Political theory and public law job market: General Discussion: 9/09--??

7/05/2009

General Discussion: 9/09--??

For: Discussion of topics other than the job market

Restrictions: The site's general standards--no grossly uncivil posts, no throwaway criticism of scholars/programs/approaches--will be enforced. Furthermore, no discussion of the SAGE/PT editor issue or its aftermath is permitted at this time.

Have a comment about this thread? Email me at poltheorist@gmail.com. Your anonymity is assured.

227 Comments:

Anonymous said...: This post has been removed by a blog administrator.; 6:15 PM, September 13, 2009
administrator said...: Post from Jr. Job thread:

"who won the APSA Leo Strauss award and the First Book award?"; 6:30 PM, September 13, 2009
Anonymous said...: Sam Frost got one of those.; 7:30 PM, September 13, 2009
Anonymous said...: Frost got first book, Robert Sparling (Toronto) got Strauss.; 8:21 PM, September 13, 2009
Anonymous said...: Do you think you know who did you know what?; 9:17 PM, September 13, 2009
Anonymous said...: yup; 6:23 AM, September 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: now now, those things are uncorrelated. it said so right here a few months ago.; 11:10 AM, September 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: Any opinions on Critical Inquiry as an outlet for work in political theory, say the kinds of pieces one might send to T&E or Constellations, or even PT?; 7:37 PM, September 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: All our problems are solved, my comrades.

http://amzn.com/B002EZP4QE; 10:42 PM, September 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: WTF!; 8:09 AM, September 15, 2009
administrator said...: Truckload of GD queries from the jr. job thread:

"Anonymous said...

Someone posted a paper (from APSA, I believe) which had rankings of theorists influences and journals and whatnot, done by some survey.

Does anyone perchance have that link, or know where it was on here?

4:54 PM, September 15, 2009

Anonymous said...

What's the etiquette for attempting to get an answer from a journal where your article has been under review for a very long time (say, close to a year)? Assuming you really do want them to publish it, and don't wish to pull the article.

4:56 PM, September 15, 2009

Anonymous said...

simply ask them what is holding things up. you don't have to be pushy but be honest about why you need a quick review - going on the market, up for tenure, etc. someone should definitely get back to you to let you know at least where things stand - how many reports do they have, does the editor want to make a decision based on incomplete reports. At the very least your message wil prompt them to query any lagging reveiwers..

5:11 PM, September 15, 2009

Anonymous said...

A year is nuts (though not unheard of), and you don't need to be able to offer an explanation for your inquiry. Once it hits a few months, you are within your rights to send a note to the editor reminding them of the facts of your manuscript (I sent you such and such on this date) and asking about its current status. Usually won't get you much -- they are where they are in the process -- but it might push them along, and if you are real lucky it might even prod them to make a decision (oh yeah, that manuscript fell behind the file cabinet . . .).

5:42 PM, September 15, 2009

Anonymous said...

Thanks 5:11pm.

5:42 PM, September 15, 2009"; 6:33 PM, September 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: Here's the link for Moore's survey of theorists:

http://www.calpoly.edu/~mmoore02/APSA%20Paper%20Conference%20Final%20%28D1%29.pdf; 2:03 AM, September 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: Admin, can we make a permanent link to that survey?; 10:43 AM, September 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: Original requester for survey here: thanks for posting it whoever did!; 11:02 AM, September 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: All discussion has now shifted to:

http://www.poliscijobrumors.com/forum.php?id=11; 4:30 PM, September 18, 2009
administrator said...: 4:30, I've deleted all your other links and will delete and further attempts to link over to PSJR. As I told you when you tried to do this over the summer, you may link ONCE.; 5:06 PM, September 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought (APT)
The Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought (APT) was formally established on 9 January 2009 at the Oxford Political Thought Conference. A constitution was agreed as were the executive officers, including Professor Richard Bellamy (UCL, Chair), Elizabeth Frazer (New College, Oxford, Treasurer) and Thom Brooks (Newcastle, Secretary). A complete list of all the committee and the text of the constitution is available on the Association Web Site at http://huss.exeter.ac.uk/politics/research/APT/index.php
The decision to create this Association was taken at the previous conference in 2008. Its aim is to promote the study of all branches of political thought. The study of political thought tends to be dispersed within and across a number of different disciplines – political science, philosophy, history, law, sociology, economics, and cultural and literary studies, amongst others – and to involve a wide variety of approaches. As a result, the distinctive interests and concerns of this subfield risk being lost because so much academic policy focuses on addressing the main branches of the disciplines within which political thought is to be found - and the fact that political thought often challenges the boundaries of these disciplines makes it even easier to ignore or marginalise. The foundation of the APT is intended to address two main dimensions of this situation:
First, it aims to overcome the tendency for political thought to be marginalised or fall between different disciplines (for example, in the way support for research and graduate study in the field is divided between different research councils in the UK) by providing a mechanism for advocating the concerns of those engaged in political thought to relevant policy makers.
Second, it seeks to facilitate scholarly interaction and collaboration between the whole range of practitioners in the field.
In promoting these dual goals, the Association looks to:
(a) Represent the interests of political thought with regard to both teaching and research in relation to the relevant governmental and non-governmental bodies and secure and even advance its place within the Academy
(b) Act as a facilitator for the research activities of its membership (for example, by, among other activities, setting up a web site and e mail lists to advertise conferences and symposia, alerting members to grant opportunities and helping to link people for grant projects through a register of interests, opening up new publishing outlets for theorists and supporting existing ones through links with publishers and contacts with the main general and specialist journals to which those in the field regularly submit)
(c) Assist the exchange of ideas on teaching activities e.g. through sharing reading lists via the web site
(d) Forge connections with related associations in the UK and other countries.

The Association will be formally linked to the January Oxford Political Thought Conference, at which there will be an annual plenary meeting of the Association. All participants at this conference will automatically become members of APT for that year.

Membership costs £10 and is open to persons interested in furthering the purposes of the Association and in participating in its activities, including college and university faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars and researchers with an interest in political thought from all disciplines and countries.Requests to join should be sent to Dr Elizabeth Frazer, elizabeth.frazer@new.ox.ac.uk; 8:41 AM, September 21, 2009
Anonymous said...: what an unfortunate choice of acronym.; 12:36 PM, September 21, 2009
Anonymous said...: Are there any reasonably good journals out there that have particularly fast turnaround time?; 5:14 PM, September 21, 2009
Anonymous said...: APSR. JPP. PPA. RoP.; 5:27 PM, September 21, 2009
Anonymous said...: JOP; 6:03 PM, September 21, 2009
Anonymous said...: Are the new JOP editors receptive to normative theory?; 9:24 PM, September 21, 2009
Anonymous said...: What about AJPS? Do they ever publish normative political theory?; 12:14 PM, September 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: Just found editor reports for AJPS. It seems they don't get many normative theory submissions (at least in the last year or two) and (thus) don't publish many. I can't find JOP's editor reports, though if there's a new team, that might not answer above's q anyway.; 1:00 PM, September 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: Your "thus" might be misplaced, i.e. the causal arrow might run in the other direction, or maybe both. There was some discussion about this on a previous thread, to the effect that AJPS has or had been explicitly unwelcoming of theory. Hence, not many theory people send there. Not much theory is published, if any, so it's not seen as a good or high ranked outlet for theory. The cycle continues. Perhaps the new editors will be more friendly (?), but I wouldn't count on it.; 1:15 PM, September 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: The previous JOP editor's statistics are online: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/jop/
They do get considerably more theory than AJPS but not a lot compared to the other fields.; 1:39 PM, September 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: My experience with the AJPS is that you'll be treated as fairly there as anyone else. I see no reason for theorists not to publish there. It's a regional journal with a wide readership. And so far as I know, the acceptance rate there for theory is comparable to that for other fields. And it can certainly win points with non-theorist colleagues or potential non-theorist colleagues. Further, the theory essays that appear there tend to be pretty good. Beats me why more theorists don't submit.; 2:16 PM, September 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: And, yes, the AJPS definitely still publishes theory pieces. I suspect the more theorists who sent in submissions (everything else being equal), the more theory we'll see in the journal; 3:13 PM, September 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: Perhaps this has been asked in years past but I'm a new reader and curious about journal ranking. Is it something like: APSR, AJPS, JOP and then our subfield journals like PT, ...? Or would PT rank higher than, say, JOP?; 10:44 PM, September 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: Depends on your audience and purpose. For the sole theorist in a midwestern public R1 looking for tenure, yes, APSR > AJPS > JOP > subfield journals. But if you're trying to impress and get read and cited by theorists, to say nothing of philosophers, major subfield journals like PT/ JPP/ Ethics might well outrank AJPS and JOP.; 7:36 AM, October 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ Correction:

For reaching other peers in political theory or philosophy, Major subfield journals like PT/ JPP/Ethics ABSOLUTELY outrank AJPS and JOP. Maybe even APSR.; 10:33 AM, October 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: "Depends on your audience and purpose. For the sole theorist in a midwestern public R1 looking for tenure, yes, APSR > AJPS > JOP > subfield journals. But if you're trying to impress and get read and cited by theorists, to say nothing of philosophers, major subfield journals like PT/ JPP/ Ethics might well outrank AJPS and JOP."

