The Political Science 400: A 20-Year Update Natalie Masuoka, University of California, Irvine Bernard Grofman, University of California, Irvine Scott L. Feld, Purdue University In academia, citation is the sincerest this data by subfield, by cohort, and by scholar’s total number of publications in form of flattery.—A Wuffle ~1986! gender. In the next paper of the series, to the discipline’s most prestigious aca- be published in the April 2007 issue of demic journals ~e.g., Robey 1979; Mor- PS, we explore the history of the disci- gan and Fitzgerald 1977; Bayard and his essay is the first of a planned pline in quantitative terms by examining Mitchell 1998; and McCormick and Rice three-part series dealing with quanti- T the changes in departmental Ph.D. pro- 2001!.2 However, these studies do not tative indicators of continuity and change duction and placement rates over the last provide the publication data of individual in the political science discipline, focus- century and look at patterns of cross- scholars since their purpose is to rank ing on the period since 1960. The series departmental hiring. Paper three of the and compare departments. is inspired by the work of Somit and series, to be published in the July 2007 The most recent work dealing with Tanenhaus ~1967! which presented repu- issue of PS, compares various ranking scholarly visibility and impact ~especially tational rankings of both departments and approaches in order to examine the visi- that on the sociology of the natural sci- individuals. For this series of essays, we bility and impact of Ph.D.-granting de- ences! makes use of the citation data created a unique database in which we partments. In that essay, we incorporate from the Web of Science data set whose recorded cumulative citation counts be- both the citation count data presented in compilation began in 1973. A number of tween 1960–2005 for all regular faculty this current paper and the placement data scholars in political science ~e.g., Klinge- members of U.S. Ph.D.-granting institu- from the second paper into a multivariate mann 1986; Klingemann, Grofman, and tions ca. 2002. In addition to identifying model to predict departmental reputation. Campagna 1989; Miller, Tien, and Pee- the department at which the individuals bler 1996! have made use of the Social in this data set are presently employed, Sciences Citation Index ~SSCI! compo- we have also collected information on Identifying Measures nent of the Web of Science.3 their date of Ph.D. and the institution of Individual Impact In this article, we rely on citation from which their Ph.D. was awarded. and Prominence count data to measure an individual’s In this essay, we identify the 400 There are various ways to measure a scholarly impact on the profession. most-cited scholars who ~ca. 2002! were scholar’s impact or academic contribu- Rather, like the Fortune 500 which ranks teaching in political science graduate tions.1 Most studies of scholarly visibility corporations by their total gross revenue, departments in the U.S., breaking down or impact in political science, however, we identify the “notables” of our time by have made use of one of three types of ranking individual scholars based on measures: surveys of political scientists’ their cumulative citation counts. We Natalie Masuoka is a Ph.D. candidate assessments of their fellow scholars, cu- agree with Miller, Tien, and Peebler at the University of California, Irvine. Her mulative counts of article publications, ~1996, 73–4! that citations provide “a dissertation examines the impact of mixed and cumulative citation counts. useful and valid measure for determining race identities on racial minority political participation and attitudes. In one of the early reputational stud- standing in the profession.” Citation data ies, Somit and Tanenhaus ~1967! com- can be preferable to publication data in Bernard Grofman, whose past research piled a list of the most influential that many publications, even ones in has dealt with mathematical models of scholars in political science by sending a prestigious journals, have little or no im- group decision making, legislative represen- questionnaire to all members of the pact or visibility in the field. Moreover, tation, electoral rules, and redistricting, has American Political Science Association work published in less-prestigious jour- been at the University of California, Irvine in which they asked respondents to list nals may nonetheless come to be highly since 1976 and professor of political sci- the scholars who have made the “most visible and influential. Perhaps even ence at UCI since 1980. He is co-author of significant contribution” to the discipline more importantly, judging visibility only four books, published by Cambridge Uni- for two periods: pre-1945 and 1945– by article publication discriminates versity Press, and co-editor of 16 other books; he has published over 200 research 1963. Although Somit and Tanenhaus against those scholars whose publications articles and book chapters. Grofman is a ultimately identified a core group of the come as books. In