This will be the last official issue produced by the team at the University of North Texas, although Volume 111.1 will contain manuscripts that the UNT team processed. However, the new editorial team based at the University of Mannheim and London School of Economics will handle production of the 111.1 issue. This is a “bigger” issue, at least in terms of size, as we clear the deck for the new team. In some ways this issue is our “swan song”—it truly has been a pleasure serving as editors of the APSR these past four years. We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the association and the discipline we all love, and it has been a great honor to work with so many great folks at APSA. In some ways, it's hard to move on, but we hope that we have made some positive changes as editors of the Review—and we know we leave it in good hands. We thank the new team for assisting in this rather unprecedented transition to a non-US based editorial home. It has been challenging, but in the end it will make the journal and the association better off. We wish Dr. Thomas Koenig and the new team well as they take over this enormously important responsibility. We ask you to support the new team as much as we have been supported by “ya'all” (cannot resist a bit of Texas farewell).
It is our great pleasure to present to you our final issue. We hope that you enjoy reading the following pieces as much as we have. They truly represent the best the discipline has to offer.
In This Issue
Our lead article for this issue directly relates, appropriately enough, given the just-concluded election, to electoral politics in the United States. Using inventive GOTV field experiments that rely on publicly available data, Ali A. Valenzuela and Melissa R. Michelson, in “Turnout, Status, and Identity: Mobilizing Latinos to Vote with Group Appeals,” address a long-standing scholarly debate regarding the effectiveness of ethnic identity- versus national identity-based appeals in the mobilization of minority voters. Their findings demonstrate that both types of identity appeals can have powerful effects on turnout, but only when the contacted individuals have strong prior attachments to the targeted identities.
In a useful methodological contribution, our second article, entitled “Fast Estimation of Ideal Points with Massive Data,” by Kosuke Imai, James Lo, and Jonathan Olmsted, provides a way in which to estimate the ideological positions of political actors when using large data sets, including textual and social media data. The authors propose a fast estimation method for ideal points with massive data, the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm. They then demonstrate how this technique can be used in a variety of different situations. They also provide links to open-source software for readers to use.
What is the best way to write a constitution? Mila Versteeg and Emily Zackin review constitution-writing practices and produce a set of guidelines for thinking about the subject. “Entrenched” constitutions are stable, difficult to amend, and typically concise. Unentrenched constitutions are the reverse. Both approaches may be seen as attempts on the part of the polity to restrain its government, though entrenched constitutions typically rely on a judiciary to hold the government to its constitutional limits. Given the importance of constitution writing in today's world, “Constitutions Unentrenched: Toward an Alternative Theory of Constitutional Design” will help to clarify the issues for polities going forward.
In “The Historical Origins of Territorial Disputes,” Scott F. Abramson and David B. Carter argue that areas where there are multiple and competing historical precedents to current borders will be more conflict-prone. They argue that this reflects the persistent effects on coordination of these historical precedents. Abramson and Carter use original, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) coded data from post-1650 Europe to demonstrate the impact of historical precedents on subsequent disputes.
In “Does Paying Politicians More Promote Economic Diversity in Legislatures?” Nicholas Carnes and Eric R. Hansen address a very important question about inequality and descriptive representation. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that offering higher compensation for public service will encourage those with lower incomes to run for elected office, Carnes and Hanson convincingly demonstrate that representation of the working class is the same or worse in states that pay legislators higher salaries.
John Rawls's philosophy contends with an “assurance problem.” The stability of a democratic system depends on citizens and elites abiding by the proper conception of justice, but what prevents free riding? How can citizens be assured that officials genuinely adhere to Rawlsian justice? “Public reason” is supposed to be the solution to this problem—all who talk the talk are presumed to walk the walk. But talk is cheap, in the view of Brian Kogelmann and Stephen G. W. Stich. In “When Public Reason Fails Us: Convergence Discourse as Blood Oath,” they propose instead convergence discourse. When speaking to diverse constituencies, officials should adopt the language used by that constituency. When speaking to fundamentalist Christians, they should use their language (within the bounds of public reason, of course), and when speaking to Muslims they should use theirs. This represents a firmer commitment, say Kogelmann and Stich, indeed a kind of “blood oath.” It will help keep democratic justice firm, while allowing for appropriate cultural diversity.
