Farewell Editorial

After six years as co-editor, the 2021 volume closes my tenure at the EPSR. I depart with a sense of satisfaction: in 2020, the journal climbed into the top quartile of the SSCI political science rankings, and we saw record submission numbers for the second year in a row. The journal has also implemented a policy of gender parity in its editorial board and reviewed gender balance in both submissions and publications.1 Editing the journal has been a highly rewarding and enjoyable experience that has also served as a learning one. From the process of reading and revising hundreds of manuscripts and reviewers’ reports (I am still impressed by their excellent quality!), my own knowledge of contemporary research practices has been significantly enhanced and, I dare to say, I have improved as a researcher as a result. The journal has also provided an excellent platform from which to observe the broader trends in political science and to see how these have aligned with the mission and vision that I have set for the journal together with my co-editors, Wil Hout and Matt Qvortrup. Our two most important decisions related to the profile of the journal and the nature of our publication output. Regarding the profile of EPSR, we opted for a pluralistic approach both in terms of sub-disciplines and methods. We aimed to publish widely, from political theory to international relations and from public policy to comparative politics. We also wanted to be inclusive of the diverse range of methodologies that are used in political science. In doing so, our intention was to represent fairly the state of the discipline. Our second major decision was our choice not to publish special issues, commissioned papers, or review articles, keeping all four issues in each volume completely open for the very best of the stand-alone research articles that we received. Those two decisions placed a good deal of expectation on the supply side of the publishing process and, on reflection, the results to date have been mixed. This is especially the case when measured by plurality, with several sub-disciplines still under-represented among our published articles. We have nevertheless published a good deal of top quality research with great methodological and, often, theoretical sophistication. However, using the vantage point that the journal provides, I have been able to identify some trends in political science that have left me with a sense of dismay. Rather than discussing political issues that are crucial to people ́s lives, political science seems increasingly dominated by publication-oriented research, where the presentation of results obtained through the application of ever more sophisticated methodologies to existing data sets has become the norm. Data production seems to have become less important, due also to the twin concerns of cost and the need for rapid publication for career purposes. There seems to have been a similar decline in theoretical contributions. Unsurprisingly, studies in areas in which there is a large supply of data suitable for analysis via statistical inference have dominated the EPSR’s published output. Recently, the editors of our sister journal, the APSR, argued that we have arrived at a point where our research questions are directed by data and methods, and they concluded with a