journal referees

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Where do journal editors look to find someone to referee your manuscript (in the typical “double blind” review system in academic journals)? One obvious place to look is the reference list in your paper. After all, if you’ve cited them, they must know about the topic of your paper, putting them in a good position to write a useful review. The problem is that if your paper is on a topic of ardent disagreement, and you argue in favor of one side of the debates, then your reference list is likely to include those with actual or perceived conflicts of interest. After all, if someone has a strong standpoint on an issue of some controversy, and a strong interest in persuading others to accept their side, it creates an intellectual conflict of interest, if that person has power to uphold that view. Since your referee is in a position of significant power to do just that, it follows that they have a conflict of interest (COI). A lot of attention is paid to author’s conflicts of interest, but little into intellectual or ideological conflicts of interests of reviewers. At most, the concern is with the reviewer having special reasons to favor the author, usually thought to be indicated by having been a previous co-author. We’ve been talking about journal editors conflicts of interest as of late (e.g., with Mark Burgman’s presentation at the last Phil Stat Forum) and this brings to mind another one. Continue reading →