870 PS • October 2018 © American Political Science Association, 2018 doi:10.1017/S1049096518000641 ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... SPECIAL REPORT Gender and the Editorial Process: World Politics, 2007–2017 Carissa L. Tudor, Princeton University Deborah J. Yashar, Princeton University INTRODUCTION W orld Politics is a quarterly journal founded in 1948. It publishes scholarly articles that speak to central debates and concerns in comparative politics and international rela- tions. The journal publishes pieces that sig- nificantly advance theoretical debates, contribute original empirical knowledge, and deploy the most appropriate methods for the ques- tion at hand. The journal relies on a terrific and small staff. It is run by a dedicated editorial committee with the advice of a diverse and committed editorial board. Moreover, it relies on the good will and collegiality of scholars who volunteer their time to review our manuscripts and advise us in our triple blind review process (described in detail in the conclusion). For this we are enormously grateful as the strengths of the journal rely on this talented and extended team of scholars and staff. While there is much to be proud of, we are also concerned about the issues raised by Teele and Thelen (2017), who clearly demonstrate that the preponderance of articles published in political science journals are written by men. This is also true of World Politics. The World Politics editorial committee, therefore, was eager to assess the review process with an eye toward identi- fying if and where gender bias was in play. We did so with utmost commitment to the anonymity of the authors and reviewers. We tallied the data to analyze the front and back ends of the review process—from submissions to review to acceptance. The punchline is fourfold. First, men publish the lion’s share of articles in World Politics. Second, at World Politics we did not identify a gendered bias in the acceptance rates for solo-authored pieces. Men and women submitting solo-au- thored manuscripts have an equal likelihood of receiving an accept after being sent out for review; the rate of acceptance among reviewed manuscripts is 7.4% for both Solo Man and Solo Woman manuscripts. Third, we did identify notable var- iation in acceptance rates for coauthored articles. Among the pool of manuscripts that were sent out for review, coauthorship among single gender teams coincides with lower acceptance rates than both the overall acceptance rate and the acceptance rate for mixed gender teams. Teams of men and women have the greatest acceptance rates, while all women-teams have the lowest. None of the differences in acceptance rates are statisti- cally significant based on tests conducted using several multi- ple logistic regressions. Fourth, withdrawal rates are highest among submissions by a solo man. This report is organized as follows. We share descriptive sta- tistics (and how we conducted the study). We then assess the editorial process with the aid of a range of regressions, including an in-depth look at manuscript outcomes and reviewer recom- mendations. This is followed by a discussion of submission rates by gender. We conclude with lessons drawn and challenges that remain for the profession at large. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS This section provides basic summary statistics for the manu- scripts World Politics received between December 2007 and 2017. 1 Decision information for the manuscripts comes directly from World Politics records. We gathered data on gender and profes- sional rank for authors and reviewers. Since World Politics has not historically asked authors and reviewers to identify their gender and rank, we individually determined gender and rank based on information that scholars posted online. 2 Gender coding was based on pronoun, picture, or name. We calculated rank as the number of years between PhD year (for the author with the most experience) and the date of the manuscript submission. 3 We categorized manuscripts into five groups based on the composition of authors. The first category, Solo Man, is assigned when a manuscript is authored by a single man. Likewise, the second category, Solo Woman, is assigned when a manuscript is authored by a single woman. Multiple Men and Multiple Women are assigned for manuscripts with two or more authors, all of whom are male or female, respectively. Finally, Multiple Mixed, is assigned for manuscripts with multiple authors, at least one of whom is a man and at least one of whom is a woman. Table 1 provides the total number and share of submissions and acceptances for each type of manuscript. The data pool for table 1 includes all manuscript submissions for which decision data and gender information on all authors was available; accord- ingly, we excluded those manuscripts which are still under review and/or manuscripts where we could not identify the gender of the author(s). 4 Across the five manuscript types, the percentage of submissions is broadly similar to the percentage of acceptances. The share of Solo Man and Multiple Women manuscripts are slightly under- represented in the share of acceptances relative to their share of submissions. In contrast, Solo Woman, Multiple Men, and espe- cially Multiple Mixed manuscripts have slightly higher shares of acceptances than submissions. This said, when looking at abso- lute numbers, it is notable that there is an imbalance in terms of who is submitting articles for review. Single authors (66.4%) .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................