This is the first issue of JEPOP produced by the new editorial team, which succeeded Mark Franklin, Ed Fieldhouse and Rachel Gibson in September 2016. We thank them for their service to the journal. During their tenure, the journal continued its upward trajectory in establishing itself as one of the leading international journals publishing work on elections, public opinion and political parties, begun by founding editors, Justin Fisher and Chris Wlezien. As submissions to the journal have continued to rise, its impact factor has also grown. We thank all outgoing members of the Editorial Board and those who are continuing on the Board for their contributions. The journal would not be what it is without our dedicated reviewers, who we wholeheartedly thank. And we would be remiss if we did not thank Rebecca McKee, JEPOP’s editorial assistant. The journal would not have been run as smoothly or efficiently without her diligent work. Finally, we thank the elections, public opinion and parties (EPOP) convenor (who is not a member of the editorial team), Charles Pattie and the staff at Taylor and Francis for facilitating a smooth transition.
As part of the transition, we have implemented several changes which we hope will further improve the journal’s international reach and scope, increase submissions, as well as continue to promote the journal as a leading venue for research in the areas of elections, public opinion and parties. These changes have been in place since the transition in September. We hope you like them.
First, we have two Associate Editors on the new editorial team. Sylvia Kritzinger (University of Vienna) is handling our special issues, the first of which is on the 2016 US elections, and will be published in early 2018. We plan to have one special issue per year. For some, we will select the theme and run an open competition, as we did for this first special issue. For others, we will have an open call for special issue topics. Laura Sudulich (University of Kent) is in charge of managing our social media presence, which is an important part of increasing the journal’s visibility.
Second, we have sought to expand the breadth of our Editorial Board geographically, demographically and thematically. We have new board members from institutions in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US. We have also brought on board several younger scholars and those working in areas of gender and politics, parties and elections in newer democracies, and internal party politics, among other areas. We welcome, and look forward to working with, our new Editorial Board members.
Third, we are now participating in the Dataverse program. All authors are now required to make their data and code available upon publication. This brings the journal in line with other leading publications in the field, will enable researchers to have access to all data used in JEPOP’s articles and will promote transparency in research.
Finally, we now run all manuscripts submitted through Taylor and Francis’s plagiarism detection software. This is to ensure that manuscripts have not been submitted elsewhere and that authors correctly cite all work referenced, including their own. This new practice is in addition to the final check that is done when a manuscript is accepted for publication. Our goal in implementing this additional step is to ensure that we only consider original work that is of the highest quality.
We look forward to our tenure as editors of JEPOP and to working with our readers and reviewers. We hope you will work with us on expanding the reach and scope of the journal. Please encourage your colleagues and students to read and assign the journal’s articles and to submit their research.
With best wishes,