The Leading Journal of Political Science Research

The American Political Science Review (APSR) is political science’s premier scholarly research journal, providing peer-reviewed articles and review essays from subfields throughout the discipline. Areas covered include political theory, American politics, public policy, public administration, comparative politics, and international relations. APSR has published continuously since 1906. View more journal information on the Cambridge University Press’ website.

We seek proposals from: 

teams at a single institution or multiple institutions, and/or

individuals interested in editing submissions from a particular subfield and/or methodological orientation who are interested in joining a larger team.

The selected team or a team organized based on individuals’ proposals will be expected to: 

• Develop a plan to sustain and build the journal’s strong reputation in the discipline. 
• Create a comprehensive outreach strategy for the journal to encourage submissions from a wide range of methods and subfields, as well as from authors reflecting the variety of APSA members and their institutions. 
• Demonstrate an understanding of the challenges that high submission rates pose to academic journals and articulate strategies to manage the manuscript load. 
• Continue the transition to Open Access publication and collaborate with multiple open research platforms such as APSA Preprints and Dataverse. 
• Display a strong commitment to ethics in research and publishing, and to transparency in the editorial process. 
• Contribute to discussions about and develop ethical and responsible policies regarding artificial intelligence at the journal. 
• Imagine/propose innovative uses of APSA financial resources (listed below) for compensating editorial team members for their work on the journal 

Proposals for full editorial teams will be evaluated on the following: 

1. Vision for the future of the journal under your editorship, including planned innovations and strategies for addressing challenges such as the growing number of article submissions. APSR currently receives over 2,000 article submissions per year from all areas of political science. Where relevant, your proposal should also address challenges you anticipate from any potential constraints on academic freedom. 
2. Comprehensive strategy for the journal to ensure a broad approach to encouraging submissions, reviewing, authorship, methods, and subfield representation.  
3. Proposed editorial process and how you would conduct (or contribute to) peer review and manage the overall process. 
4. CVs and an outline of previous journal or editing experience in political science. 
5. Budget including the financial support of your institution(s), the requested amount from APSA and how it will be used, and any innovative strategies to increase revenue/lower costs. 

Proposals from individuals interested in joining an editorial team will be evaluated with similar criteria, but from the vantage point of contributions the scholar can bring to a broader team. Applications from individuals may be used to form a wholly new group. Alternatively, to maximize flexibility, APSA may also approach the editors of a team to gauge their willingness to add individuals to their proposed team. In the latter case, the editors will have full discretion to decide whether they prefer their team proposal to be considered with or without the additional individuals. 

APSA provides the following resources for the editor and Journal: 

• A dedicated Managing Editor based at APSA. 
• Editorial Manager manuscript submission and peer review system. 
• Copyediting and electronic production services. 
• Hosting an editorial board meeting every year at the APSA Annual Meeting or virtually. 
• Reporting on bibliometrics (citations, downloads, Altmetric, etc.) to inform decision-making. 
• Financial support to be used for course releases, graduate student support, and honoraria/summer support.  

The editorship is typically a four-year term that begins on June 1, 2028 with a possible two-year renewal with approval from the APSA Council. However, we are open to submissions that propose other term limits and configurations. (For example, a team might propose that the lead editors serve a four-year term, but that the sub-field associate editors serve renewable two-year terms, giving lead editors the flexibility to add new associate editors for their third and fourth years.) The search committee will help select the editorial team, and their recommendations will be submitted to APSA Council for approval at their Spring 2027 meeting. The selected applicant(s) will be contacted shortly thereafter. 

Submission Details

Interested parties are encouraged to submit a letter of intent by December 15, 2026, with full proposals due by January 29, 2027. Applications should be submitted to Jon Gurstelle at jgurstelle@apsanet.org no later than January 29, 2027.  

Editorial teams should indicate their proposed membership, affiliated institutions, and potential institutional support for the journal. Individuals interested in joining a team should also submit a one-page letter of intent indicating their interests and potential institutional support.  

In addition, nominations of potential candidates are welcome, and the search committee may contact nominees to determine their interest in applying. Please send any nominations to Jon Gurstelle, APSA Publishing Director, at jgurstelle@apsanet.org by no later than December 1, 2026. Complete proposals are due by January 29, 2027.  

Informative Sessions

All are welcome to join the following information sessions on Zoom with members of the search committee. Please click the links below to join at the specified time:

• December 11, 2026, 9:00AM EST
• December 11, 2026, 4:00PM EST
• January 11, 2027, 9:00AM EST
• January 11, 2027, 4:00PM EST

APSR Editor Search Committee

• Jane Junn, Chair, University of Southern California (junn@usc.edu) 
• Colin Elman, Syracuse University (celman@syr.edu) 
• Mai Hassan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mhass@mit.edu) 
• Yusaku Horiuchi, Florida State University (yusaku.horiuchi@fsu.edu) 
• Samantha Majic, John Jay College CUNY (samantha.majic69@login.cuny.edu)