“Aid as a Tool against Insurgency: Evidence from Contested and Controlled Territory in Afghanistan,” by Renard Sexton, shows that aid can reduce insurgent violence, but only in locations where military control has been established first. The author shows that in contested districts, aid leads to significant increases in insurgent violence. Sexton also shows that the type of aid matters. Humanitarian projects do not have the same impact on insurgent violence as other types of projects—such as those related to military defense infrastructure.
In “The Democratic Effect of Direct Democracy” Lucas Leeman and Fabio Wasserfallen seek to understand whether, to what extent, and under what conditions direct democratic institutions increase political representation (i.e., the congruence between policy outcomes and public preferences). They develop a formal theoretical model of government decision-making to generate hypotheses about the strength of direct democracy institutions, elite-constituent preference divergence, and policy congruence. They test these hypotheses using data from surveys of Swiss cantonal government officials and residents, combined with econometric approaches to generate canton-level preference estimates. Their analyses confirm the main theoretical predictions, namely that direct democracy increases policy congruence, and that this effect is greater when politicians and constituents differ more in their policy preferences.
In “Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public-Sector Labor Laws,” Sarah F. Anzia and Terry M. Moe develop a compelling theoretical argument about the conditions under which we would expect strategic politicians to enact (or not) policies that should provide downstream political advantages to their party. They test this theory with the adoption of public-sector collective bargaining laws by the states during the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, and they find support for their arguments that politicians frequently have incentives to “make politics” when the political consequences are policy-specific, but when the consequences involve the larger balance of power between the parties, their incentives are diluted by collective action problems.
Charles M. Cameron and Jonathan P. Kastellec ask, “Are Supreme Court Nominations a Move-the-Median Game?” The authors show that Move-the-Median (MTM) theory does less well at predicting “no” votes—and is better at predicting “yes” votes. This suggests that senators are more likely to go along with the president than MTM theory predicts. Cameron and Kastellec conclude that the president has more influence over Supreme Court nominees than MTM theory predicts.
Much of our political theory—and political practice—assumes a common normative language. When we say “rights,” we expect others to have the same conception we do. Yet this is demonstrably not the case. This is a problem that political theory has not yet dealt with, a shortcoming that Yael Peled and Matteo Bonotti seek to overcome in “Tongue-Tied: Rawls, Political Philosophy and Metalinguistic Awareness.” To begin with, once we recognize the problem, they say, we realize that we need to work toward a common language for our civic discourse. But we also need to be open at all times to other languages and the perspectives they have to offer. The subtle analysis of this article will help guide us as we strive to improve our civic discourse today.
Does the consolidation of local government entities truly result in economies of scale? Because the decision to consolidate is seldom random, this question has proven to be difficult to answer and remains a long-standing issue for both scholars and practitioners. Using data that avoid this selection bias, Jens Blom-Hansen, Kurt Houlberg, Søren Serritzlew, and Daniel Treisman, in their article entitled, “Jurisdiction Size and Local Government Performance: Assessing the Effect of Municipal Amalgamation,” find that increasing local governments’ jurisdiction size has no systematic consequences on spending.
In “Do Voters Dislike Working-Class Candidates? Voter Biases and the Descriptive Underrepresentation of the Working Class” Nicholas Carnes and Noam Lupu argue that contrary to the commonly held belief that voters prefer more affluent politicians over leaders from working-class backgrounds, this long-held supposition is not supported by the evidence. Using survey experiments across three countries, they find that voters viewed hypothetical candidates from the working class as equally qualified and just as likely to get their votes.
David Skarbek in “Covenants without the Sword? Comparing Prison Self-Governance Globally” addresses a very basic question—how does political order emerge? To address this question he comparative examines the emergence of prison social orders. Comparing across multiple countries, he argues that inmates create extralegal governance institutions when official governance is insufficient and that what explains decentralized forms (such as informal ostracism) versus centralized forms (e.g., gangs) is a function of the size and demographics of the prison population.
