Abstract
This research aims to develop a deeper insight into the development of political science from the bibliometric perspective by analysing peer-reviewed journal articles (n = 1117) indexed in the Scopus database and published by authors from fifteen Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in the period 1996–2013. Results indicate that the majority of articles (84%) by CEE authors have been published in international journals and in the English language. The visibility of these articles in international journals, measured by the mean number of citations, is 5.2 per paper, while the same indicator for CEE journal articles amounts to 0.2. Authorship analysis indicates a gradual but continuous increase in co-authorships. Additionally, there are significant differences in citations between single-authored and co-authored articles, both in international and CEE journals. Co-authorship among CEE authors is present in only 1% of the analysed articles, confirming weak collaboration between political scientists in CEE countries.
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Notes
For details, please refer to RACOSS project at http://racoss.idi.hr/index_en.html (accessed 8 March 2018).
Access to the Scopus database was supported by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia.
This syntax was a default option at the time (January 2015) when we retrieved the data from the Scopus database.
See revised classification of science and technology field in the Frascati Manual, http://www.oecd.org/sti/inno/38235147.pdf (accessed 24 November 2017).
Our results are biased in the sense that the analysis has not taken into account journals that are not included in Scopus. However, using the Scopus database allowed us to perform citation analysis on the sample of journals that have attained the quality standards needed to qualify for inclusion in the Scopus database.
In order to compare a number of papers across countries of different size, we have normalised the number of papers by the population size. Normalisation by the number of full-time researchers in the field of political science (or social sciences) would be a preferable option but was not possible, due to data constraints.
Core journals in the sample include Osteuropa; Public Policy and Administration; Electoral Studies; Helsinki Monitor; Journal of Democracy; European Journal of Political Research; Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics; Journal of International Relations and Development; Perspectives on European Politics and Society; and Journal of European Public Policy.
Scopus started to include the Croatian journal Politička misao in 2015.
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This work has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project IP-09-2014-9351 (RACOSS).
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Jokić, M., Mervar, A. & Mateljan, S. The development of political science in Central and Eastern Europe: bibliometric perspective, 1996–2013. Eur Polit Sci 18, 491–509 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0191-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-018-0191-6
Keywords
- Bibliometric analysis
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Political science journals