This post makes some reasonable points, but I'd amend it a bit. I think this post is biased slightly against the history of political thought, which is less common in JPP and Ethics -- and is much more common in the APSR & JOP (and the AJPS, to the extent that one finds theory articles there too). While I check all above cited these journals, I'm generally more interested in what theory articles might appear in the "big three" than in, for example, JPP, since they tend to publish more history work.

Also, considering the perspective of history of political thought, I'd add that HPT and JHI are of more value than JPP or Ethics.

The point is, it's difficult to generate a sound set of rankings even with an earnest effort. The value of a journal is relative to many things: 1) the particular sub-field, 2) the department where one is, 3) the department where one might like to be, 4) the audience one wants to reach. There are probably other factors as well.

It's also the case that publishing in any of these journals with any degree of frequency is a sound indicator of a strong career.; 10:40 AM, October 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: I think that last post is right on the money. The publication venues for the field is too fractured to have any strong ordering for the field itself. To reach theorists working in many areas, the relevant field journals pretty easily outrank APSR as well. But to impress colleagues outside theory, the calculation changes, and sometimes that's what is all about. I'd be cautious about niche journals and journals outside the discipline until after tenure, however, unless you really want to reach those specialized audiences and you can balance them with other publications.; 12:45 PM, October 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: These are all sensible comments. As an analytic liberal, I'd rank the journals as follows:

1) Ethics
2) P&PA
3) JPPhil
4) PT
5) APSR, etc.

But for HPT types, another ranking would likely be more appropriate, like:

1) JHI
2) HPT
3) APSR, etc.

Your location is indeed a complicating factor, as the relative power of non-theorists in your promotion/tenure decision will (or should) determine how much effort you put into getting at least a token hit in the top-three general-interest journals.

Messy, to say the least.; 5:23 PM, October 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: Agreed with both of the above, though I would give a slightly different HPT ranking:

1 Any major generalist history journal (HJ, JMH, AHR, etc.)
2= HPT/PT/JHI
5. MIH (Modern Intellectual History)
6. HEI (History of European Ideas)

I wouldn't really list APSR, as the HPT work it publishes is heavily skewed to Straussians.; 11:02 AM, October 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: "Agreed with both of the above, though I would give a slightly different HPT ranking . . ."

Again, not a bad attempt to rank, but also subject to modification depending on several factors.

1. This doesn't take into account the appeal of APSR, JOP, & AJPS to political scientists in general.

2. The perception of something being Straussian or non-Straussian varies according to departments. (Obviously, at ND, BC, Duke, etc. it counts a great deal.)

3. Although the Straussians arguably get disproportionate representation in the "big three," you'd have to think that a non-Straussian publishing in those journals would get even more points for navigating the almost-inevitable minefield of Straussian reviewers -- such as when publishing on Plato, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Nietzsche, etc. Anyone publishing in these areas knows what kind of challenge this is. Accordingly, I grant great respect to those who can do it from a non-Straussian perspective.

4. I'd quibble with the suggestion that JHI/PT/HPT are below the general history journals. I don't know too many political scientists who publish in the general history journals, but perhaps I should be checking them out more regularly.

5. I'd also put JHP up high on any such list. It has an absurdly high rejection rate (2005-06 it had an acceptance rate of 2.9%) and delivers the goods pretty reliably. Anyone publishing there has my immediate respect.; 11:39 AM, October 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ Fair point on JHP.

The selection of, say, APSR vs. the HJ is of course dependent on what kind of department you are in. The field of HPT is a cross-disciplinary excercise, and lots of people in history departments work on it (especially, but not only, those working in a "Cambridge" vein). For them, APSR is simply not on the radar screen, and carries little weight, whereas both top history journals and top subfield journals (like PT/HPT) do. Of course this ranking would be switched around for those based in US poli sci departments, where the big history journals won't count for much. So again this just goes to show that context-independent rankings are rather pointless.; 11:55 AM, October 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: The Historical Journal, in particular, usually has at least one article per issue on an HPT topic, but with a heavy (though not exclusive) focus on the early modern period. History journals are less likely to publish articles on single authors - though they sometimes do, like Alan Cromartie on Hobbes in the HJ last year - focusing more on wider aspects of political discourse.; 12:03 PM, October 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: As with everything else, these things depend. (Some) history journals are willing to publish a very particular kind of HPT. But those journals are also not likely to be very helpful in most U.S. political science departments, or reach most U.S. political theorists (including many of those doing HPT). I'd certainly be cautious in putting them at the top of my target list for articles.; 1:06 PM, October 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: Aren't all kinds "very particular"?
History journals publish work using a variety of approaches. MIH, for example.; 7:09 PM, October 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: hi
which is , arguably, the BEST press for political theory?

I understand there are a few good ones. But is there one that might be best given its PT list, size, marketing, speed of editors, intl reach, etc.?; 12:22 AM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: I've been wondering the same thing recently and came to the following conclusion (though may be wildly wrong, so would appreciate the input of others):

General PT (not tied to particular sub-field): Princeton, Harvard, Chicago
HPT: Cambridge
Analytic/Liberal: Oxford
Critical: Minnesota? I don't do critical, so this is a stab in the dark...

I've probably forgotten some...; 5:05 AM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: duke and columbia up for critical, as well.; 8:54 AM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: Re, 5:05's post - looks pretty spot on; a solid - though not top - HPT press to add is Penn State.; 10:31 AM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: I agree that Cambridge, Chicago, Harvard, Oxford and Princeton are pretty clearly the top presses, but I'm skeptical that there's any point to ranking them against each other or to gerrymandering them according to speciality. CUP publishes some great analytical stuff, OUP publishes some great history, etc. From a practical standpoint I suspect that any department would be perfectly happy with a book from any of those presses, and that the views about Minnesota, Duke, Columbia, Penn St et. al. would be more mixed.; 12:31 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: Kansas for American political thought.; 12:36 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: Chicago is good for reading, but my understanding (and this is a few years old so policy may have changed) is that they don't publishe first books.

I personally like a lot of what I see from SUNY (as well as minnesota) on the broadly understood 'critical' front.

Penn State is a good second tier press as well.; 1:57 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: OUP publishes some great history

I wouldn't pigeon-hole Oxford. The Oxford political theory series has some important and excellent titles that are not primarily historical works (by Pettit, Young, Miller, Richardson, Buchanan, Kukathas, etc). I'm currently reading Cecile Laborde's new book in the series and it is, in my anonymous and irrelevent opinion, quite good.; 2:03 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: I wouldn't call Penn State a "second tier" press. But I heard a rumor that SUNY was getting out of the political theory game. This may have been completely wrong, which would make this a totally irresponsible comment. But there it is.; 2:31 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: The question isn't whether YOU would call Penn St a second-tier press, the question is whether your dept or college would. And I suspect that many would.; 4:56 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: I'm very glad I got a job before this forum took off. Anybody looking here for career advice should just give up now.; 6:31 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: Care to enlighten us, o wise one? Or just sniff your nose?; 7:42 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: "The question isn't whether YOU would call Penn St a second-tier press, the question is whether your dept or college would. And I suspect that many would."

Can't speak for all departments, but I know of at least two well-regarded R1's that granted tenure last year to theorists primarily on the strength of Penn State books.

