In this issue we start with three articles that focus on women and politics. Although we do not publish special issues (and what appears in each issue really depends on the manuscripts we receive), we are very fortunate to be able to publish together three articles that address different aspects of women and politics. These pieces approach the topic from different epistemological angles, and represent different subfields in the discipline. We are very pleased to be able to highlight, collectively, as our “lead articles” the first three pieces in this issue.
In this issue of the Review, as with previous issues, we present articles that ask important questions for both scholars and practitioners, such as: How do women political activists develop? From where does the gender gap in political ambition emerge? What is the source of the gender gap in political ambition? Do quotas as they are currently constructed really work to alleviate the gender gap in politics? What were the real lessons about education (including differing educations for young men and young women) from Rousseau's Emile? What are the effects of terrorism on political attitudes? Are state governments really responsive to the political preferences of voters? Does coopting local elites effectively deal with insurgencies (a topic very much being discussed these days given the recent events regarding the Sunni uprising in Iraq)? And finally, what really causes state repression?
As always, we seek to publish work that speaks to a broad audience of scholars, and on topics that also may have important implications for policy makers and practitioners as well. Further, in keeping with our vision of the Review as the leading journal in our discipline, we seek (and will continue to seek) to publish the most innovative work in the field.
In this Issue
Our first three articles constitute the “collective lead” articles for this issue. Thus our cover reflects the historical importance of women activists, the role that gender socialization plays in political behavior, and whether the way in which policy makers have thought about quotas is the most effective way to deal with the gender gap.
In “When Canvassers Became Activists: Antislavery Petitioning and the Political Mobilization of American Women,” Daniel Carpenter and Colin D. Moore engage in meticulous and detailed historical research. Employing a data set based on thousands of antislavery petitions that were sent to Congress in the first half of the 19th century, they find that women who engaged in the simple act of walking door to door to collect signatures on antislavery petitions gained political skills and networks that facilitated their later activism for women's political rights. The women who served as canvassers did so at a time when few avenues for political activism were open to them. Perhaps for this reason, the act of canvassing became a crucial training ground for these women's later political activism.
Today, gender differences in political ambition persist, and Richard L. Fox and Jennifer L. Lawless investigate when and why this gap emerges in “Uncovering the Origins of the Gender Gap in Political Ambition.” They survey high school and college students, and find that there are gender differences in political ambition among both groups. However, they also find that the gender gap in political ambition widens considerably during the college years. Although they allow that they must be careful in the interpretation of their findings because they do not have panel data, they venture an explanation for the fact that the gender gap in political ambition widens during the college years.
The use of quotas to address the underrepresentation of women in legislatures has become the subject of criticism from people on either end of the ideological spectrum. What would likely happen if the target population for quotas was shifted to men? In “Quotas for Men: Reframing Gender Quotas as a Means of Improving Representation for All,” Rainbow Murray provides a provocative answer to this question. In doing so, Murray calls for a normative shift in thinking toward the problem of overrepresentation, arguing that “the quality of representation is negatively affected by having too large a group drawn from too narrow a talent pool.”
In “The Illustrative Education of Rousseau's Emile,” John T. Scott uses the engravings Rousseau commissioned for his educational treatise/novel to uncover some of the hidden secrets of the work. Scott shows that Rousseau, who dictated the content of the graphics in great detail, uses them to deepen the reader's understanding of the lessons of Emile. The engravings all use subjects from ancient mythology, but sometimes alter the mythic story in depicting it. The differences between the original myth and Rousseau's use of it are instructive in each case. Within Emile, Scott shows how Rousseau creates a dynamic relationship between image and text, and between both and the reader. By drawing all these threads together, Scott gives us a deeper appreciation of the genius of Rousseau's work.
“The Politics of Precedent in International Law: A Social Network Approach” examines the element of politics found in appeals to international tribunals and international law. Focusing on trade disputes, Krzystof J. Pelc finds that while nations often initiate disputes for domestic political reasons, they sometimes do so in order to set precedents. It is often maintained that precedent has no force in international law, but Pelc finds that nations deliberately use disputes to create precedents that they may rely on later. Using an original data set that portrays trade rulings as a network, he illustrates that nations sometimes bring minor cases in order to pave the way for favorable rulings in later, higher-stakes disputes.
Scott Ashworth and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita ask a provocative question and present a thought-provoking theory in “Is Voter Competence Good for Voters?: Information, Rationality, and Democratic Performance.” The authors contend that the literature on voting behavior does not sufficiently take into consideration that voters react to the incentives placed before them by the (anticipated) behavior of politicians. Through a series of formal models, complemented by highly readable arguments that explain their logic, the authors show that knowledge about the candidates and the issues sometimes benefits the voters and at other times does not. In other words, Ashworth and Bueno de Mesquita suggest that whether it is good to be a well-informed voter is contingent upon the strategic interaction between voters and politicians.
