IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v129y2024i11d10.1007_s11192-024-05179-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of the internationalization of political science on publishing in two languages: the case of Japan, 1971–2023

Author

Listed:
  • Masaru Nishikawa
  • Daisuke Sakai

    (National Public Employee)

  • Akira Matsui

    (Yokohama National University)

Abstract

Recent advancements in bibliometrics have explored various academic dynamics like career peaks and citation impacts, with political science research highlighting gender disparities and co-authorship trends that vary by region. However, these studies often focus on Western contexts, missing contributions from non-Western regions, which underscores the need for expanding research to include multilingual publishing practices and diverse global perspectives to better understand the internationalization of the Social Sciences and Humanities. This study focuses on the internationalization trajectories of political science in Japan, specifically examining the publishing practices of Japanese political scientists in both English and Japanese. The study reveals a generational shift in which younger scientists, especially those working abroad, are increasingly publishing in English. This shift towards publishing in English contrasts with the practices of those working in Japan, who predominantly publish in Japanese and have not significantly adopted co-authorship. This article notes a decline in book publications in both English and Japanese among Japanese political scientists. This trend indicates a broader preference for peer-reviewed articles over books, driven by professional pressures in Japan. The study uses descriptive statistics, text analysis, network analysis, and qualitative analysis to explore these trends, highlighting the influence of internationalization on Japanese political science publication strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Masaru Nishikawa & Daisuke Sakai & Akira Matsui, 2024. "The impact of the internationalization of political science on publishing in two languages: the case of Japan, 1971–2023," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(11), pages 6975-7003, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:129:y:2024:i:11:d:10.1007_s11192-024-05179-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-024-05179-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-024-05179-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-024-05179-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gunnar Sivertsen, 2016. "Patterns of internationalization and criteria for research assessment in the social sciences and humanities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 357-368, May.
    2. Xu, Xin, 2021. "A policy trajectory analysis of the internationalisation of Chinese humanities and social sciences research (1978–2020)," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    3. Joshua Ettinger & Friederike E. L. Otto & E. Lisa F. Schipper, 2021. "Storytelling can be a powerful tool for science," Nature, Nature, vol. 589(7842), pages 352-352, January.
    4. Glenn S. McGuigan & Göktuğ Morçöl & Travis Grosser, 2021. "Using ego-network analyses to examine journal citations: a comparative study of public administration, political science, and business management," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9345-9368, December.
    5. Daisuke Sakai, 2019. "Who is peer reviewed? Comparing publication patterns of peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed papers in Japanese political science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 65-80, October.
    6. Kaile Gong & Juan Xie & Ying Cheng & Vincent Larivière & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2019. "The citation advantage of foreign language references for Chinese social science papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1439-1460, September.
    7. Shouhuai Xu & Moti Yung & Jingguo Wang, 2021. "Seeking Foundations for the Science of Cyber Security," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 263-267, April.
    8. Dorte Henriksen, 2016. "The rise in co-authorship in the social sciences (1980–2013)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 455-476, May.
    9. Lu Liu & Nima Dehmamy & Jillian Chown & C. Lee Giles & Dashun Wang, 2021. "Understanding the onset of hot streaks across artistic, cultural, and scientific careers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    10. Lisa Mandle & Analisa Shields-Estrada & Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer & Matthew G. E. Mitchell & Leah L. Bremer & Jesse D. Gourevitch & Peter Hawthorne & Justin A. Johnson & Brian E. Robinson & Jeffrey R. Sm, 2021. "Increasing decision relevance of ecosystem service science," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(2), pages 161-169, February.
    11. Jean J. Wang & Sarah X. Shao & Fred Y. Ye, 2021. "Identifying 'seed' papers in sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 6001-6011, July.