Saul Alinsky is a name that is invoked in the rough-and-tumble of street-level politics but rarely in the pages of scholarly journals. In “The Poor Man's Machiavelli: Saul Alinsky and the Morality of Power,” Vijay Phulwani provides a reading of this pioneering community organizer that teases out his political theory. Alinsky was dubbed “the poor man's Machiavelli” because of his approach to power and interest. He sought to foster “relational power,” which is power formed in partnerships, sometimes with one's opponents. It is Machiavellian in that it seeks to pressure opponents, and Machiavellian also in being willing to cut deals, to make compromises that principle disdains but success requires. In Alinsky's writings, says Phulwani, we find an astute theory of power, of democratic action, of community-building.
Engaging the current debate between “ideal” and “nonideal” theory, Benjamin L. McKean offers a balanced account of the one side and the other, providing a guarded defense of ideal theory. In “What Makes a Utopia Inconvenient? On the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Realist Orientation to Politics,” he draws on the concrete examples of Michele Foucault, Malcolm X, and John Rawls to argue that utopias, even though they are not possible—and may not even be intended to be possible—are practically useful as tools to upset established categories, reorient politics, and produce salutary concrete effects. Their very impracticality, McKean argues, is their practical virtue.
In “Domination and Care in Rousseau's Emile,” Shawn Fraistat argues that Rousseau's educational treatise may fruitfully be seen as a contribution to the tradition of care ethics. Education for Rousseau is a kind of care, according to Fraistat, carefully balanced so that the tutor's position does not become one of domination, but to the contrary fosters a sympathetic and caring disposition in the pupil. This model of education has important political consequences, as it shapes Emile's civic virtue and makes him a good citizen. This argument can help inform our thinking about care ethics and its relation to citizenship today.
INSTRUCTIONS TO CONTRIBUTORS
The American Political Science Review (APSR) publishes scholarly research of exceptional merit, focusing on important issues and demonstrating the highest standards of excellence in conceptualization, exposition, methodology, and craftsmanship. A significant advance in understanding of politics—whether empirical, interpretive, or theoretical—is the criterion for publication in the Review. Because the APSR reaches a diverse audience, authors must demonstrate how their analysis illuminates or answers an important research question of general interest in political science. For the same reason, authors must make their work understandable to as many scholars as possible, consistent with the nature of their material.
While committed to publishing research that is useful and accessible to the whole discipline, the APSR makes every effort to ensure that each submission is reviewed by scholars who are familiar with its substance and methodology. Editorial decisions grounded on those assessments are unlikely to be based on just one empirical benchmark. For example, the strength of quantitative empirical findings cannot be captured by any single criterion, such as the conventional .05 level of statistical significance. Similarly, the validity of an argument advanced in a process tracing case study is unlikely to be judged solely on the grounds that it passed a “smoking gun test.” The journal's editors will evaluate manuscripts on a range of criteria, including substantive significance, theoretical aptness, the importance of the problem under study, methodological rigor, and the feasibility of obtaining additional evidence.
Articles should be self-contained. Authors should not simply refer readers to other publications for descriptions of their basic research procedures (of course, reference to widely used databases, such as the American National Election Study or Polity IV or others, is acceptable and does not require exhaustive description).
The APSR fully expects authors to conform to generally accepted norms concerning the protection of human subjects, and the editors may require certification of appropriate institutional review.Footnote 1
The APSR publishes original work. Submissions should not include tables, figures, or substantial amounts of text that already have been published or are forthcoming in other places. In many cases, republication of such material would violate the copyright of the other publisher. Neither does the APSR consider submissions that are currently under review at other journals or that duplicate or overlap with parts of larger manuscripts submitted to other publishers (whether of books, printed periodicals, or online journals). If scholars have any questions about whether these policies apply to their submission, they should address the issues in a cover letter to the editors or as part of the author comments section during online submission. Authors should also notify the editors of any related submissions to other publishers, whether for book or periodical publication, during the pendency of the submission's review at the APSR—regardless of whether they have yet been accepted. The editors may request copies of related publications.
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Manuscripts that, in the judgment of the co-editors, are largely or entirely critiques of, or commentaries on, articles previously published in the Review may be reviewed for possible inclusion in a forum section (subject to the discretion of the editors), using the same general procedures as for other manuscripts. Well before any publication, however, the Review’s editors will send such manuscripts to the scholar(s) whose work is being addressed, inviting them to comment to the editors and to submit a rejoinder, which also will be peer-reviewed. We do not publish rejoinders to rejoinders.