Penn State's reputation is high in theory largely on the strength of its association with Sandy Thatcher, who was for years an editor at Princeton.; 10:58 PM, October 14, 2009
Anonymous said...: I said second tier, happy to withdraw. I didn't mean it in a derogatory way; I was thinking 4-5 tiers and a very select tier one.; 12:15 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: Aside from the fact that Penn State is actually a very good press, I think the idea is that this whole "second tier" press riff is just ego-driven garbage that has nothing to do with the profession. I've worked at 3 different R1s and 2 different SLACs. At each place, my Dean would have been more than happy with any book on any of those presses. Maybe this isn't true at HYPS (is that the acronym?) -- I've never even had lunch at any of these places, much less attended or worked there. But I do have tenure at a major state school.; 6:29 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: 4:56 here. Look, I judge a press by the best books that it publishes, and I don't have any interest in the rankings game. But I teach at a large R1 public, and I have very clear incentives to publish in one of the "top five" presses mentioned above. I know for a fact that my tenure case would have been substantially weaker if I hadn't been able to place at one of them.

That's not intended as a comment on the other presses (or on the "top five," for that matter), it's meant as a piece of professional advice, given from experience. Find out what your department and college expect, and don't assume that your perceptions of what a good press is are the same as theirs.; 8:32 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: "this whole 'second tier' press riff is just ego-driven garbage that has nothing to do with the profession."

Hmm. I agree that Penn St. is a very good press for theory, and that a PSUP book will probably get you tenure at most places. But it's still the case, isn't it, that all things equal a book from, say, Cambridge or Princeton will open more doors for you, professionally speaking, than a book from PSUP or Duke? Just like an article in the APSR will open more doors than an article in, say, Polity?

That doesn't mean that Polity isn't a very good journal for theory, or that everything the APSR publishes is better than everything Polity publishes, but isn't that the way the profession works?; 9:18 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: If you can get published in that Cambridge series with the royal blue jackets and red lettering, that will REALLY open some professional doors...; 9:28 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: lol at the last comment; 11:37 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: The OP also asked about editors. Im my experience - after working with several of the "top 5" mentioned above, plus some others -Ian Malcolm (PUP) is absolutely first-rate.

FWIW, in the UK a significant proportion of people (esp. at Oxford and Cambridge) who published their first books with CUP or OUP have switched to PUP for their more recent books.; 11:43 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ I should have added that this is especially true in HPT, where Princeton is now challenging CUP.; 11:44 AM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: Ian Malcolm has been promoted to general editor of the humanities at PUP, and the political theory list is now being handled by Rob Tempio, formerly of Routledge (I think).; 12:01 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: At my R1, no one actually reads books or articles anymore. All we look at is the publisher or the journal. It saves all sorts of time.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. We also have a bit scale so that we can weigh what people have produced at tenure and promotion time. Again, reading is really bad for the eyes, and so we've managed to do away with it almost completely.; 12:08 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^Wow. I didn't realize my colleagues posted here! :)

In my department, a book counts as 2 articles, though it counts as 3 if it is a good press. Co-authored articles count as 1, as do solo authored articles.; 12:15 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: You can laugh, 12:08, but that's pretty much the way it works at most places, especially for theorists, who are usually a small minority whose colleagues aren't really equipped to evaluate their work.; 12:30 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: I love the "no discounting for coauthoring" rule. Theorists should stop writing books and instead form "article clubs" of five theorists, say. Each theorist will write one article every 2.5 years and put the other four on as co-authors. That way, everybody publishes on average two articles per year by the above metric. Easy street. Mafia hits on free-riders.; 12:37 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: There's a reason why co-authored work isn't discounted -- namely that the article-writing process doesn't work that way. (Much to my surprise) I've done co-authored pieces, and they were at least as time-consuming as my solo-authored pieces and resulted in a product that I couldn't have completed myself. Co-authoring faculty aren't inclined to give credit away on their articles.; 1:46 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: fwiw it's worth my dept (public r1) does discount for co-authored articles, though not linearly, and some effort is made to figure out who the "real" principal(s) were -- which can work to the disadvantage of the more junior contributor(s).; 2:09 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: 2:09,

That "who is the real author" thing is hilarious. I wrote a letter for my co-author's tenure file, say it was really all his idea. Someday, he will do the same for me (reality is 50/50); 4:41 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: It is true that as a descriptive matter, practices vary on discounting co-authorship. Some places do, some places don't, and if they do it varies by how much (which in turn sometimes depends on assessments of how substantial the individual contribution really was).; 4:50 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: As always, find out what practice is at your institution-- and then confirm it with each and every one of your senior colleagues, because the only standards that matter are the ones each of them carry around in their individual heads.; 7:46 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: "Article club" guy here: my point was not that this is the way co-authoring need work; rather, my point is that this is one way that coauthoring *could* work. Granted, as the number of club members increases enforcement gets more difficult and detection of the "game" gets more likely, but really, how difficult would it be to run this scam with two people, say? Who's to say what the contribution of each is to the project? I think it'd be pretty easy to fake and very hard to detect. If enough people were to be alert to this arbitrage opportunity, defensive discounting might have to be adopted by departments. Just a thought.; 7:53 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: The real money would be in the refereeing cartel, where you and 5-10 of your buddies review each other's articles and make sure they all get published.

Oh wait, that already happens.

4:41: You're right, but imagine the costs if you got caught (which is not entirely impossible).; 8:02 PM, October 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: Actually a form of that discounting does occur. If someone only co-authors with one other person, it becomes difficult to disentangle the relative contributions. People start to look for equally good or better solo authored work or co-authored work with others to validate the contributions with that one co-author. If they don't see it, then they start to discount the work done with the single co-author.; 12:04 AM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: hi
I posted the original question about 'what is the best PT press.'

it generated interesting and useful feedback. Thanks.

I am puzzled by the inclusion of Harvard.

they are clearly a trade-oriented, narrow list, low PT press.
mostly they publish very commercial stuff that lacks academic merit, and they hardly ever publish PT.
so why is it included as a top PT press?

also, although I can see that Cambridge, Oxford, Chicago, and Princeton are the top 4 presses, I want to get a sense of which ONE is the best if we can consider marketing, breadth of themes/areas of PT, intl reach, no horror stories about editors or money issues, etc. etc.

it seems to me that Princeton has a relatively narrow idea of what is "PT."
They hardly ever publish anything that is not sort of mainstream (liberal/analytic).
no comparative PT, very little History of PT, etc.

Maybe the same could be said of Chicago.

That leaves Cambridge and Oxford.

also to consider is the degree of marketing, intl reach. Methinks these 2 are bigger and commit more for publicity.

I fear the US presses are too insular : narrow idea of PT, and also narrow geographical/intl scope.

if there are any horror stories or rumours about CUP or OUP, then we could narrow down to the SINGLE BEST PRESS :)
just for fun, not scientific reasons.; 3:01 AM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: one question to address this CUP vs OUP query:

who has published what at each press in PT in the last few yrs?

any example works in PT from CUP or OUP?; 3:04 AM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: Good point about Harvard, though they publish big statment works, like Sen's "Idea of Justice", Cohen's "Rescuing Justice and Equality", and Tuck's "Free Riding" (the latter two hardly trade books).

That characterisation of PUP is way off - indeed completely wrong. It publishes plenty of HPT, and as was mentioned above is doing ever more so (prominent recent examples include, Pitts, "Turn to Empire", Muthu "Enlightenment Against Empire", and the two brilliant books by Mike Sonenscher on the French revolution). It's also bizarre to claim that their contemporary list is dominated by liberal/analytic. First, they actually publish little hardcore analytical work (no Raz, Rawls, Scanlon, Miller, Waldron, Barry, Kymlicka, for example). And second, they publish lots of other kinds of things also, see e.g, from a very long list, Raymond Geuss, Wendy Brown, Sheldon Wolin, Bonnie Honig, Patchen Markell.

Also worth noting - as again said above - that PUP now has a European office, which means that it is well-represnted outside the US market, though it isn't anywhere near as big as OUP or CUP (none of the American presses are).

How much top-level critical work does OUP publish? Or HPT for that matter?; 4:56 AM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: The claim about Harvard being a trade press is ridiculous. HUP has a smaller list than the others mentioned (though probably not that much smaller that Chicago's), but that can be a good thing from the author's point of view. Publish your book with Cambridge or Oxford and watch it get swallowed up in one of those mile-long conference exhibits! And HUP's list is of very high quality both from a "big name" and from a scholarly standpoint. Just pick up the catalog.