In “Terrorism and Voting: The Effect of Rocket Threat on Voting in Israeli Elections,” Anna Getmansky and Thomas Zeitzoff investigate the effect of living within the range of rocket fire on voting behavior. They use data from several subsequent Israeli elections during a period in which the rocket range extended to additional areas. This allows the authors to observe the impact on voters who had not previously been exposed to this form of terrorism. They find that right-wing parties gain vote share in areas that are in the rocket range, irrespective of incumbency. The authors conclude that this shift suggests that voters who live under the threat of terrorism (in the form of rocket attacks) are, as a result, more likely to elect candidates who are less willing to make concessions. This, in turn, contributes to the continuation of the conflict.
How responsive and intentional are local governments to the ideological preferences of their citizens? How do various institutional structures that exist in municipal governments help to explain policies enacted? In “Representation in Municipal Government,” Chris Tausanovitch and Christopher Warshaw answer these questions using a multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) model to measure the mean policy conservatism in every U.S. city and town with a population above 20,000 people. They find that the policies enacted by local policy makers usually correspond with the liberal-conservative positions of their citizens and that the institutional structure has little consistent impact.
Jeremy Ferwerda and Nicholas L. Miller in “Political Devolution and Resistance to Foreign Rule: A Natural Experiment” address a central question in the literature on foreign occupation and insurgency (a very timely piece particularly in the wake of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and recent events in Iraq): Do foreign occupiers face less resistance when they increase the level of native governing authority? Using a natural experiment (and an original data set collected from a variety of archival sources) when comparing insurgent activities in German Occupied France and Vichy-controlled areas, they provide evidence that granting political authority to the occupied populace reduces resistance to foreign rule (the evidence is of causal effect, not just correlation). They argue that this is due to cooptation of local political elites (as opposed to dampened nationalism among the natives), and is expected only among the group to whom power is extended. They show that resistance to Germans and to the Vichy government was lower in Vichy areas than in German-controlled areas, and especially in right-wing areas in Vichy (but not in right-wing areas in German-controlled territory). The latter is evidence for what they call the “cooptation mechanism.” This is a very important piece, which demonstrates the benefits of cooptation and not repression (which has important implications for countries where one part of the population feels “occupied” by another).
What are the causes of state repression? Have political scientists been using appropriate models to investigate this? These are the questions asked by Daniel W. Hill, Jr. and Zachary M. Jones, in “An Empirical Evaluation of Explanations for State Repression.” They find that the confidence given to some of the most common variables in the current literature is misplaced. Moreover, they allege, current studies are based on data that themselves are tailored to fit an unreliable “standard model” of state repression, making the shortcomings of the model all but invisible to researchers. Relying on cross-validation and random forests techniques, they find that while some of the variables in the standard model perform well, others do not. Meanwhile, they identify some variables that have been largely ignored, that perform quite well. Their work promises to re-shape the study of state repression going forward.
In the article “‘I wld like u WMP to extend electricity 2 our village’: On Information Technology and Interest Articulation,” Guy Grossman, Macartan Humphreys, and Gabriella Sacramone-Lutz address how access to information technology lowers the threshold for the poor in communicating with politicians. Contrary to the long-held belief that technology largely benefits the privileged, they find that access to information communication technology (ICT) increases participation in politics by marginalized groups. Using the case of Uganda, the authors demonstrate that by lowering the cost of ICT, access to communication channels increases dramatically for marginalized populations.
Finally, Xiaobo Lü and Pierre F. Landry in “Show Me the Money: Interjurisdiction Political Competition and Fiscal Extraction in China” make a very interesting argument regarding competition among local elites in an authoritarian regime, in this case China. They argue that competition in authoritarian regimes between county apparatchiks engenders a specific logic for taxation. Promotion-seeking local officials are incentivized to signal loyalty and competence to their principals through tangible fiscal revenues. The more officials there are the more intense the competition and as a result, higher taxation. However, there is a point at which there are too many officials to be accountable, which leads to lower taxation due to shirking. The authors employ a unique panel data set of all Chinese county-level jurisdictions from 1999 to 2006, and find strong support for their arguments.
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 strive to be understandable to as many scholars as possible, consistent with the nature of their material.
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 you have any questions about whether these policies apply in your case, you should address the issues in a cover letter to the editors or as part of the author comments section during online submission. You should also notify the editors of any related submissions to other publishers, whether for book or periodical publication, during the pendency of your submission's review at the APSR—regardless of whether they have yet been accepted. The editors may request copies of related publications.
The APSR uses a double-blind review process. You should follow the guidelines for preparing an anonymous submission in the “Specific Procedures” section that follows.
