Political Science

Political science is characterised by overlaps with other disciplines, for example, sociology, history, law and administrative science, and philosophy. Depending on the sub-discipline, it is influenced by developments in the culture of neighbouring disciplines and adopts their methods. Whereas the humanities-oriented fields of political science, such as political theory, are hesitant about open access, a dynamic development towards open access can be observed in the sub-disciplines with a social science or international focus. 

An analysis of the publication output of political science journal articles in Germany in the years 2015–2015 in the Scopus database indicates an open access share of between 30% and 35%. The share of political science books published open access is also steadily increasing. Particular mention should be made here of the transcript Open Library Politikwissenschaft, which makes all new releases in political science published by transcript immediately available in open access via crowdfunding.

The American Political Science Association (APSA), which is probably the most important political science association in the world, has been operating APSA Preprints, an open access publication platform for political science preprints, since 2019. The German Political Science Association (GPSA) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft (DGfP) have not yet adopted a position on open access, and the major German-language political science journals (e.g., Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, Politische Vierteljahresschrift and Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen) have not been published open access to date. 

A special role is played by the think tanks in the area of application-oriented political science. Think tanks are public or private institutions that analyse foreign policy processes. They focus mostly on concrete options for policy makers, while also aiming to influence the political public at large. Many current publications from the leading think tanks, for example, from Clingendael in the Netherlands or the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Center for Applied Policy Research in Germany, are for the most part freely accessible, albeit not completely open access. They are well publicised and can be downloaded easily from the respective websites. 

The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 2,914 titles under the search term political science. The OAPEN Library listed around 8,058 titles under the search term political science (as of April 2024).

A slowly growing demand for and acceptance of open access can be observed in the area of political science monographs and edited collections, although this development has not yet become measurably manifest: spot checks of current years of publication at Springer/Palgrave and Taylor & Francis/Routledge revealed that open access titles had a share of under 2% of the annual output in political science. However, all major publishers (including German publishing houses) now offer an open access option. The publication costs are paid (if applicable, pro rata) from project funds and via institutional sources such as publication funds or crowdfunding, for example, the above-mentioned transcript Open Library Politikwissenschaft. 

The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content relevant to political science.