The quest to identify the "one best press" is even more ridiculous.; 9:26 AM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: "There can be only one"? That's absurd, when it comes to university presses. There's a small set that are widely recognized as top tier, and some others that are (less widely) recognized as very good within particular niches and still others that are perfectly fine outlets for good work. Beyond that, you start thinking about how well your individual book fits into the particular catalog, how well the editor seems to get your project, the terms of the contract being offered, what you think about small versus big presses, broader disciplinary and interdisciplinary reach.

If you poke around enough, you can find horror stories about every press. Recent, consistent, salient stories might be a cause for concern, but not the mere existence of author gripes.; 2:00 PM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ Nailed it.; 2:11 PM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: For those who haven't seen it, there's a useful post on The Other Blog comparing the number of jobs in the PS supplement 2008 vs 2009 broken down by rank & subfield. As I recall there was some discussion here about whether theory was being disproportionately affected by the downturn; it seems based on this data that the subfields have in fact been affected about equally (~40-45% fewer jobs this year), though of course theory starts from a much smaller base.

http://www.poliscijobrumors.com/topic.php?id=20306

Will post on the Jr. thread as well.; 4:43 PM, October 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: hi

if we agree that we can name the top 4 or 5 presses, it follows that we can logically reach a conclusion about which is the top 1.

most agree that there are 4 or 5 top presses given a limited set of variables or criteria.

Logically, we can deduce that one of them is better than the other 3 on a x number of criteria. Even if this entails 1000 variables.

Otherwise, there cannot be 4 or 5 "top" ones as most argue, since even presses like UT or Cornell or Rowman and Littlefield each have their own particular strengths as well.

Either you accept the rankings game all the way to the top and accept that there must be a top 1, or you reject it altogether and simply say that a top press is the one that fits your own work best.

Also, what I said about Harvard isnt ridiculous .
Look at their catalog.
They have very few books in PT.
Mostly top, well established, older names.
so it isnt a great venue for PT.; 5:11 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: Harvard UP:
eg, Joshua Cohen, Sandel, Sen, Nussbaum, GA Cohen...all big old names.
Garsten is the exception to the rule.

it is clearly a boutique press in PT for well-established marketable names, in general.

Clearly HUP is largely concerned with marketability rather than innovation, variety, etc.; 5:22 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: let's assume that int'l reach is important.

is there any reason why CUP or OUP is better than the other?

or are they the same more or less?

are there any rumors or good/bad expriences with these 2?; 5:26 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: Didn't HUP publish the most widely discussed work of political theory produced so far this century, Empire?; 7:23 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: [sigh]

OK, scrolling quickly through the HUP list I see recent books by senior scholars such as G. A. Cohen, Joshua Cohen, Samuel Fleischacker, Robert Gooding-Williams, Istvan Hont, Bruno Latour, Martha Nussbaum, Mark Philp, Richard Posner, Michael Sandel, and Amartya Sen.

In moral philosophy you can add K.A. Appiah, Susan Hurley, Avishai Margalit, HIlary Putnam, Arthur Ripstein, Tim Scanlon, and Candace Vogler.

Is there any other press OTHER than Cambridge, Oxford, and Princeton with a list of authors like that?

I find bizarre the idea that a press "isn't a great venue for PT" because it publishes "mostly top, well established, older names." That's true of all top presses, for obvious reasons. But I also see first books from HUP by Bryan Garsten (Yale), Sharon Krause (Brown, Berkeley), Eric MacGilvray (Wisconsin, OSU), Russell Muirhead (Texas, Dartmouth), and Keith Topper (Northwestern). They have a forthcoming second book from Eric Nelson (Harvard). That's a pretty darn strong stable of young scholars. I'm pretty sure that Garsten's book won an award. So yes, it's a relatively small list, but that just means more selective, no?

OK, sorry, I'll stop feeding the troll.; 9:16 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: Must resist urge to engage with Empire troll...; 9:18 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: "Logically, we can deduce that one of them is better than the other 3 on a x number of criteria. Even if this entails 1000 variables."

You're absolutely right. Here's what you do. Read every book that each press has published in political theory in, say, the last 5 years. Rate each book on a scale of 1-10 (or 1-100 if you want a finer-grained measurement), taking into account such things as quality of scholarship, contribution to existing debates, innovation, citation counts, etc. Take the sum of the scores for each press and divide by the total number of books that that press published (to avoid favoring large over small presses). And voilà! The One Best Press.

We look forward to hearing your results -- have fun!; 9:23 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: Yeah, I guess it's clear that HUP just like totally sucks and stuff.; 10:17 AM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: OUP is better than CUP for contemporary. CUP is better than OUP for HPT. But both are still very good overall.

And why assume that the "Empire" reference is a troll. It is a work of political theory, and a very influential one, whether you like it or not (i don't). I imagine it sold more than just about all the other pol. theory books published that year put together. Sort of a "Brief History of Time" phenomenon.; 7:11 PM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: Sorry, but what in G-d's name is the point of this discussion? That I shouldn't buy HPT books if they're published by Oxford, or contemporary books if they're published by Cambridge? That I should send my book proposal to Oxford and Cambridge, but not Chicago and Princeton? That I shouldn't bother to swing by Harvard's booth at APSA? And if not any of those things, then what could you possibly mean by "better"?

These are all great presses. We all own and read, or should own and read, books from all of them. Any of us should count ourselves lucky if we manage to publish with any of them. So what's the point of parsing things any further than that? I've seen pointless discussions on this blog before, but this sets a high bar even by those standards.; 9:11 PM, October 17, 2009
Anonymous said...: You're so tricky with that G-d thing. Who could you be talking about? Gad, Ged, Gid, Gud, Gyd? I think that I forgot a vowel somehow.; 12:05 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: hi

the fact that someone mentioned EMPIRE as one of the 'most influential' books in PT and that was published by HUP, and the derisive reaction by some on this blog, shows that HUP basically thinks of MARKETABILITY above anything else, much more than other presses.

that why I mentioned the top, big, older names that are published by HUP.
thats the POINT!
they only (99% of the time), publish stuff that will have good sales and is nearly a trade book (eg EMPIRE).
('Empire' is long-winded fluff that impresses English Dept grad students. It has no political theory/philosophy value at all).

HUP is very close to a trade publisher like Norton.
big, $$ proven names can make it there, but HUP does not have a wide, deep agenda in PT.

Chicago and Princeton are more serious and academic.

Princeton hasnt published books on Jazz clubs in Chicago, or softball leagues in Central Park, so it clearly is better than Chicago.

So the race is between CUP, OUP and Princeton.

See?
it IS possible to narrow down presses! :); 2:13 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: ps
people get impressed by names and prestige.
thats why HUP is automatically seen as a good press in PT.

as I said, GOOD LUCK with HUP if you are not some hotshot 60 yr old chaired professor.

they take no chances with new, innovative voices. Garsten is an exception. Great book.
it helped that he got his degree there.; 2:20 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: ps
if youve found the intellectual merit of EMPIRE, please write it down here in a couple sentences.; 2:22 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: I have a colleague whose (very good) first book, in PT, is coming out with HUP. Garsten is not the only exception.

But I agree that this general discussion is pointless - they are all very good presses, and the attempt to identify the "best one" is ridiculous.; 6:48 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: Whether you like it or not, EMPIRE is clearly a work of political theory. Lots of people like it, lots of others don't. (I'm in the second category). But at least lots of people have actually heard of, and even read, the thing, which is more than can be said for 99% of pol theory books that are published. (And no, I don't think that is a marker of quality). To dismiss is as "not political theory" because you don't like it is absurd.; 6:50 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: Don't feed the troll!; 10:15 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: Sweet Mary. Troll? It's trolling to say that Empire is political theory? This is an untenable position? You're pathetic.; 11:10 AM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: Mr. Who's The Best Publisher is a troll. I could give a *** about Empire, but it only came up as part of that "discussion."; 12:31 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: "they are ALL good PT presses"

all?

as in the all the presses that publish ANY PT?

if it is logically possible for there to be 4 TOP presses, why cant there be ONE single top press?

please answer that q.; 2:21 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: ok so if EMPIRE is great PT, please write here a few sentences about WHAT is the great contribution that it makes intellectually

(Besides exciting lots of English, and Comp Lit grad students)

(I don't mean "lots of people liked it." kind of argument.
If LIKING a book is the criterion for PT, then we should all read Dan Brown in intro PT classes since it is such a popular book).; 2:24 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: the only reason why we can't come up with THE best press, is that we don't have the time to go through all the criteria that this would entail.
As a previous poster said jokingly.

