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From the Editor: In This Issue
Driven by our vision of increasing the global reach of political science research and the American Political Science Review (ASPR), we have embraced every opportunity to improve this esteemed journal since the moment we took over the editorship. Over the past twelve months, we moved forthcoming APSR articles to FirstView, introduced the letter as a new publication format, and partnered with Overleaf to create an APSR-specific LaTeX template to facilitate collaborative work. With this new volume, we are excited to introduce a new APSR cover.
Since APSR's inception in 1906, it has seen various front cover designs. Perhaps the biggest change happened in 2002, when a background photograph replaced the previously simple and colorful typeset cover. This cover layout was initiated by PS: Political Science and Politics in 1988, and Perspectives on Politics followed suit with its first publication the following year, in 2003. In 2010, the American Political Science Association (APSA) moved to harmonize the layout of its three journals by coordinating their typeset and unifying the branding. The cover photo always changed from issue to issue, keying into the theme of the first article of the issue, and the Notes from the Editor(s) would include an explanation of the chosen graphic.
Although editors are not marketing experts, with the help of Cambridge University Press and the APSA, we are changing the appearance of APSR to represent its position as the premier scholarly outlet of the APSA. We believe that the cover of the APSR should reflect our scientific identity rather than one of a striking magazine. In this vein, we have stopped selecting a lead article, thereby ending the need for a front cover graphic. All of our publications go through the same editorial peer-review process and are deemed to be cutting-edge scientific research by peers. By eliminating a lead article, we allow our readers to select their own lead article instead. As we continue the APSR tradition of publishing articles from all subfields in political science and neighboring disciplines, we hope that this will strengthen the relationship to our readers and contributors.
Turning now to the content of our new issue, during the lame-duck session of the 111th U.S. Senate, the Democratic majority...