Editorial Aims and Scope

In the last half-century, social scientists have engaged in a methodologically focused and substantively far-reaching mission to make the study of politics scientific. The mutually reinforcing components in this pursuit are the development of positive theories and the testing of their empirical implications. Although this paradigm has been associated with many advances in the understanding of politics, no leading journal of political science is dedicated primarily to the publication of positive political science.

The Quarterly Journal of Political Science will solicit, review, and publish the highest quality manuscripts in positive political science and contemporary political economy. The substantive content of the journal will be broad and eclectic, including cutting-edge research on any aspect of private, local, national, comparative, or international politics. The methodological approach will be analytical, focusing on positive political theories, empirical tests of those theories, and the measurement of causal relationships. In their commitment to making the Journal the premier interdisciplinary publication of scientific research on politics, the editors welcome submissions not only from political scientists but also from scholars in cognate disciplines such as economics, business, and law.