But this is true!
he is correct.
it is a MATTER of lack of TIME.

not a matter of theoretical impossibility.

it is theoretically possible to come up with a robust mechanism to consider all relevant variables (say, 1000 or so or whatever) that would then assign values to each major press.
(ie, prestige assigned by polls of political theorists; breadth and range of fields of PT; marketing and publicity given to books; intl presence; openness to new work by younger authors; editors' abilities; etc etc etc).

The one that ended up with the higher score would then be the BEST press.

People, you are not being good theorists.

It is clearly POSSIBLE theoretically to come up with the SINGLE BEST press in PT.
(we could do this with the four top presses only if needed).

so all the statements that it is inane to think of one best press are just based on a qualitative vs quantitative bias, ie, it is all up to interpretation, not science, or that it is subjective not objective.

as long as you are among the camp that accepts that there are 4 top presses, you are implicitly ranking all PT presses, hence it follows that ranking of all presses is possible and that ONE must be at the number 1 spot.

(ie, most of us would agree that, overall, there are 4 top presses, which doesnt include Cornell, UT, Michgan, etc etc. Thus, we are excluding most presses from the top PT ranks.)

SOME THINGS ARE OPEN TO INTERPRETATION.

SOME ARE NOT.

SUCH AS RANKINGS.

once you accept that an ordinal assessment can be made of something, you can't not go all the way and reject the idea that there is ONE top position at the apex of the hierarchy that you accepted does exist.

it is a logical contradiction.; 2:40 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: Who is this cat ^? I'll buy him (doubt it's a her) a drink or two at Foundations just to get him going.; 2:48 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: I think I can, actually. I can say that two (or three, or four) are tied for the top spot. No?; 2:49 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: s/he seems to fancy themselves as some kind of methodologist, although s/he also seems to have missed the fact that even if we accept that you (a) can rank publishers, and (b) then identify 4 as better than the rest, it DOES NOT FOLLOW that one of those must be better than the other three. This is a basic logical error. It might well be the case that these four, when assessed over various dimensions, come out even (or roughly so). So stop banging on about what must follow if we accept rankings...

As for empire - the issue at stake was not whether it made any hugely original arguments - others can speak better to that than me - but whether or not it counted as political theory. It obviously does. Whether you like it or see it as completely inane is neither here or there.; 3:44 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: did i mention not feeding the troll? c'mon people.; 6:32 PM, October 18, 2009
Anonymous said...: bump; 10:19 AM, October 26, 2009
Anonymous said...: APT?

word verif: prattle; 2:00 PM, October 26, 2009
Anonymous said...: APT was pretty good; good panels on identity; organic state; immigration.; 12:47 AM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: I love that someone actually cited HUP's publishing books by "Joshua Cohen, Sandel, Sen, Nussbaum, [and] GA Cohen" as evidence of its being out of touch and inferior. What would they have to do to get it right, raise Hobbes from the dead for Leviathan II?; 2:04 AM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: please please please don't revive the presses thread.; 10:08 AM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: I think we should revive the presses thread. I just feel like the discussion was constructive, but we didn't reach any real resolution.; 12:12 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: Rumor: Shouting match erupted at the APT plenary.; 1:22 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: Okay, I'll bite. Which plenary, what about, and between whom?; 1:36 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: Yes, please tell more!; 2:25 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: The APT plenary address was given by Peter Euben on innocence in Billy Budd. There was some rowdiness in the Q&A as people tried to pin down Euben's position and get him to take a stand on how one should practice political theory.; 3:17 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ Who won?; 3:59 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: Since Euben was trying to make the point that good political theory can provoke discussion and raise questions without making arguments, I would say that he won, since he certainly accomplished that goal. I would not describe it as a "shouting match," just some heated discussion.; 4:06 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ Who was challenging him? Normatives or crits?; 4:36 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: "Normatives," and the discussion wasn't even all that heated. 4 or 5 people just tried to press him on what kind of a stand he was actually taking. It was totally friendly all around.; 5:25 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ At a recent Middle East Studies Association annual meeting, Giles Kepel and a fmr PhD student got into an actual fistfight. I would love to see that at an APSA or APT.; 5:30 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: The reception to Dean's plenary at last year's APT was also contentious. Not hostile -- but people certainly asked difficult questions. Excellent, I say! We're all big boys & girls, and we can all stand for some tough questions.; 7:15 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ And how did Dean handle the "tough questions"?; 7:24 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: It wasn't a shouting match, but it was really interesting, passionate and energizing. It was great.

And that was another wonderful APT conference. Thanks everyone!; 10:29 PM, October 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: {hugs}; 2:31 PM, October 28, 2009
Arash Abizadeh said...: THE ANNUAL MONTREAL POLITICAL THEORY MANUSCRIPT WORKSHOP AWARD

Call for applications: The Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP), spanning the departments of political science and philosophy at McGill University, l'Université de Montréal, Concordia University, and l'Université du Québec à Montréal, invites applications for its 2010 manuscript workshop award. The recipient of the award will be invited to Montreal for a day-long workshop in March/April 2010 dedicated to his or her book manuscript. This "author meets critics" workshop will comprise four to five sessions dedicated to critical discussion of the manuscript; each session will begin with a critical commentary on a section of the manuscript by a political theorist or philosopher who is part of Montreal's GRIPP community. The format is designed to maximize feedback for a book-in-progress. The award covers the costs of travel, accommodation, and meals.

Eligibility:

A. Topic: The manuscript topic is open within political theory and political philosophy, but we are especially interested in manuscripts related to at least one of these GRIPP research themes: 1) the history of liberal and democratic thought, especially early modern thought; 2) moral psychology and political agency, or politics and affect or emotions or rhetoric; 3) democracy, diversity, and pluralism. 4) democracy, justice, and transnational institutions.

B. Manuscript: Unpublished book manuscripts in English or French, by applicants with PhD in hand by 1 September 2009, are eligible. Applicants must have a complete or nearly complete draft (at least 4/5 of final draft) ready to present at the workshop. In the case of co-authored manuscripts, only one of the co-authors is eligible to apply.

C. Application: Please submit the following materials: 1) a curriculum vitae; 2) a table of contents; 3) a short abstract of the book project, up to 200 words; 4) a longer book abstract up to 2500 words; and, in the case of applicants with previous book publication(s), (5) three reviews, from established journals in the field, of the applicant's most recently published monograph. Candidates are not required to, but may if they wish, submit two letters of recommendation speaking to the merits of the book project. Please do not send writing samples. Send materials to GRIPP Manuscript Workshop Award, Department of Political Science, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 2T7. Review of applications begins 10 January 2010. Contact Arash Abizadeh with questions.

Previous GRIPP Manuscript Workshops:
Kinch Hoekstra (UC Berkeley), Thomas Hobbes and the Creation of Order, March 2009
Alan Patten (Princeton), Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Cultural Rights, April 2009; 4:16 PM, October 29, 2009
Anonymous said...: just one short not re the presses discussion...

the point I was trying to make about Harvard UP is that it is GREAT, but really only if you are one of those Cohens, Nussbaums, Sandels, etc. , ie, big established names. (with a few exceptions like Garsten who is younger).

so, sure, I wouldn't turn down a contract from them, but the point is that it will come probably only after I get a Chair at Harvard or Berkeley or Chicago or Oxford.

This means that it is NOT a press that has a BROAD list or that it is open to new voices. This limits its strength overall I think.

Besides, HUP publishes a lot of semi-popular, semi-commercial stuff (outside of PT). Check out the NY Review of Books HUP ads and you'll see what I am talking about.

So, if we are going to see what the top presses are, my guess is that Cambridge and Oxford are tops due to their broad list, works by old and established good names as well as new and innovative voices, international reach in marketing and publicity, reputation, prestige, and breadth in terms of what kind of PT they publish (pretty much every kind of PT).