If your manuscript contains quantitative evidence and analysis, you should describe your procedures in sufficient detail to permit reviewers to understand and evaluate what has been done and—in the event the article is accepted for publication—to permit other scholars to replicate your results and to carry out similar analyses on other data sets. With surveys, for example, provide sampling procedures, response rates, and question wordings; calculate response rates according to one of the standard formulas given by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Standard Definitions: Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys (Lenexa, KS: AAPOR, 2006).Footnote 1 For experiments, provide full descriptions of experimental protocols, methods of subject recruitment and selection, payments to subjects, debriefing procedures, and so on. In any case involving human subjects, the editors may require certification of appropriate institutional review and/or conformity with generally accepted norms.Footnote 2
The strength of evidence necessary for publication of quantitative empirical findings cannot be captured by any single criterion, such as the conventional .05 level of statistical significance. The journal's coeditors— following the evolving disciplinary standard among reviewers—will evaluate the strength of findings on a range of criteria beyond statistical significance, including substantive significance, theoretical aptness, the importance of the problem under study, and the feasibility of obtaining additional evidence.
In addition, authors of quantitative or experimental articles are expected to address the issue of data availability. You must normally indicate both where (online) you will deposit the information that is necessary to reproduce the numerical results and when that information will be posted (such as “on publication” or “by [definite date]”). You should be prepared, when posting, to provide not only the data used in the analysis but also the syntax files, specialized software, and any other information necessary to reproduce the numerical results in the manuscript. Where an exception is claimed, you should clearly explain why the data or other critical materials used in the manuscript cannot be shared, or why they must be embargoed for a limited period beyond publication.
Similarly, authors of qualitative, observational, or textual articles, or of articles that combine such methods with quantitative analysis, should indicate their sources fully and clearly enough to permit ready verification by other scholars—including precise page references to any published material cited and clear specification (e.g., file number) of any archival sources. Wherever possible, use of interactive citations is encouraged. Where field or observational research is involved, anonymity of participants will always be respected; but the texts of interviews, group discussions, observers’ notes, etc., should be made available on the same basis (and subject to the same exceptions) as with quantitative data.
For articles that include candidate gene or candidate gene-by-environment studies, APSR uses the same policy as the journal Behavior Genetics.Footnote 3 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.
Articles should be self-contained; you should not simply refer readers to other publications for descriptions of these basic research procedures.
Please indicate variables included in statistical analyses by italicizing the entire name of the variable—the first time it is mentioned in the text—and by capitalizing its first letter in all uses. You should also use the same names for variables in text, tables, and figures. Do not use acronyms or computational abbreviations when discussing variables in the text. All variables that appear in tables or figures should have been mentioned in the text, standard summary statistics (n, mean, median, standard deviation, range, etc.) provided, and the reason for their inclusion discussed. However, tables and figures should also be comprehensible without reference to the text (e.g., in any figures, axes should be clearly labeled). Please bear in mind also that neither the published or online versions of the Review normally can provide figures in color; be sure that a grayscale version will be comprehensible to referees and readers.
You may be asked to submit additional documentation if procedures are not sufficiently clear. If you advise readers that additional information is available on request, you should submit equally anonymous copies of that information with your manuscript as “supplemental materials.” If this additional information is extensive, please inquire about alternate procedures.
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The APSR accepts only electronic submissions (at www.editorialmanager.com/apsr). The website provides detailed information about how to submit, what formatting is required, and what type of digital files may be uploaded. Please direct any questions regarding new submissions to the journal's editorial offices at apsr@unt.edu.
Manuscript Formatting
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Specific Procedures
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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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2. When you submit (at www.editorialmanager.com/apsr), you will be invited to provide a short list of appropriate reviewers of your manuscript. Do not include on this list anyone who has already commented on the research included in your submission. Likewise, exclude any of your current or recent collaborators, institutional colleagues, mentors, students, or close friends. You may also “oppose” potential reviewers by name, as potentially biased or otherwise inappropriate, but you will be expected to provide specific reasons. The editors will refer to these lists in selecting reviewers, though there can be no guarantee that this will influence final reviewer selections.
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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 websites 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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INDEXING
Articles appearing in the APSR before June 1953 were indexed in The Reader's Guide to PeriodicalLiterature. Current issues are indexed in ABC Pol Sci; America, History and Life 1954–; Book Review Index; Current Contents: Social and Behavioral Sciences; EconLit; Energy Information Abstracts; Environmental Abstracts; Historical Abstracts; Index of Economic Articles; Information Service Bulletin; International Bibliography of Book Reviews of Scholarly Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences; International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences; International Index; International Political Science Abstracts; the Journal of Economic Literature; Periodical Abstracts; Public Affairs; Public Affairs Information Service International Recently Published Articles; Reference Sources; Social Sciences and Humanities Index; Social Sciences Index; Social Work Research and Abstracts; and Writings on American History. Some of these sources may be available in electronic form through local public or educational libraries. Microfilm of the APSR, beginning with Volume 1, and the index of the APSR through 1969 are available through University Microfilms Inc., 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 (www.umi.com). The Cumulative Index to the American Political Science Review, Volumes 63 to 89: 1969–95, is available through the APSA.
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