    12. Sebnem Cansun & Engin Arik, 2018. "Political science publications about Turkey," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 169-188, April.
    13. Paul A. Djupe & Kim Quaile Hill & Amy Erica Smith & Anand E. Sokhey, 2020. "Putting personality in context: determinants of research productivity and impact in political science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2279-2300, September.
    14. Johan S. G. Chu & James A. Evans, 2021. "Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(41), pages 2021636118-, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Meiling & Wang, Yang & Du, Haifeng & Bai, Aruhan, 2024. "Motivating innovation: The impact of prestigious talent funding on junior scientists," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(9).
    2. Alex J. Yang & Huimin Xu & Ying Ding & Meijun Liu, 2024. "Unveiling the dynamics of team age structure and its impact on scientific innovation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(10), pages 6127-6148, October.
    3. Martin Baily & David Byrne & Aidan Kane & Paul Soto, 2025. "Generative AI at the Crossroads: Light Bulb, Dynamo, or Microscope?," Papers 2505.14588, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    4. Zhuanlan Sun & C. Clark Cao & Sheng Liu & Yiwei Li & Chao Ma, 2024. "Behavioral consequences of second-person pronouns in written communications between authors and reviewers of scientific papers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Zhang, Yang & Wang, Yang & Du, Haifeng & Havlin, Shlomo, 2024. "Delayed citation impact of interdisciplinary research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1).
    6. Thomas, Duncan Andrew & Ramos-Vielba, Irene, 2022. "Reframing study of research(er) funding towards configurations and trails," SocArXiv uty2v, Center for Open Science.
    7. Ruonan Cai & Wencan Tian & Rundong Luo & Zhichao Fang & Zhigang Hu, 2025. "Do articles with multiple corresponding authorships have a citation advantage? A double machine learning analysis approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(5), pages 2523-2550, May.
    8. Weihua Li & Sam Zhang & Zhiming Zheng & Skyler J. Cranmer & Aaron Clauset, 2022. "Untangling the network effects of productivity and prominence among scientists," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    9. Deng Cheng & Zhang Xue & Yang Zhibo & Zhang Mingze, 2025. "Impact of interdisciplinarity on disruptive innovation: the moderating role of collaboration pattern and collaboration size," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(4), pages 2379-2401, April.
    10. Liyin Zhang & Yuchen Qian & Chao Ma & Jiang Li, 2023. "Continued collaboration shortens the transition period of scientists who move to another institution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(3), pages 1765-1784, March.
    11. Xinhua Chai & Qiang Wu, 2025. "What kind of research network configurations lead to high academic productivity for young management scholars?—A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(5), pages 2705-2748, May.
    12. Bornmann, Lutz & Haunschild, Robin, 2024. "The Prize Winner Index (PWI): A proposal for an indicator based on scientific prizes," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4).
    13. Peng, Xianzhe & Xu, Huixin & Shi, Jin, 2024. "Are the bibliometric growth patterns of excellent scholars similar? From the analysis of ACM Fellows," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3).
    14. Michael Färber & Melissa Coutinho & Shuzhou Yuan, 2023. "Biases in scholarly recommender systems: impact, prevalence, and mitigation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2703-2736, May.
    15. Baicun Li & Aruhan Bai, 2025. "The influence of grant renewal on research content: evidence from NIH-funded PIs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(5), pages 2617-2638, May.
    16. Yang, Wenlong & Wang, Yang, 2024. "Exploring team creativity: The nexus between freshness and experience," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4).
    17. Malte Hückstädt, 2023. "Ten reasons why research collaborations succeed—a random forest approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(3), pages 1923-1950, March.
    18. Cinzia Daraio & Simone Di Leo & Loet Leydesdorff, 2022. "Using the Leiden Rankings as a Heuristics: Evidence from Italian universities in the European landscape," LEM Papers Series 2022/08, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    19. Alex J. Yang & Hongcun Gong & Yuhao Wang & Chao Zhang & Sanhong Deng, 2024. "Rescaling the disruption index reveals the universality of disruption distributions in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(1), pages 561-580, January.
    20. Rainer Frietsch & Sonia Gruber & Lutz Bornmann, 2025. "The definition of highly cited researchers: the effect of different approaches on the empirical outcome," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(2), pages 881-907, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:129:y:2024:i:11:d:10.1007_s11192-024-05179-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.