A close second tier is Princeton and Chicago.

Third tier are great presses like Yale, Hopkins, Duke, Columbia, etc.; 4:00 AM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: Sweet holy hell you're a putz.
If Princeton is a "second tier" press, then Sandel is at best a third tier theorist. But rather than continue this insipid and aristocratic ranking system, I'm going to head off and read one of Faust's minor works or perhaps watch Dr Strangelove (a 2nd tier Kubrick film).; 7:25 AM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ Um, Sandel IS a 3rd tier theorist. (You asked for it.)

But you are right that PUP is 1st tier.; 7:55 AM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: HUP just published Robert Gooding-Williams' book on DuBois and Douglass. Its awesome!: pitched at a serious academic audience yet general intellectual public as well. It speaks very well of the press.; 8:27 AM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: This conversation is insipid, but it's also based on a factually incorrect premise. An earlier poster has already listed a number of fine first books that HUP has published in the last 5 years or so, from an intellectually diverse group of young scholars. So if you want to wait until you get your chair before you submit your book to them, then fine, that's more room on the list for the rest of us.

And do you really think that the other presses mentioned don't publish "a lot of semi-popular, semi-commercial stuff"? Please.; 8:56 AM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!; 9:02 AM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: it is a logical fallacy to say that Sandel is a 'third rate' theorist because he publishes at a 'third tier' press.

he is a first-rate theorist who publishes at a third-tier press.

the evidence shows HUP tends to go for big names (Gooding Williams is a full professor at Chicago for god's sake, he is not a recent PhD), which limits its breadth, and the press as a whole (outside of PT) publishes a lot of commercial stuff, more than other big presses even if there is a trend in that direction.

again, of course i'd take a contract from them, but in my view their prestige/reputation is lower than CUP or OUP for the reasons given.

sure, we're all impressed by the name 'Harvard', but just look at their lists.
in PT, they are mostly big names.(yes, gooding williams is a big name).
outside of PT, its a lot of project mersh.

so among the 'great' presses:
first tier: CUP, OUP
second: PUP, YUP, Chicago, HUP
third: Columbia, Hopkins, Duke, etc.; 3:42 PM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: oops I meant Sandel is a first-rate theorist who publishes at a second-tier press

word: dismul; 3:46 PM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: btw, lets not play coy and pretend we dont care about rankings.

our whole careers and profession are based on rankings.

to say that all presses are equally good because they each have their own strengths is bogus.

the reason why there is so much pettiness in academia is precisely because we rank according to prestige, not money, as in the biz world.; 3:55 PM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: It is a fallacy to say that Sandel is a 2nd rate theorist because he publishes at a 2nd rate press. It is a worse fallacy to assume that he is a 1st rate theorist because he is tenured at a 1st rate institution.; 4:06 PM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ok yes I agree with that...
its not necess. true that all Harvard theorists are first-rate.

but Sandel has written some interesting stuff.
at least he did his bit to counter Rawls.; 6:39 PM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: 6.39: I think one of the reasons that people think Sandel is a second-rate theorist (I'm sort of on the fence on this one) is that he hasn't really written anything of significance since Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.; 8:10 PM, October 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ And because he wrote LLJ.; 4:56 PM, October 31, 2009
Anonymous said...: Gah! Nooooooooooooooo!! Make it stop!! Resist. Urge. To. Feed. Rankingsboytroll.; 6:06 PM, October 31, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^^Hilarious. And so true.; 12:03 AM, November 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: dude
troll has a point...

not all programs or presses or theorists are on the same level.

there may not be a precise ordinal ranking, but there may be TIERS for each.

We all aspire to pedagogical or theoretical greatness dont we?

greatness is a kind of rank ordering, as Nietzsche tells us.; 1:52 AM, November 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: Um, yes. duh.

Is that the blog equivalent of drunk dialing?; 1:08 AM, November 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: >People think Sandel is a second-rate theorist >because he hasn't really written anything of >significance since _Liberalism and the Limits of >Justice_.

And when you consider that LLJ is mostly constituted by quotes from Kant and Rawls it turns out that Sandel has NEVER written "anything of significance."; 6:58 PM, November 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: Well, I agree that there isn't much to the argument presented in LLJ. But it is nonetheless a "significant" book to the extent that it's standard reading for anyone interested in the communitarian-liberalism debate of the 1990s; it appears, for example, on a lot of theories of justice syllabi. It's widely read, is all I'm trying to say, even if it's not very good.; 7:39 PM, November 02, 2009
Anonymous said...: does anyone know any good books in PT published by Oxford UP in the last few yrs?; 3:27 AM, November 04, 2009
Anonymous said...: It might not be to your taste, but this OUP series is highly prestigious and influential in analytical circles:

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/category/academic/series/politics/opt.do; 5:52 AM, November 04, 2009
Anonymous said...: Thanks

It is hard to see all their recent PT books through their website

what about works in history of PT?; 3:50 PM, November 04, 2009
Anonymous said...: OUP publishes HPT stuff, but much less than CUP (or PUP) for that matter - IMHO those last two are market leaders in this subfield.; 10:39 AM, November 05, 2009
Anonymous said...: If you have access to Oxford Scholarship Online (most unversitiy networks do), you can get full text access to many of OUP's recent theory books at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/subject_index/politicalscience/polthe/authors_first.html; 10:41 AM, November 06, 2009
Anonymous said...: Sorry - the URL was too long. Try http://tinyurl.com/ybb8mbk; 10:43 AM, November 06, 2009
Anonymous said...: Wow, what a wonderful resource, thanks for that! Unfortunately, my university does not appear to have access to the full texts online :-(; 11:24 AM, November 06, 2009
Anonymous said...: 1st year theory grad student, jealous of the others with all their ICPSR and Polmeth summer plans, anyone with ideas on summer programs or schools suited for us? A search on the COS database just threw up one result:the Summer Graduate Research Fellowship at the George Mason University
Institute for Humane Studies. Anyone else have any suggestions?; 9:28 PM, November 08, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^Depends on your interests, of course, but if you're interested in ancient political thought, this is a good way to spend your time in the summer:

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/lginst/; 10:04 AM, November 09, 2009
Anonymous said...: Cornell School of Critical Theory (or something like that)

of course, good luck getting your department to divert funds from paying the methods students' ICPSR tuition to help with this ...; 2:09 PM, November 09, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^ I'd never heard of that Cornell program before, so I googled it. Oh my, it looks awesome. http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/sct/index.html

Unfortunately, I am broke, and there's no way in hell my stingy grad program will fund it for me. Sadface.; 5:46 PM, November 09, 2009
Anonymous said...: Can anyone with experience tell me at what point in the book publishing process the publisher offers a contract? Thanks.; 11:14 AM, November 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: At the point where they decide they want to publish it?

Sorry, but that's the most accurate answer. With a first book at a "top" university press (not that again!), that will generally require enthusiasm on the part of the editor, 1-3 positive reader reports, and the support of the editorial board of the press.

But there's a lot of variation within that model, for example a more senior editor will often be given more leeway by the board to act as s/he sees fit.

Less prestigious presses will sometimes give a contract on the strength of a proposal -- as will "top" presses when they're dealing with an established/well-known author.; 1:48 PM, November 15, 2009
Anonymous said...: Also depends on the "contract" and what kind of commitment it formally or informally is meant to represent. Editors often will issue contingent contracts on their own authority for book proposals, but those are widely regarded as not very meaningful. The eventual manuscript will still need to go through a full review and the editorial board -- and the editor him or herself -- and could get rejected or wind up in multiple rounds of revision, never to see the light of day. A contract based on reviews of a substantial portion of a manuscript and approved by the editorial board is a more substantial commitment by the press to the project.; 2:13 PM, November 16, 2009
Anonymous said...: I got a contract at yale with just a proposal; 3:25 AM, November 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: Good boy! Want a cookie?; 3:23 PM, November 25, 2009
Anonymous said...: i got tenure at harvard without punctuation; 7:07 PM, November 27, 2009
Anonymous said...: I don't get these nasty comments about my yale book.
No I don't need a cookie. I just said fact for reference: You can get a contract with a TOP press with just a proposal.
You don't need a full ms, or even a full chapter.
As long as the proposal is good.
Also if you care about punctuation in a wiki or blog you are a freakin idiot....I save my commas for my yale book ms.; 7:55 PM, November 29, 2009
Anonymous said...: ps the yale contract is final; 3 readers reviewed the proposal and the editor offered me a contract.
there is no second round of reviews once I get the ms done.
yea i guess ill have a cookie now...boooya!; 7:57 PM, November 29, 2009
Anonymous said...: Take your cookie. because you're a liar. And if you weren't a liar, all you'd be doing is either bragging that your press lacks rigorous peer review OR revealing that you don't understand how contracts work.; 8:52 PM, November 29, 2009
Anonymous said...: what??

your statement makes no sense at all.

