How international are public administration journals? An analysis of the persistent Anglo‐American dominance in public administration journals

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive and up‐to‐date assessment of four dimensions (editors, editorial board members, authors, and geographical focus of research) of the internationalization of 45 major public administration journals and examines whether and how one dimension is related to the others. We find that Anglo‐American dominance is significant and persistent across all four dimensions in most public administration journals during 2011–2020, with the dimension of editors being the most pronounced, followed by the dimension of editorial board members, the authors' dimension, and the dimension of geographical focus of research. There are notable differences between journals. Further analyses show that the Anglo‐American dominance in editors has a self‐perpetuating tendency and is likely to lead to the Anglo‐American dominance in editorial board members, which is further significantly and positively associated with the Anglo‐American dominance in authors and the Anglo‐American dominance in geographical foci of research in public administration journals.