Comparative Political Studies
For more than 40 years, Comparative Political Studies has been the place to turn for the most timely information on methodology, theory, and research in the field of comparative politics.
The international political arena has become increasingly complex and active. As a result, interest and work in this field of study has grown dramatically in recent years. To keep up with the demand for scholarship, Comparative Political Studies has expanded its publishing frequency. Now you'll receive ten issues each year, filled with articles that are timely, cover a wide variety of topics, and are authored by the best people in the field.
In-Depth Coverage
The editorial team of Comparative Political Studies selects only the very best relevant, in-depth analyses of many cross-national political issues. Some of the subject areas you will find include:
- European Integration
- Regional Mobilization
- European Monetary Politics
- Labor Markets
- Democratic Consolidation
- Bargaining Institutions
- Peace Movements
- Electoral Systems
- Party Strategies
- Redemocratization
- Production Strategies
- Human Rights
International Forum
Comparative Political Studies is a forum for the exchange of ideas between scholars and students of comparative politics. Journal articles discuss innovative work on comparative methodology, theory, and research from around the world. Previous contributions have included exhaustive research to ensure that readers get the fullest picture on a global scale—from democracy in the Third World to civil-military relations in the Middle East, from electoral systems and party politics in Eastern Europe to economic performance in Latin America, from comparisons of political asylum in North America and Western Europe to national conflicts in Asian countries. Whatever the topic, Comparative Political Studies is always at the forefront of the field, providing valuable analyses with important implications for the formation of domestic and foreign policies.
Submit your manuscript today at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/comppolstud
Comparative Political Studies is a journal of social and political science which publishes scholarly work on comparative politics at both the cross-national and intra-national levels. We are particularly interested in articles which have an innovative theoretical argument and are based on sound and original empirical research. We also encourage submissions about comparative methodology, particularly when methodological arguments are closely linked with substantive issues in the field.
| Benjamin W. Ansell | University of Oxford, UK |
| David J. Samuels | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Dawn Teele | Johns Hopkins University, USA |
| Ashrakat Elshehawy | University of Oxford, UK |
| Lidie Ataoguz | Johns Hopkins University, USA |
| Yue Zhang | Johns Hopkins University, USA |
| Tarik Abou-Chadi | University of Oxford, UK |
| Claire Adida | University of California, San Diego, USA |
| John Ahlquist | University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA |
| Octavio Amorim | Fundacion Getulio Vargas, Brazil |
| Karen Andersen | University College Dublin, Ireland |
| Yuen Yuen Ang | University of Michigan, USA |
| David Art | Tufts University, USA |
| Johanna Birnir | University of Maryland, USA |
| Melani Cammett | Harvard University, USA |
| Giovanni Capoccia | University of Oxford, UK |
| Teri Caraway | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Charlotte Cavaille | University of Michigan, USA |
| Kathleen Collins | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Pepper Culpepper | European University Institute, Italy |
| Catherine de Vries | Bocconi University, Italy |
| David Doyle | University of Oxford, UK |
| Todd Eisenstadt | American University, USA |
| Orfeo Fioretos | Temple University, USA |
| Jon Fiva | BI Norwegian Business School, Norway |
| John Freeman | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Timothy Frye | Columbia University, USA |
| Nikhar Gaikwad | Columbia University, USA |
| Jennifer Gandhi | Emory University, USA |
| Federica Genovese | University of Oxford, UK |
| Sara Wallace Goodman | University of California, Irvine, USA |
| Jane Green | University of Manchester, UK |
| Sheena Greitens | University of Texas, USA |
| Guy Grossman | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Mai Hassan | MIT, USA |
| Silja Hausermann | University of Zurich, Switzerland |
| Lisa Hilbink | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Sara Hobolt | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| Florian Hollenbach | Copenhagen Business School, Denmark |
| James R. Hollyer | University of Minnesota, USA |
| Mala Htun | University of New Mexico, USA |
| Maria Inclán | CIDE, Mexico |
| Nate Jensen | University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| Calvert Jones | University of Maryland, USA |
| Cristobal R. Kaltwasser | Universidad Diego Portales, Chile |
| Neil Ketchley | University of Oxford, UK |
| Desmond King | University of Oxford, UK |
| Marko Klašnaj | Georgetown University, USA |
| Carl Henrik Knutsen | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Johannes Lindvall | Lund University, Sweden |
| Xiaobo Lü | University of California, Berkeley, USA |
| Julia Lynch | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Lauren Maclean | Indiana University, USA |
| James Mahoney | Northwestern University, USA |
| Eddy Malesky | Duke University, USA |
| Philip Manow | University of Bremen, Germany |
| Rahsaan Maxwell | University of North Carolina, USA |
| Bonnie Meguid | University of Rochester, USA |
| Layna Mosley | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA |
| Victoria Murillo | Columbia University, USA |
| Gabriel Negretto | CIDE, Mexico |
| Anja Neundorf | University of Glascow, UK |
| Irfan Nooruddin | Georgetown University, USA |
| Tom Pepinsky | Cornell University, USA |
| Timothy Power | Oxford University, UK |
| Philipp Rehm | Ohio State University, USA |
| Stephanie Rickard | London School of Economics, UK |
| Amanda Robinson | Ohio State University, USA |
| Michael Ross | University of California-Los Angeles, USA |
| Gwendolyn Sasse | Oxford University, UK |
| Leslie Schwindt-Bayer | Rice University, USA |
| Rudra Sil | University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Dan Slater | University of Chicago, USA |
| Hillel Soifer | University of California Berkeley, USA |
| Pavi Suryanarayan | London School of Economics, UK |
| Milan Svolik | Yale University, USA |
| Margit Tavits | Washington University of St Louis, USA |
| Vera Troeger | University of Warwick, UK |
| Georg Vanberg | Duke University, USA |
| Sara Watson | Ohio State University, USA |
| Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro | Brown University, USA |
| Kurt Weyland | The University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| Stephen Whitefield | University of Oxford, UK |
Manuscripts must be submitted via SAGE Track at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/comppolstud.