If I weren't a liar I would be "bragging that your press lacks rigorous peer review OR revealing that you don't understand how contracts work."???????!!!

what does that mean??!
why would I brag that a press isnt rigorous?
or that I don't understand the process??!

OK I admit 1 thing.
I did lie.
About the name of the press.

but it is a TOP press.
I got a contract based on merely a proposal. They also saw part of the intro. THAT IS ALL.
no finished chapters.

I AM TELLING THE TRUTH.
I SWEAR.
SO GIVE ME ALL THE COOKIES.

it IS possible to get a contract based on your CV, proposal, and part of an Intro chapter.

I'll post my real name and book title when I get tenure and confirm that this is possible.

I guess you gotta be a Top Theorist.

booya.; 1:40 AM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ps
by top press i mean one of the following

yale
princeton
harvard
chicago
oxford
cambridge; 1:42 AM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ps2
I am just insisting on this because I think a lot of people post "authoritative" posts here about many topics, including book contracts.

I am TELLING YOU that this is possible. There is no point in my lying and wasting my time.

I am an advanced Junior fac member, and i got a contract with a proposal and part of an intro.
THAT IS JUST A FACT for the younger scholars on this blog to know.
I am just tired of reading inaccurate 'authoritative' posts here.; 1:47 AM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ps3

this is how it works:

you get your packet ready (well-crafted Proposal, cover letter, CV).

send it to an editor.

Most editors will reject it.

If the editor likes it (one in ten or 12), he or she will ask you for more. Either they will tell you to send the full MS when it is ready, or they will just ask for a chapter or two if you are lucky.

Sometimes they ask specifically for the INTRO, because the intro is a good general view of the whole project.

The intro can be a fuller version of parts of the proposal, with some more substance, but it is clearly not a full chapter.

Then the editor sends the Proposal and Intro (or Chapter) to 3 readers for review.

If 2 of the readers have largely positive comments, the editor will ask you to write a response to the reviewers comments, on how you will address their concerns in the final ms.

The response goes to the editor.

The editor then decides whether this is an adequate response.

At this point, it is almost a done deal.

It then goes to an advisory board of experts in the field.

Then it goes to the editorial board for final approval, mainly for marketing issues.

Then it goes back to the editor, who drafts a binding contract. It says that you need to produce a finished ms in a year or so, on the topic that you proposed.

When you get that back, you sign it and return it.

When the ms is done, it DOES NOT go back to 3 reviewers. The editor may or may not work with you on some issues, but its a done deal.

The book goes to press after a year or so after all the editing, etc is done.

This is with a TOP press.

booya.; 1:56 AM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: What's with the "booya"? Is this 1996?; 7:09 AM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: 1:56, etc: First of all, there's no reason to be a dick about it.

Second of all, is this a first book?

Third of all, I'd be willing to wager that the press is Cambridge.; 9:13 AM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: As far as not understanding contracts goes, I'd advise you to read yours carefully. I'd be very surprised if there isn't conditionality built in somewhere: i.e. the editor has the option to turn the book down if he doesn't like the final product. So from the editor's point of view he has you on the hook with an out if he needs it -- a good deal for him.

Also I never heard of the "advisory board of experts in the field" step, unless you're referring to something that's internal to the press.

I don't know why I'm giving you advice since you do seem like kind of a dick. But others may find this useful.; 9:24 AM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: well you did give me advice anyway.

ANY contract can be rescinded if the final ms is crap.

my point is that NOT ALL contracts are based on a finished, reviewed full ms.

you CAN get a top press to give you a contract that is binding without going through the whole ms review.

that was my simple point. This was rejected by a lot of aholes here. And this is not the same as an 'advanced contract.' My contract says the press WILL publish the book once the ms is cleared by the editor, the editor alone, not 3 readers.

why would I waste my time making this stuff up?
Im just trying to set the record straight.
Veritas.....; 2:57 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ps
what is the ''good deal'' for the editor?
that he wasted 1 year on something they WONT publish?? LOL; 2:58 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: ^^^^
"1996"??!
no, its 2009
wake up byatch
boooyaaaaaaaaaa; 3:03 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: Are people seriously responding to this crap? 'Cuz if so, here's another one.

I got a $5000 advance for a book just by showing my massive arms to an edytor at a majohre yooneeversity press! No shit!; 3:20 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: In what sense is the contract binding if it's up to the editor's discretion (no readers, no board) whether to honor it or not? And wouldn't the likelihood that he'll not like the finished product be higher if he's only seen part of an intro, as opposed to several chapters or a complete ms?

It's a good deal for him because he read a few dozen pages worth of material and took an option on it, excluding you from working with other presses while giving himself an out. He's not wasting a year of his time, though you might be.

Anyway, personalities aside, it's useful for people to know, I guess, that this sometimes happens, and to think through the pros and cons. And it's important to emphasize that this is a process that would have to be initiated by the editor (unless you're an established name). So it's not clear what practical difference this information makes to the average aspiring author.; 4:47 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: Another way to think about how "real" this contract is is to ask whether your chair/dept would count it toward tenure. Mine wouldn't (public R1), but it's obviously something that one would want to ask about before going down this road.; 4:49 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: What's with the infantile tone and netspeak-laced sniping in some of these posts? Are the trolls from the polisci board moving over here, now that it's cleaned itself up?; 5:19 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: No, this same illiterate moron has been trolling this board for at least a year.; 10:53 PM, November 30, 2009
Anonymous said...: Ok, let's talk about what we'll do if we don't get t-t jobs this year.

I'm hoping to spend another year in my visiting position. For personal reasons, this sucks.

You?; 12:19 AM, December 01, 2009
Anonymous said...: Here's a question for those who use or have used textbooks (i.e., not anthologies) in intro to theory courses: what are some of the books you've used, and what are your thoughts on them? The only one I'm familiar with is Thiele's "Thinking Politics." I'm thinking of redesigning my intro to theory course to make it more conceptual than historical, and am interested in a good textbook that will help in this vein.; 9:47 AM, December 07, 2009
Anonymous said...: Kymlicka is masterful but hard-going. Take a look at Colin Bird's new book.; 12:20 PM, December 07, 2009
Anonymous said...: Kymlicka's Contemporary Political Philosophy rocks, but then I'm an analytic liberal, so no surprise there. If you're not, I'm not sure how useful you'll find it.; 12:53 PM, December 07, 2009
Anonymous said...: I agree. Kymlicka's book is superb. Another book which is very good (and a bit more accessible than Kymlicka's) is Adam Swift's Political Philosophy. A Beginner's Guide for Students and Politicians. I used parts of both accompanying a selection of primary texts that I put together in a coursepack. It works really well.; 2:01 PM, December 07, 2009
Anonymous said...: I second the suggestion to look at Bird's book. I found it very helpful as a teaching aid. Also, has anyone looked at the even more recent Minerva's Owl: The Tradition of Western Political Thought by Jeffrey Abramson?; 11:57 PM, December 07, 2009
Anonymous said...: how compatible are those books with following an historical, primary text approach? Can you do both?; 8:34 PM, December 09, 2009
administrator said...: This is the (edited) CPT conversation from the Junior Job Thread:

Anonymous said...

With C Maher, and the fact that latinos are the largest US minority, Latin American PT should get bigger

6:37 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's right; CM does LATIN AMERICAN PT.
Widely neglected but people need to pay more attn to this emerging field within Comparative PT

6:48 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete
Anonymous Anonymous said...

is there REALLY such a thing as comparative political thought though? I mean, is there a single political thinker of the stature of an Aristotle or a Hobbes outside of the Western tradition?

