What’s up with Political Theory?

Well, now that Bevir has posted to PTRM explaining that, under the circumstances, he’s offered Sage his resignation (is that even possible before you assume a position to resign from?), the issue is practically moot. (The admin says that s/he’s gotten direct confirmation from Bevir under separate cover.) Moreover, apparently a VP at Sage has sent a letter to the editorial board explaining that the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. (No, I don’t believe it either.)

But here’s one thing that I noticed about the whole conversation. Every post I saw on the topic at PTRM framed Dietz’s firing and Bevir’s hiring as a question of feuds between different schools of political theory/philosophy, or as a byproduct of the struggle for academic market share between Political Theory, Ethics, History of Political Thought, and Philosophy and Public Affairs, or as an institutional play for power for its own sake on the part of the publisher. Which is to say, everyone saw the whole affair between professional and institutional blinkers.

No one that I saw even considered the possibility that Sage might have been replacing editorial personnel in order to change not the philosophical or intellectual nature, but the marketing orientation, of the journal–perhaps to further increase its profit potential: start by claiming the power to appoint the editorial staff yourself, then slowly introduce people willing to, say, consider publishing articles on a pay-to-publish basis (costs borne by the department or school, of course), or to tie editorial judgment in with marketing plans (textbook or online-forum crossover plans, maybe), or other such means of squeezing revenue out of scholarly activity. Whether such ideas would be harebrained or not is hardly the point.

Given the nature of journal publishing anymore, where firms like Sage and Elsevier think of their journals as profit engines first and charge enormous amounts for subscriptions, I’m amazed–though perhaps I shouldn’t be–that people immediately leaped to the conclusion that this must be a Berkeley against the world thing, or a Habermas vs. Foucault thing, or a history-of political-thought-vs.-critical-theory thing, or an administration-vs.-faculty thing, or what have you, and ignored the possibility that it’s all about the Benjamins (Franklin, not Barber).

Stuart, the academics that created the web (high-energy physicists) have abandoned academic publishing almost completely. Everything happens via the arXiv website.

Stuart: it is impossible to get decent formatting of mathematical formulae in html (most blogs with mathematical content resort to bitmap images for that part, but that’s not a great solution either). Or in Word, for that matter. LaTeX is the solution, and pdf produced from LaTeX sources is what arXiv serves.

Oops: that should read, ‘even if people generally came to agree that articles do not have to be published with ink on paper.’

They bought it, duh.

Daniel, I’m wondering the same thing. If it is true, it would finally give political scientists a legitimate reason to want to emulate physicists.*

*O/t note: this has nothing to do with hating physics. It has everything to do with making fun of political scientists for wanting to study politics as if it were physics.

And managerial continuity is a reputational thing; that a company will not trash their journals by putting short-term profit-maximizers in charge – now and in the future. Since the journal companies *are* putting short-term profit-maximizers in charge, this is a moot point.

The timing of this suggests that sometimes Minerva’s owl really does take flight only at dusk…
In response to Maurice Meilleur’s first post —
In fact, the idea that Sage might have tried to oust Dietz and install Bevir for economic/marketing reasons was floated on the Poli Theory Job Rumour Mill, and was indeed the prevailing take (as I recall; I don’t have the heart to go back and re-read) until some one or ones said, basically, “Hey, how would replacing Dietz with Bevir contribute to marketing anyway?” So far as I remember, the particular possibilities you mention, and so people started looking for other explanations — which meant getting into the usual personal attacks and claims about the relative power and prestige of different schools of political theory.
I must say I find the scenario you mention pretty implausible — which is not, of course, to say that Sage would consider it implausible, or not act on it. In any case, though, their judgment here seems to have been really rather bad .

Not to thread-jack, but regarding the absurd state of commercial academic publishing, Scott Aaronson’s review of The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship by John Willinsky (free E-book) is a must-read.

Here is a bitter taste:

I have an ingenious idea for a company. My company will be in the business of selling computer games. But, unlike other computer game companies, mine will never have to hire a single programmer, game designer, or graphic artist. Instead I’ll simply find people who know how to make games, and ask them to donate their games to me. Naturally, anyone generous enough to donate a game will immediately relinquish all further rights to it. From then on, I alone will be the copyright-holder, distributor, and collector of royalties. This is not to say, however, that I’ll provide no “value-added.” My company will be the one that packages the games in 25-cent cardboard boxes, then resells the boxes for up to $300 apiece.

But why would developers donate their games to me? Because they’ll need my seal of approval. I’ll convince developers that, if a game isn’t distributed by my company, then the game doesn’t “count” — indeed, barely even exists — and all their labor on it has been in vain.

Admittedly, for the scheme to work, my seal of approval will have to mean something. So before putting it on a game, I’ll first send the game out to a team of experts who will test it, debug it, and recommend changes. But will I pay the experts for that service? Not at all: as the final cherry atop my chutzpah sundae, I’ll tell the experts that it’s their professional duty to evaluate, test, and debug my games for free!

On reflection, perhaps no game developer would be gullible enough to fall for my scheme. I need a community that has a higher tolerance for the ridiculous — a community that, even after my operation is unmasked, will study it and hold meetings, but not “rush to judgment” by dissociating itself from me. But who on Earth could possibly be so paralyzed by indecision, so averse to change, so immune to common sense?

I’ve got it: academics!

Knuth’s paper, linked to by Aaronson, repeatedly uses the term “commercial publisher,” and apparently the term “commercial” is supposed to be important here, supposedly indicating that the problems academics have with these publishers is related to their for-profit nature. But it seems to me that we rely on publishers to uphold certain values that are not necessarily commercial and do not necessarily support primarily the explicitly commercial aspects of society at large. This is what we mean by “professional”: knowing how to maintain values that are not necessarily commercial or financial, and that are not so well understood by “the community in general.” What field of study examines how publishing works with authors and audiences to maintain certain values?

Oops, I initially missed the exchange at #15-16, so never mind.

Peter @22,

I am well aware of the role of prestige and reputation in scholarly communities and you are right– the implicit argument by analogy is a bit weakened by this point. I wished to point out a good bit of rhetorical writing about what I believe is an important issue for the future of science and scholarship.

Rhetoric aside, the real issue, as I see it, is whether or not the goals of scholars of all types would be better met in an open access environment, given that the majority of the work is already done by academics, and the barriers to this alternative have diminished greatly over the years. The ability for this medium to meet the prestige needs of academics is surely a necessity for change.

I admit to a personal stake in this. Having left academia for IT work and family, I can no longer afford access to journals that I once refereed for, and wherein my former classmates and professors continue to contribute. There are ways around this, but I would rather that (for many reasons personal and not) it be freely available to all with an interest, myself included.

Sorry: “if you look close” = “if you look closely”