The editorial team is pleased to release the Spring 2022 issue of Politics and the Life Sciences (PLS), volume 41 issue 1. It includes possibly the fullest range of articles of any issue of PLS, from Research Articles and Notes to Perspective Essays, Research Tool Reports, and Book Reviews. The articles include topics related to political behavior and institutions as well as biopolitical philosophy. Among the articles is a pre-registered study that was to be published in the Fall 2020 special issue on “Disgust and Political Attitudes,” but floods and a pandemic led to “science interrupted,” leaving Parma and Arceneaux (Reference Parma and Arceneaux2022) to demonstrate how to adjust when science is not just interrupted, it is disrupted. It also includes a response to Rubenson’s (Reference Rubenson2021) “Tie my hands loosely: Pre-analysis plans in political science” from McDermott (Reference McDermott2022) entitled “Breaking free: How pre-registration hurts scholars and science.” And, unfortunately, in the final pages colleagues remember Steve Peterson, a founder of the discipline of biopolitics and a dear colleague to many (Stewart et al., Reference Stewart, Blank, Bucy and Fletcher2022).
With much gratitude, the editorial team thanks the reviewers of both issues of volume 40, who graciously volunteered their valuable time and knowledge to the journal, its contributors, and, more broadly, the scientific endeavor. Seventy-three reviewers shared these invaluable resources in 2021:
In 2021, the journal celebrated its fortieth anniversary of publishing. In review, the journal received submissions from 14 different countries including countries in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Half of submissions came from contributors based outside the United States. While the acceptance rate varied by article type, the combined acceptance rate for Research Articles and Research Notes was about one in three. Mounting evidence suggests open access (OA) articles, which are freely available online, receive relatively greater attention from other researchers, including citations (e.g., Atchison & Bull, Reference Atchison and Bull2015). To expand the impact of the journal and its authors, in 2021 the editorial team intentionally promoted OA publication to authors eligible for no-cost OA through one of Cambridge University Press’ “Read and Publish” agreements. In the first year of this effort, seven PLS articles were published OA.
Of other note, volume 41 marks the journal’s long-expected transition to online-only publication. Forty years of hard-copy print is a significant tradition to turn away from, but this transition was a contractual part of the move to Cambridge University Press, which has brought the journal many important benefits. Further, the editorial team welcomes Asheley Landrum, Assistant Professor of science communication at Texas Tech University, to the new role of Associate Editor for Letters. Letters are brief, scientific reports (up to 1000 words) about an emerging research topic in biopolitics. They are structured and argued scientifically with appropriate citations and are strictly non-partisan. The move to online-only publication is especially beneficial for Letters as they now become more accessible as part of each issue instead of only appearing on a special page on the PLS Cambridge Core website. It also welcomes Gigi Gronvall to the Editorial Board. She is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. As well, the editorial team gives its sincerest thanks to Amy Fletcher, who leaves her role as a long-time Associate Editor of PLS. The journal and countless contributors have benefited from her thoughtful advice.
Finally, the editorial team thanks the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, the scientific society that founded PLS and has supported it for the last 40 years, including a special program that has regularly funded selected research in recent years. And it thanks Cambridge University Press, the journal’s publisher, for its ongoing support and promotion of the journal and the scientific endeavor in 2021.