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Data Access, Production Transparency, and Analytic Transparency
The APSR expects authors to comply with the access and transparency obligations described on pp. 8–10 of APSA's A Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science (2012). Researchers have an ethical responsibility to facilitate the evaluation of their evidence-based knowledge claims so that their work can be fully evaluated, including through replication when appropriate, or by providing sufficient evidence to permit others to develop their own interpretation from the materials. This involves providing access to the data or evidence underlying their analysis, and achieving production and analytic transparency. All relevant materials should be made available in a trusted digital repository (such as a partner in the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS)) or through the APSR’s online appendices (housed with Cambridge University Press).Footnote 2 More specifically:
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• Data access: Authors making evidence-based knowledge claims should provide clear and complete citations to the evidence that support those claims in the reference section of the article; citations should include a “persistent identifier” (e.g., a “digital object identifier” or DOI). Authors should also provide comprehensive documentation that describes the data or evidence in full (see below for more specific guidance on references). Authors are expected to make these data available if they themselves generated or collected them. However, if the protection of human subjects requires nondisclosure, if confidentiality agreements prohibit disclosure, if data are under legal constraint (i.e., they are classified, proprietary, or copyrighted), and/or if the logistical burden of sharing relevant data would be particularly high, the author will inform the editor at the time of submission. The editors can grant an exception with or without conditions, and may require an explanation of the restriction(s) prior to publication of the piece.
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• Production transparency: Researchers providing access to evidence they themselves collected and/or generated are expected to offer a full account of the context in which the data were collected and/or generated and the procedures used to collect and/or generate them. They should also make available any research instruments they used (e.g., interview protocols, coding protocols, procedures for identifying appropriate informants). Researchers whose claims are based on analysis of a dataset they created themselves should clearly describe how they assembled the dataset.
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• Analytic transparency: Researchers making evidence-based knowledge claims should clearly map the path from the evidence to the claims. In addition to information provided in the article's main text and footnotes, this path should be mapped in ways that correspond with the methodology employed. For example, researchers may wish to provide software code and associated supplemental material or a methodological appendix; or they can attach a transparency appendix (TRAX, see note [4] below). Generally, it is expected that researchers should make available materials sufficient to allow others to fully understand and, where relevant and applicable, reproduce their results.
These guidelines apply to all research in political science that combines evidence and analysis to reach conclusions. The APSR recognizes, however, that the general principles will be put into practice differently in different research traditions: different types of materials and information can be provided in different ways.Footnote 3
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• For example, for survey research, along with providing the parts of the dataset that they analyzed, authors might provide sampling procedures, response rates, and question wordings; and a calculation of response rates according to one of the standard formulas given by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Standard: Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys (Lenexa, KS: AAPOR, 2006).Footnote 4 For observational data, authors should list the dataset in the reference section of their article, and provide the parts of the dataset that they analyzed.
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• For example, for articles that analyze a qualitative dataset in aggregate (e.g., if using QCA/fs), authors should list the dataset in the reference section of their article, and provide the parts of the dataset that they analyzed. Where authors draw on individual data sources (e.g., books, interviews, newspaper articles, videos) as distinct inputs to the analysis, each source must be cited, and then listed in the reference section of their article. Whenever possible (within the confines of human subject protections and other exceptions mentioned in the section Data Access), authors should share the relevant fragment of sources that support contested or central empirical claims and make the original sources available to other researchers. If the evidence used to create the dataset or the individual sources were collected and/or generated by the author, she should provide a methodological appendix or section in the paper (that explains how the evidence was collected and/or generated and selected for citation), and all relevant evidence-collection instruments. These and analytical transparency requirements can be satisfied for qualitative research using individual sources by preparing a transparency appendix (TRAX) if the author chooses to do so.Footnote 5
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• For example, to achieve transparency in experimental research, authors can provide full descriptions of experimental protocols, methods of subject recruitment and selection, payments to subjects, debriefing procedures, and so on.
