Political Science Journals

Rüdiger Voigt | last update: 2020-03-09

Bibliographies & Research Portals

For a search across multiple journals:

The Social Sciences Citation Index is a quasi-standard database, which systematically evaluates the most important journals of the field. It is possible to find the most quoted and so assumable most important articles by keyword. An openly available alternative is Google Scholar.
Nexis (formerly Lexis Nexis) is "the mother of all newspaper databases".
JSTOR
IREON - The International Relations and Area Studies Gateway
The International Bibliography of Political Science is extensive and keywords are tagged in English and French.
Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO)

Across sub disciplines of Political Science

Dominating the field are the American Political Science Review (APSR) (published by the American Political Science Association (APSA)) and American Journal of Political Science (AJPS). Both are published quarterly, have a high impact factor and are known for rigorous peer review.

Others are:

European Journal of Political Research
The National Interest (U.S.-American perspective / conservative)
Political Science Quarterly
World Politics.
CRS Reports for Congress
The U.S. Congressional Research Service publishes reports on many current and important topics. Unfortunately, not all reports are available to the public.

Methodology

The dominant journal for Political Science methodology and empirical work is Political Analysis published by APSA.

International Politics / Foreign Policy / International Relations

International Organization (IO) is the most important peer reviewed journal that covers the whole spectrum of International Politics.

Foreign Affairs is a very influential journal. It is published by the Council on Foreign Relations. Its authors include high ranking officials and besides that only well-established researchers. Foreign Affairs is similar Foreign Policy published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Both journals take on current and important topics. Their strength is promoting new perspectives and ideas.

In addition, International Affairs by Chatham House (i.e. The Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA)), Politique étrangère and the Review of International Studies are to be mentioned.

Security Policy / Conflict Research / Defense

The dominant scientific journal in the field of security studies is International Security published by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London publishes several journals and reports. The most important of those are Survival (every two months) and their monography series Adelphi Papers.

Important subtopics of security studies are the proliferation of WMD and the spread of advanced military technology. Important journals in this area are the monthly magazine of the Arms Control Association Arms Control Today, the journal Science & Global Security and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The latter tackles topics like nuclear weapons, atomic energy, biosecurity and climate change. Jane's Defence Weekly and Aviation Week and Space Technology are convenient to get an overview of current technological advances.

The Journal of Peace Research published every second month by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) stands out due to the fact that they supplement nearly every article with replication data.

Other important journals are Chaillot Papers (published by the European Union Institute for Security Studies), Contemporary Security Policy (CSP), Defense Studies and the Journal of Strategic Studies

Terrorism

Terrorism research became a vast field. Leading journals are Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Terrorism and Political Violence. Both study terrorism and terrorist organizations in its current and historic forms as well as counterterrorism strategies.

There are Open-Access journals like Perspectives on Terrorism (PT) (published since 2007) and Journal of Terrorism Research (JTR) (every two months since 2010).

The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point publishes the CTC Sentinel monthly. Topics are politically motivated violence and terrorism. The articles are related to counterterrorism practice and current events.

Worth mentioning is Critical Studies on Terrorism.

Comparative Politics

The comparative method is used across all fields of political science. Anyway, or maybe because of this there are journals dedicated to comparative political science like the monthly Comparative Political Studies (CPS), the European Journal of Political Research (EJPR) or Government and Opposition.

Europe / European Union (EU)

Political science is dominated by journals published in the United States. Sometimes this results in a U.S. centric perspective. Not all research results obtained in the U.S. are transferable to other countries. This gives reason for comparative research. The European Union as a multinational entity with more than half a billion inhabitants surely is worth some specialized journals.

Some of those are European Union Politics, the Journal of European Integration and the publications of the European University Institute found in the Cadmus-Database.

Federalism

Parties & Elections

Political Science Journals in German Language

Although Political Science is dominated by English language research, there are some important journals in German. Many of those publish at least their most important articles not only in German but also in English language.