contrast, while it is past president of the Public Choice Society profession’s “notables,” they found a true that the SSCI only lists citations that and in 2001 he became a fellow of the significant degree of disagreement are found in articles, all citations in American Academy of Arts and Science. among their respondents. These differ- those articles, whether to books, to other ences were especially apparent when the articles, or even to unpublished materi- Scott L. Feld, professor of sociology at authors disaggregated the respondents by als, are tallied in the SSCI counts. Of Purdue University, continues his investiga- their respective disciplinary subfields. course, as all authors who use citation tions into systematic causes and conse- Roettiger ~1978! updated the Somit and data acknowledge, we recognize that quences of patterns in social networks, including academic placement networks. He Tanenhaus study, but also included repu- such data have their limitations, and in is also continuing to study how collective tational rankings of political scientists an extensive methodological appendix decision making processes are affected by considered as public intellectuals. we address some of the particular prob- social structures in the forms of group mem- An alternative measure of scholarly lems that arise with using citations for berships, norms, and social networks. impact might define rankings based on a ranking purposes in political science.4 PSOnline www.apsanet.org 133 Figure 1 of top scholars tions than those with few citation counts, Cohort Distribution of Political Science 400 comes from the and there are a non-trivial number of 1970–1974 cohort. faculty teaching at Ph.D.-granting univer- However, the sities who, over the course of their ca- slight overrepresen- reers to date, have garnered zero tation of older co- citations to their work ~at least in terms horts may be of the citations to their work found in the simply a reflection very large set of journals @1,000ϩ# in- of the cohort distri- cluded within the SSCI!. bution in the pro- We might expect, however, that some fession as a whole. of this difference is due to cohort effects. To better under- In particular, we might think that most of stand the patterns those with zero citations would be re- seen in Figure 1 we cently minted Ph.D.s. But after disaggre- need to take into gating the data for the 1940–1949, account relative 1950–1959, 1960–1969, 1970–1979, cohort sizes. We 1980–1989, and 1990–1999 cohorts ~fig- can generate an ures not shown!, we continue to find index of overrepre- zero cumulative citations to some schol- sentation by divid- ars within each cohort even for publica- The Political Science 400 ing each cohort’s share of the Political tions published long enough ago to have Science 400 by its share of total Ph.D.s had a considerable time to attract cita- This paper updates the work by produced over the corresponding de- tions. Of course, not surprisingly, the Klingemann ~1986! and Klingemann, cades. For this index, values that are proportion is at its highest in the most Grofman, and Campagna ~1989!. The above 1 indicate overrepresentation. recent cohort, with 10% in that cohort latter work identifies the 400 most-cited Table 2 ~which parallels Table 5 in having zero citations to their work. U.S. scholars in the profession by tally- Klingemann, Grofman, and Campagna Within each cohort, except for the 1990– ing the citations to lifetime bodies of 1989! shows the values of this index for 1999 cohort, we also find similar lognor- work in all journals included in the SSCI each cohort. mal distributions of cumulative citations database during the five-year period: 9 5 We see from Table 2 that older co- to the work done within each decade, 1981–1985. We extend their data set horts are much more overrepresented in although, as expected, the range of cita- forward to include 20 additional years of the Political Science 400 than younger tion counts is greater for work done by citation data, from 1996–2005; we also cohorts. However, the 1965–1969 cohort the older cohorts who have had longer to took advantage of improvements in the is the most overrepresented ~with an accumulate citations to their work. online SSCI data set to include citation index value of nearly 5!, while the oldest counts in journals published from 1960– cohort, 1940–1944, is underrepresented Breakdown of the Political Science 1980. Thus, we now have citation data ~with an index value of only 0.72!. 6 400 by Disciplinary Subfields that span 45 years. Highly cited scholars appear to remain in In Table 1 ~which parallels Table 1 in the academy longer than their peers, but Klingemann ~1986, Table 3, 657! Klingemann, Grofman, and Campagna factors such as retirement and death limit breaks down the most highly cited fac- 1989! we identify by name the top 25 the length of their careers, thereby even- ulty according to subfields, creating a scholars from that list of 400 in each five- tually weakening the dominance of older five-fold breakdown of subfields ~Politi- year cohort.7 Because the citation records cohorts.