This study examines the profile of contributors of full-length articles to the American Political Science Review (APSR) in 2010. Of the 79 different contributors, almost 9 (86.1%) out of every 10 are men. Whites accounted for over 9 (93.7%) out of every 10 contributors. Full professors accounted for 35%, the highest rate, with assistant professors accounting for 31 percent. Yale University, Harvard University, University of Illinois-Champaign, Florida State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California-San Diego, and the University of Chicago, all employ 3 or more of these contributors. Almost 94% of the contributors have a Ph.D. Almost 89% of the contributors earned their terminal or highest degrees in political science/government. Harvard University, the University of Chicago, the University of Rochester, the University of California-Berkeley, and Duke University, all conferred 4 or more terminal or highest degrees to these contributors. The study presents explanations for these results, focusing on the underrepresentation of women and minorities.Keywords: human progress, gender, race, university rankings, endowments, elitism
IntroductionBy 2013, among the three sister social science disciplines of economics, political science and sociology, political science is now second to economics in terms of the total number of scholarly publications examining various aspects of their disciplines. A substantial proportion of these scholarly articles either focus only on the American Political Science Review (APSR) or along with other political science journals, or comparison of APSR with the top journals in economics, sociology and other journals in and outside of the social sciences. With its first issue published in 1906, the APSR has become the discipline's top ranked journal and one of the top ranked journals in and outside of the social sciences. Others have claimed that the APSR is the top ranked political science journal in the world. Scholars who publish in the APSR can be employed at the top ranked colleges and universities not just in the United States, but also the world. They can also get promoted and have the opportunity to earn higher salaries and benefits. They are among the scholars who get very large sums of research grants from governments or foundations. They have substantial influence over the U.S. federal government and other governments in the world. The APSR like the top economics journal in the U.S., the American Economic Review (AER) are known as international journals, which means that students and scholars, policy makers and other elites in the U.S. and abroad tend to read them and the authors that publish in them are from all over the world. So once one publish an article in the APSR, he or she can become internationally known, which benefits the institutions that employ them (Ballard & Mitchell, 1998;Breuning & Sanders, 2007;De Rond & Miller, 2005;Evans & Moulder, 2011;Finifter, 1998;Fisher et al., 1998;Garand et al., 2009;Garand & Graddy, 1999;Garand & G...