The trend and characteristics of China studies published in SSCI public administration journals: A bibliometric analysis

Scholars of China studies have been keen to publish in SSCI journals since mainland Chinese universities started to embrace international academic standards in the early 1990s. The widespread assumption is that publishing in SSCI journals contributes to not only the promising career of an individual scholar but also knowledge accumulation and development in the Chinese public administration field. However, it remains unanswered concerning which topic of China studies is more likely to arouse interest from journal editors and reviewers. As SSCI publications become increasingly desirable yet challenging for Chinese scholars, this study attempts to offer recommendations by exploring the trend and characteristics of China studies published in SSCI public administration journals, which are included in the Web of Science (WoS) database. This study uses bibliometric analysis to conduct a systematic review on 584 articles of China studies published in 47 SSCI public administration journals. It aims to generate various quantitative results, including journal ranking, title and keywords co-occurrences network, citation analysis, co-citation network, co-authorship network, bibliographic coupling network, and so on. In this way, this paper will reveal the latest trend and characteristics of China studies published in SSCI public administration journals. Consequently, it will help scholars enhance the quality and quantity of China studies, advance their chances of success in SSCI public administration journals, and broaden and deepen their contribution to the global academic community.