I've had some really encouraging feedback about my paper on Miller's theory of rights for the ALSP conference, and my supervisor thinks it would be a good candidate for publication. Apart from the task of getting it up to scratch for submission, I've also got to decide where to submit it to. This, it seems, is an important decision, for several reasons.
The done thing is to only submit to one journal at a time, and journals can take up to a year to come back to you, so it's important not to aim too high and completely wreck your chances. However, getting accepted to a quality journal will enhance your CV no end, so it is worthwhile being a bit ambitious.
There is also the issue of which type of journal to submit to - a political theory journal or a more traditional philosophy journal. I've been advised that a philosophy journal would be a better idea because politics departments (in the UK at least) will regard that highly, whereas the reverse is not so true - philosophy departments might consider political theory publications less impressive. This accords with my general impression of UK departments, but given that I'm currently in a philosophy department perhaps that's not so suprising?
My initial impression is that the Journal of Applied Philosophy might me a good choice, although they have recently published a paper specifically on David Miller. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad sign. The Journal of Moral Philosophy is also a possibility.
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Pack your bags, we're moving
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1 comment:
I must say, I've found your list of journal links quite helpful. I think your contrast here between philosophy journals and political theory journals doesn't quite cover the whole terrain, however.
There are general philosophy journals (Phil Quarterly, Philosophy, etc); general politics journals (American Political Science Review, Political Studies, etc); then specialist journals in the broad moral/political theory/philosophy area (Ethics, P&PA, JPP, etc).
Generally speaking (although I've only just finished my PhD so shouldn't be regarded as an expert on publishing), I'd prefer to publish in specialist journals, since those are largely the only ones I'd read!
If you're thinking about your job prospects, then there's some merit in the general journals, because those are the ones that people on an interview panel may be more familiar with if they're not in your area. Of course, this raises the question of whether you're likely to apply for jobs in politics or philosophy. If in doubt, I'd say go for philosophy journals, as politics depts seem more willing to hire political philosophers than philosophy depts to hire political theorists.
I think either politics or philosophy depts should be equally happy with publications in specialist journals like P&PA, JPP, etc though. You can hardly say that either of those are political theory rather than philosophy.
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