Similarly, analytical transparency should be provided in ways that are relevant for the type of research that was undertaken, and the inferential and interpretive steps the author took to reach a conclusion.
At the time a manuscript is submitted to the APSR for review, authors must provide the main text, notes, bibliographic references, and any tables and diagrams. If they so choose (but this is not required), authors may also provide the underlying evidence, and information needed to achieve production and analytic transparency, as supplemental materials. These supplemental materials may be submitted as a file accompanying the manuscript submission or authors may provide a hyperlink to a trustworthy digital repository where the materials reside. Although not a requirement for submission, data access and production and analytical transparency materials may make the manuscript more understandable and more compelling for reviewers.
By the time the manuscript is published in the journal, the underlying data and materials necessary to meet APSA's data access, production transparency, and analytic transparency standards must be available in a trusted digital repository (such as a partner in the Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences (Data-PASS)) or through the APSR’s online appendices (housed with Cambridge University Press), which are made accessible when the article is published.
For articles that include candidate gene or candidate gene-by-environment studies, the APSR uses the same policy as the journal Behavior Genetics Footnote 6 . In relevant part, that policy states that an article will normally be considered for publication only if it meets one or more of the following criteria:
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• It was an exploratory study or test of a novel hypothesis, but with an adequately powered, direct replication study reported in the same paper.
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• It was an exploratory analysis or test of a novel hypothesis in the context of an adequately powered study, and the finding meets the statistical criteria for genome-wide significance—taking into account all sources of multiple testing (e.g., phenotypes, genotypes, environments, covariates, subgroups).
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• It is a rigorously conducted, adequately powered, direct replication study of a previously reported result.
Manuscript Formatting
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Specific Procedures
Please follow these specific procedures for submission:
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1. Before submitting any manuscript to the APSR, download a PDF of the Transfer of Copyright Agreement from the Editorial Manager login page at http://www.editorialmanager.com/apsr and be sure its terms and requirements, as well as the permissions granted to authors under its provisions, are acceptable to you. A signed agreement will be required for all work published in this journal.
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3. You will also be required to upload a minimum of two separate files:
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a) An “anonymous” digital file of your submission, which should not include any information that identifies the authors. Also excluded should be the names of any other collaborators in the work (including research assistants or creators of tables or figures). Likewise do not provide in-text links to any online databases used that are stored on any personal web sites or at institutions with which any of the co-authors are affiliated. Do not otherwise thank colleagues or include institution names, web addresses, or other potentially identifying information.
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b) A separate title page should include the full manuscript title, plus names and contact information (mailing address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address) for all credited authors, in the order their names should appear, as well as each author's academic rank and institutional affiliation. You may also include any acknowledgments or other author notes about the development of the research (e.g., previous presentations of it) as part of this separate title page. In the case of multiple authors, indicate which should receive all correspondence from the APSR. You may also choose to include a cover letter.
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4. If your previous publications are cited, please do so in a way that does not make the authorship of the work being submitted to the APSR obvious. This is usually best accomplished by referring to yourself and any co-authors in the third person and including normal references to the work cited within the list of references. Your prior publications should be included in the reference section in their normal alphabetical location. Assuming that in-text references to your previous work are in the third person, you should not redact self-citations and references (possible exceptions being any work that is “forthcoming” in publication, and that may not be generally accessible to others). Manuscripts with potentially compromised anonymity may be returned, potentially delaying the review processes.
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5. Please make sure the file contains all tables, figures, appendices, and references cited in the manuscript.
Tables and Figures
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References
References should be listed in a separate section headed “REFERENCES.” All listed references must be cited in the text, and vice versa. Publication information for each reference must be complete and correct.
References should be listed in alphabetical order by authors’ last names; include first names and middle initials for all authors when available. For works with more than one author, only the name of the first author is inverted (e.g., “King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba”). List all authors; using “et al.” in the reference list is not acceptable.
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List two or more entries by the same author(s) in the order of the year of publication, and substitute three m-dashes for the author's last name in the second and subsequent entries. If two or more cited works are by the same author(s) within the same year, list them in alphabetical order by title and distinguish them by adding the letters a, b, c, etc., to the year (or to “Forthcoming”).
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