“The Journal of Political Philosophy will cease publication effective January 1, 2026.”
That’s from an email sent by the journal’s publisher, Wiley, earlier today, calling the move “a difficult decision.”
Wiley had attempted to keep the journal going without an academic editorial team in place, but those efforts have now come to an end. The publisher says, “All authors with active submissions will be contacted directly by Wiley to discuss available alternatives and next steps.”
The last issue of the Journal of Political Philosophy was published in December, 2023, following the departure of editor Robert Goodin (ANU).
For readers who don’t recall the series of events, starting earlier that year, leading to the demise of that journal and, eventually, the creation of a new journal headed by Goodin, Political Philosophy, that story is here.
Political Philosophy provided a report on its first year of existence a few months ago.
When an editorial board abandons a journal owned by a large corporation, I think that usually the publisher manages to find a new editorial board of scabs, and keeps things going. Kudos to the political philosophy community for avoiding this fate, presumably through solidarity among prospective editors with the editors who resigned.
Good luck to to R. E. Goodin’s team! It is the right direction hopefully followed by others too, including other disciplines.
Especially for technical fields, I’d hope so-called overlay journals would finally take off [1]. On the other hand, I am not sure any more whether we really even need journals any more. The current reviewing quality is so poor and haphazard that it is pretty much a lottery anyways after a certain quality threshold.
[1] https://blogs.helsinki.fi/thinkopen/future-of-scientific-publishing-commentary/
A disgrace through and through — Wiley must admit its mistake