Comparative Politics

Professors Erickson and Markovitz helped launch the publishing careers of many scholars in the discipline and we hope to carry on that legacy. This will be our tribute to our exemplars, Ken and Lenny.

We are also dedicated to being a journal that fosters emerging scholars by providing a quick initial decision, high-quality feedback on papers sent out for review, and fair consideration of work submitted by all scholars regardless of their academic rank or institution.

But we are especially committed to sustaining CP’s long-standing role as an outlet for excellent qualitative research that explores ambitious theoretical questions, whether that research be rooted in comparative historical analysis, process tracing, in-depth interviews, or ethnographic field work.

Both Bellin and Smith are committed to making the journal the strongest it can be – a platform for path- breaking research in comparative politics, open to all methods.

With the approval of the editorial committee, Professors Erickson and Markovitz have passed the baton to Professors Eva Bellin and Nicholas Rush Smith who will now assume the role of Editors-in-Chief.

Thanks to their leadership, Comparative Politics is ranked as Q1 among all Political Science journals, while remaining among a handful of independent publications in the industry. We are so grateful to them.

Both Ken and Lenny, as we know them, have shown extraordinary dedication to the journal and, more generally, to the field of comparative politics. They have modeled integrity, collegiality, hard work, and a commitment to excellence. They have kept the journal strong.

After more than 45 years of service as members of the editorial committee at Comparative Politics and after 30 years of service as the journal’s Editors-in-Chief, Professors Kenneth Paul Erickson and Irving Leonard Markovitz are stepping down.

A New Era of Editorial Leadership at Comparative Politics
With the first issue of the 58th volume of Comparative Politics, we mark a change in the guard of the leadership of the journal.

Does punishing perpetrators of mass violence reduce support for remembrance? Drawing on survey experiments and historical variation in denazification within Germany, Alexander De Juan and Julian Voß find that perceived justice does not undermine support for commemoration.

New article on Fast Track by Alexander De Juan and @juvoss.bsky.social , “Transitional Justice and Support for Policies of Remembrance after Mass Violence,” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Why did some Chinese diaspora voices embrace Trump and even support overturning the 2020 election? Using ~1M tweets from 200 opinion leaders, Liu, Xia, and Zhang show that those with stronger authoritarian imprints were more likely to support Trump & reject the 2020 election outcome.

New article on Fast Track by Sibo Liu, Shouzhi Xia, and Dong Zhang, “From Maoism to MAGA: Embracing Democracy with Authoritarian Imprints,” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Our October 2025 issue (Vol.58, No.1) is now available: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

What accounts for the emergence of authoritarian capitalism in industrialized democracies, post-communist countries, and emerging market economies? @lingchenscholar.bsky.social, Xiuyu li, and Kellee Tsai identify three pathways to authoritarian capitalism.

New Research Note on Fast Track by @lingchenscholar.bsky.social, Xiuyu li, and Kellee Tsai, “Pathways to Authoritarian Capitalism,” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Happy to see this paper out in the July issue of CP! Using the case of abortion policy, I argue that clientelistic parties engage in strategic, mutually beneficial interactions with influential interest groups when material exchanges no longer guarantee office.

I learned so much from @rdassonneville.bsky.social's Voters Under Pressure, Tillman's Authoritarianism and the Evolution and Bartels's Democracy Erodes from the Top. In @comppol.bsky.social, I review each book on its own terms and draw out implications for the view that elections confer mandates. 🧵

Three recent books decidedly move our understanding of elections in the advanced democracies of Europe forward. In Tristan Klingelhöfer’s (@klingelt.bsky.social) reading, they also deal a decided blow to the idea that elections can be seen as giving genuine mandates to politicians.

New Review Article on Fast Track by @klingelt.bsky.social “Recasting the Meaning of Elections: Three Strikes for the Mandate Interpretation in Europe,” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

In autocracies, appeal and complaint systems are tools for everyday information gathering. Using new dataset on 1.7 mln appeals submitted to the Kremlin from 2017-23, we show that the immediacy of a crisis’s impact interacts with the regime’s repressive response to affect how citizens use appeals.

New article on Fast Track by Sasha de Vogel, Hannah S. Chapman, and Lauren A. McCarthy, “Authoritarian Information Gathering amid Crisis,” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Are we entering a new age of revolutionary theory? In his review article, Abrams tells the story of revolutionary theory from Karl Marx's death to the present and evaluates where current scholarship is heading.

New Review Article on Fast Track by Benjamin Abrams, “A Revolution in Revolutionary Theory?” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Our July 2025 issue (Vol.57, No.4) is now available: www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Drawing on 132 semi-structured interviews conducted during 8 months of fieldwork in Lebanon, this study argues that organizational capacity helps determine whether political parties step into the role of security providers.

New article on Fast Track by @kstedem.bsky.social “What State? Political Parties and Non-State Security Provision in Lebanon,” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

Why do some victorious rebels invest in statebuilding, while others prioritize private enrichment? The ideologies they organize around as rebels explain how they govern once in power, as @kaimthaler.bsky.social shows with evidence from Nicaragua, Liberia, & Uganda.

New article on Fast Track by @kaimthaler.bsky.social “From Insurgent to Incumbent: Ideology, Rebel Governance, and Statebuilding after Rebel Victory in Civil Wars,” www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cuny...

In 2024, we received 267 manuscripts, of which 54% were rejected in-house. The average decision time was 29 days. The average decision time for only externally peer-reviewed manuscripts was 63 days. We accepted for publication 9% of submissions and gave an R&R to another 10%.