently unbiased academic procedures deeply and consistently disadvantage certain groups. Much debate and criticism has focused on the role of peer review. Discussions across disciplines have questioned the intrinsic value and limits of the peer review itself (e.g., Smith 2006; Wold and Wenneras 2010), as well as some of its externalities and biases. This contribution examines the potential gender biases in the peer-review process. I ask whether such biases might at least partly explain differences in the output and publication record. In the social sciences, this has become a major issue, especially given that the number of article submissions has exponentially grown. Bibliometric evaluations of academic work have almost universally become the norm. Identifying potential biases and their causes is crucial in this context. * Emiliano Grossman [email protected] 1
Sciences Po/CEE Sciences Po, Centre d’études européennes et de politique comparée (CEE), Paris, France Vol.:(0123456789)
E. Grossman
Teele and Thelen’s (2017) survey of eight major journals in political science and international relations revealed a systematic underrepresentation of women in publications, echoing patterns in other disciplines. This was followed by a symposium of the professional journal of the American Political Science Association PS, which presented an analysis of submissions for five major international journals.1 All the papers concluded that there was no significant gender bias in the journals’ review process. This paper aims to reproduce these analyses. First, I will look at the publication patterns of the European Journal of Political Research (EJPR). Second, I will broaden the study to look at both submissions and the overall review process. To do this, I will briefly review some of the major debates on biases in academia and publishing. The following section will then explain some of the details about the data used in the rest of th
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