Editor’s Note

Abstract

This is the first issue of the Political Science Reviewer for which the new editorial team is wholly responsible. While we worked through the manifold and practical issues involved in producing a journal, we have had ample time to consider the mission and purpose of continuing the project begun by George Carey and James McClellan in 1971. For Carey and McClellan, the PSR was a conversational search for truth when Truth had fallen into disrepute. Our hope is to continue this tradition by producing a journal that cleaves to no disciplinary or political orthodoxy. At the same time, relaunching the PSR has forced us to reconsider the motto that has graced the cover of the PSR for nearly half a century: “An Annual Review of Scholarship”. Not only are we now biannual, we aim to be more than the conversational review of scholarship of the earliest years of the Journal. For the new motto, we considered, among others: “A Journal of Political Theory”; “A Journal for Political Theorists;” “A Public Sphere for Political Theory;” “Conversations in Political Philosophy.” In the end, we decided on “Political Philosophy for Today.” Not only do we aim to publish political theory that is of interest, and accessible to, the broadest swaths of theorists, we also hope to remain a home for scholarship dwelling outside the prevailing orthodoxies in today’s most popular journals. This issue features two research articles, a symposium of essays on the response of philosophers to the rise of fascism in Weimar Germany, and two “Author-Meets-Critics” symposia on books written by Daniel I. O’Neill and Luke Mayville. This last section is new to the PSR, and we are particularly proud of how it is both a continuation of the journal’s legacy as well as furthers our new editorial direction. We are also proud to share that everything appearing in this issue has been subjected to blind peer review, and we hope that you find the contents edifying.