For information on proposals for special issues and review essays, click HERE.
Guidelines for Authors and Reviewers:
CPS is committed to publishing the full range of scholarship political scientists produce. We welcome papers using any methodological approach, as long as the method is appropriate to the research question.
What follows are a set of suggestions for authors and reviewers to take into consideration, as they are central to evaluating manuscripts.
1. Papers should explore an important political phenomenon or causal process
2. Papers should clearly articulate a substantively important and theoretically relevant research question of subfield-wide interest and appeal.
3. Papers should locate the research within the appropriate literature on the subject.
4. Where appropriate, papers should explain their research design and logic of case selection. CPS is open to case-studies as well as large-N quantitative studies. Still, questions that might require answering include “What were the criteria used to select cases or research sites?” “How does the case selection help answer the paper’s main question?” “How might choosing other cases influence the paper’s conclusion?” or “How do the cases vary on independent and dependent variables?”
5. All submissions should clearly explain why the method or methods employed are appropriate to address the question the paper poses, and they should clearly explain the methodology adopted.
6. Papers should address issues of validation of evidence. This may involve the use of negative cases, counterfactuals, use of multiple methods, robustness checks, and comparisons with findings from other published research (both qualitative and quantitative). The paper should convince readers that the findings are reliable, and trustworthy.
7. The paper must transparently explain the data analysis process. It should describe the coding procedures (if any), the procedures for understanding and interpreting evidence gathered to support the paper’s argument, and the methodology used to establish and confirm (or disconfirm) the existence of themes and/or patterns in the data. Depending on the method and the data, some of this information may appear in footnotes or an (online-only) appendix.
8. Authors submitting empirical work must be willing to provide datasets to accompany their submissions or give the location of the datasets they are using upon request. Empirical articles will not be published without accompanying original datasets and replication code; these will be posted publicly on the CPS website upon publication. Embargoes on proprietary data may be considered. Unless requested otherwise, decision letters, correspondences, and license requests will be sent by email to the corresponding author.
Manuscript Requirements:
Manuscripts may be created in Word and submitted in .doc format, or created in LaTeX and submitted in .pdf format. Articles should be double-spaced, with 1” margins all around, a 12-point font (Times New Roman preferred), and contain a maximum of 12,000 words, including abstract, notes, references, tables and figures. Longer submissions will not be considered. Footnotes and bibliographic citations for new submissions should follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th edition).
The paper’s abstract must state precisely the intellectual problem under consideration, the method or argument addressed to the problem, and the conclusions reached by the author(s). It must be no longer than 150 words.
The corresponding author must submit an anonymous manuscript with all identifying information removed. “Identifying information” includes all authors’ names and affiliations, any expressions of gratitude to colleagues and/or funding agencies, and lists of presentations at conferences or invited talks. In addition, any citations to authors’ work (published or unpublished) should be cited as “Author.” The submitted file archive must be named “blinded version.”
CPS has recently changed its submission requirements to facilitate reviewing of articles on different platforms. To that end all submissions must now include tables, figures and other images at the appropriate place within the text, not separately at the end. Do not include "Table 1 Here" (e.g.) in the text at all - just insert the table or other image in an appropriate location.
Review Process:
Comparative Political Studies employs a partial triple-blind review process to give authors a reasonably unbiased assessment of their research. We first conduct an internal, blind review. If editors decide to send a paper out for external review, administrative procedures require that CPS staff learn authors' identity. However, authors will remain anonymous to external reviewers throughout the process.
As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the names of peers who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:
· The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission
· The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors
· Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted
· Anyone with whom any author has a family or other close personal relationship.
Recommendations must include a contact email. Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite any recommended reviewers to assess your manuscript. Authors may also request that submissions not be sent to a maximum of 4 individuals, with a brief explanation as to why.
CPS does not accept simultaneous submissions, nor review manuscripts the journal previously rejected. Please confirm in your cover letter that the material has not been submitted to another journal or published elsewhere in substantially similar form or with similar content. Authors in doubt about what constitutes prior publication should consult the editors.
Obtaining English-Language Help:
Authors who would like to refine the use of English in their manuscripts might consider using the services of a professional English-language editing company. We highlight some of these companies at http://www.sagepub.com/journalgateway/engLang.htm.Please be aware that SAGE has no affiliation with these companies and makes no endorsement of them. An author's use of these services in no way guarantees that his or her submission will ultimately be accepted. Any arrangement an author enters into will be exclusively between the author and the particular company, and any costs incurred are the sole responsibility of the author.
All inquiries on new manuscripts should be sent to the editors at cps@umn.edu.