7:55 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, that's mature.

I'm serious: "comparative political thought" is a fad that empirical political scientists use to hire people who don't really do theory for their theory positions. We should all be concerned about it.

8:06 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete
Anonymous Anonymous said...

7:55,

The answer is 'no, but it doesn't matter, so get with the program.' Good God, where have you been? Dead white males are so yesterday. Comparative political thought (meaning 'let's trash the western tradition', whatever that means) has been trendy for years. You must have been hiding in the belly of the Straussian beast to be so ignorant.

8:12 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Non-western political thinkers of the status of Hobbes or Aristotle? How about C-dog, aka Confucius.

8:55 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How predictable. A bitter traditional theorist--who hasn't yet figured out that he's actually an inferior theorist because of his provincialism--is now belittling and discrediting others for having the gall not to be so provincial, and makes himself feel better by claiming that these other people don't actually do theory (read: aren't actually better than me at my own gig), and are getting hired ahead of him because these departments don't even actually intend to hire a theorist. Sad.

8:57 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm just curious, 7:55, if your ridiculous question is based on any serious attempt on your part to read outside of the Western tradition, or is it just a straight-up presumption on your part about the superiority of the Western tradition? Do some reading--we're not gonna do your homework for you.

9:30 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete; 8:33 AM, December 10, 2009
administrator said...: CPT con't:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

ali shariati, guaman poma de ayala, clr james, jose carlos mariategui, &cet, &cet.

your circularity is truly breathtaking: you have not read them because they don't matter, and they don't matter because you don't read them.

i guess racist eurocentrism is the mark of maturity.

10:10 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think this is the same comparativist having a conversation with himself. But, just in case, fear not, since, ironically, comparative political thought is a good thing for proponents of western civilization: it is undertaken by anti-western pomos and leftists, but the ideas they find correspond most closely to pre-modern rather than modern western political thought. Of course, since they find them in texts that were not written by dead white males, it's okay to like them, and, therefore, in a round about way, they're doing the same thing that people like Strauss did. Without even knowing it, they're becoming pre-modern. The cunning of reason.

10:42 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yes, 10:42, that's precisely what's happening...

The CPT people I've interacted with have been absolutely nothing like this stereotype. Basically they're HPT types largely uninterested in (and suspicious of) normative theory who are working on figures outside the west.

I'm a fan of good work in the critical/pomo tradition and anaytic liberal tradition, but I find pure HPT dry and boring about 90% of the time, so for the most part CPT hasn't really done much for me, with the exception of a couple of 'meta'-contributions on intercultural communication. But I'm fascinated the weird, nasty ways people like 10:42 and 7:55 react to it.

11:04 PM, December 09, 2009
Delete

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't worry, in ten years you'll either have learned on your own about las casas, bolivar, marti,vitoria,sarmiento,vasconcelos,rodo,sor juana,mariategui,dussel,g gutierrez,etc or all your latino students will demand that you learn about them!
So get your spanish rosetta stone or we'll send you to a re education camp in ten yrs ;-)

4:19 AM, December 10, 2009
Delete; 8:34 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: When the revolution comes (and students are forcing me to read the inane and ridiculous), you won't have to round me up because I'll volunteer to have a bullet put through the back of my head. It will be a classless society all right, but not in the meaning of class that the lefties use.

word verification--rattyho (long live Bertie Wooster); 8:48 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: "When the revolution comes (and students are forcing me to read the inane and ridiculous), you won't have to round me up because I'll volunteer to have a bullet put through the back of my head."

What makes texts outside the traditional western "canon" (which we all know has existed, does exist, and always will exist unchanging and ever true throughout all times and places) inane and ridiculous?; 9:09 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: there's racism for you: latino students have to learn latino political thought; 9:35 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: DFTT; 9:43 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: OK, let me try to move this discussion to a slightly higher plane, and ask an admittedly naive but genuine question to the CPT folks.

I've always assumed that "comparative" political thought meant the study of non-Western political thought. But I would also have though that the various Latino/a thinkers who have been named are as Western as can be, originating as they do (right?) in Catholic Europe and its colonial territories -- more Western, in fact, than, say, Russian thinkers of similar stature.

And if we take the foundations of Western thought to be basically Greek and Hebraic, then even Islamic thought could be considered "Western," insofar as it rests on the same foundations.

That's not to deny that most students of HPT aren't, like me, basically ignorant about Islamic and Latino/a thought. But if you're making a case for reading those thinkers then you're really making a case for expanding the boundaries of the Western canon -- looking at different ways in which the Greek/Hebraic legacy has been applied and extended -- rather than doing anything "comparative."

Am I missing something?; 10:01 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: Let me try putting that in a slightly different way. One way of defining what we mean by "Western" thought would be, "thought that is rooted in classical Hellenic thought and/or in Abrahamic revealed religion." A narrower definition would limit it to European Christendom. A still narrower one would limit it to Roman Catholic Christendom (roughly, "Western" Europe) -- including, of course, Protestant thought starting in the 16th century. Islamic thought fits the first, widest, definition; Latino/a thought, unless I'm missing something, fits even the narrowest one.; 10:31 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: Interesting points; and, one might add, most everyone does comparative political thought in a certain sense already - at a minimum reading and comparing/evaluating different thinkers, or even just multiple works by different thinkers.

I don't mean that as a snub to comparative political theory, but would be interested in greater clarity.; 10:49 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: It's certainly weird to think that Vitoria is in any sense outside the traditional boundaries of western political thought. He might be considered a minor canonical thinker rather than a major one, but a scholastic-Thomist-natural lawyer at one of the major universities in western Europe whose lectures, I believe, were in Latin surely counts as western.

Las Casas falls outside the boundaries of western political theory, but that's because he falls outside the boundaries of political theory, not because he falls outside the boundaries of western. I suspect Marti and Bolivar fall into a category like Jefferson, Lenin, or Sieyes-- authors of interesting texts that might wouldn't really qualify as even minor canonical works in political theory on their own, but are elevated in importance because of their authors' political importance. But, again, that's about the boundaries of political theory, not the boundaries of 'western.'

I'm with 10:01/ 10:31. The Spanish and Latin American intellectual worlds aren't outside the western intellectual tradition. Like post-Renaissance Italian thought, or Dutch thought, or Russian thought, it might be under-studied in English-- but its tools and and structure and history/tradition aren't alien, in the way that Chinese or Indian thought is.; 10:55 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: 10:31, your analysis makes sense to me. I am a great lover of our pt canon but I am also concerned to open it up--or, make plain its some of its interculturality. For example, when I teach ancient & medieval, I include at least one Islamic thinker from the period generally glossed over between Augustine and Aquinas. In this context, the Islamic thinkers seem very much like participants in the political theory conversation initiated by Plato and Aristotle.

This doesn't seem to be to be an attempt to absorb non-western thinkers into the western tradition, but rather to unsettle our conception of 'western' and 'tradition'. At the same time, I can see why someone might prefer to specialize in Islamic or Latino political thought rather than on the german enlightenment, but I wonder at the consequences of framing those concentrations as 'comparative' and all the rest as 'western'.

Thoughts?; 11:17 AM, December 10, 2009
Anonymous said...: Right, I feel the same way -- though of course class time is scarce!

I guess my worry is that if you teach, say, al-Farabi as part of an "Islamic" as distinct from a "Western" tradition, then you risk missing the Platonic and Aristotelian dimensions of this thought, and thus reading him badly to that extent. Which isn't to say that we can't learn a lot about him (and about ourselves) by looking at how Platonic and Aristotelian ideas were treated differently -- and similarly! -- in an Islamic context.

Similarly, if you teach Vitoria and the rest of the Salamanca school as part of a tradition of "Latino" thought -- and I seriously doubt that that's how they thought of themselves! -- then you risk missing the point of their work. Which isn't to say of course that we can't learn something about them -- and about the "Western" tradition -- by looking at how their ideas were filtered through and affected by specifically Spanish experiences, especially wrt the question of colonialism, the treatment of indigenous peoples, etc.

Again, I don't really know that much about what people who self-identify as CPT actually do, so this isn't meant as a criticism; rather as an invitation for them to educate the rest of us.; 11:36 AM, December 10, 2009

Political theory and public law job market

7/05/2009

General Discussion: 9/09--??

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