Editors' Note

Abstract

With this note we would like to introduce you to the first issue of the Swiss Political Science Review (SPSR) published entirely under our direction. Over the past two decades, since its inception in 1995, the SPSR has developed into an internationally known journal of the political science community. It is our primary aim to maintain that reputation, if not to improve it even further. Before we outline the five main activities to be taken in that endeavour, a few general comments on the character of the SPSR are in order, also as a reflection on the journal's 20th anniversary this year. The SPSR is a Sonderfall in the community of peer-reviewed political science journals, for at least three reasons. First of all, as the official journal of the Swiss Political Science Association (SPSA), it has a higher input-legitimacy than non-association journals, so to speak. Its roots can be traced back to the Annuaire de l'Association Suisse de Science Politique/Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft, published between 1961 and 1994.11 In 1965, its title was changed to Annuaire suisse de science politique/Schweizerisches Jahrbuch für Politische Wissenschaft, and in 1986 to SVPW Jahrbuch/Annuaire ASSP. All these issues can be accessed here: http://retro.seals.ch/digbib/fr/vollist?id2=browse1&UID=svp-001&id=browse. Second, the SPSR is the only peer-reviewed journal in political science that accepts articles written in French, English, German, or Italian.22 It is not, however, the only Web of Science-listed quadrilingual journal: the Journal of Education, Psicologia & Sociedade, Educação & Sociedade, Inovar and Tempo, for example, all publish articles in Portuguese, Spanish, English or French (and sometimes the same article in two or even three languages). This is of course due to the multi-lingual nature of Switzerland itself and, accordingly, also of the SPSA. Thirdly, the editorialship of the SPSR is based on a rotating, almost “federal” principle: We have taken over from Florence Passy (University of Lausanne) and Cédric Dupont (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva), who were SPSR editors between 2011 and October 2013. Before them, the editors were Daniele Caramani (University of St. Gall, 2007–10), Klaus Armingeon (University of Berne, 2004–06), Dietmar Braun (University of Lausanne, 2001–04), Thomas Bernauer (ETH Zurich, 1999–2001), and Pierre Allan (University of Geneva, 1995–99). Nevertheless, to be a 20-year-old, multilingual, editorially rotating, SPSA-supported journal is not enough to persist in the global market of scientific knowledge generation and dissemination. As part of our strategy to further enhance the profile of the SPSR, we have therefore decided to work along five key dimensions: With a five-year impact factor for 2012 of 0.495, the SPSR currently ranks 86th out of 116. Among other things, we wish to increase this widely accepted measure of quality over the next three years, that is by the time our term as editors of the SPSR will have ended and a new team from a different university will take over. To do so we will continue the rigorous selection procedure while at the same time trying to maintain our current average turnaround (time from manuscript submission to editorial communication of first decision) of 73 days. However, to successfully steer our course along the five axes outlined above would be impossible without the numerous contributions by scholars working in the most diverse sub-disciplines of Swiss and comparative political science. They contribute both in the form of article authors (124 original submissions over the years 2012 and 2013) and when acting as peer-reviewers (we received a total of 252 reviews in that same period). Finally, we would also very much like to thank both the outgoing and the continuing members of the International Advisory Board for their assistance, as well as welcome its new members. The new Editorial Committee now consists entirely of professors based at the University of Berne. It is to this community of scholars – SPSA members, authors, reviewers, readers, and Board and Committee members – that we would like to dedicate an even better, Switzerland-based, Swiss and comparative politics oriented and multilingual journal in the form of the SPSR. Thank you all for your time, your efforts and your continued trust in us.