This article briefly sets out a political economy of academic publishing, exploring what the costs and benefits of this model are/were for the academic community. It then moves to explore forms of open access publication available to the social science (politics and international relations) community in the United Kingdom and beyond. The article concludes by asking why (given its likely advantages), the open access model is not ubiquitous and suggests that the future of publication lies in the hands of early career researchers.
AtchisonABullJ (2015) Will open access get me cited? An analysis of the efficacy of open access publishing in political science. PS: Political Science & Politics48(1): 129–137.
CarlingJBivand ErdalMHarstadB, et al. (2018) Plan S: At the Crossroads of Open Access to Research: An Assessment of the Possible Consequences of Plan S for Publishing, Research Quality and Research Environments. Oslo: Peace Research Institute Oslo and Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo.
CostelloE (2019) Bronze, free or fourée: An open access commentary. Science Editing6(1): 169–172.
7.
DavidM (2017) Sharing: Crime Against Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
8.
ElseH (2018) Radical plan to end paywalls. Nature, 6September, vol. 561, pp.17–18.
9.
EveMP (2014) Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
FortsonD (2019) A Napster moment for ivory towers. Sunday Times (Business Section), 17February, p.8.
11.
FyfeACoateKCurryS, et al. (2017) Untangling academic publishing: A history of the relationship between commercial interests, academic prestige and the circulation of research. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.546100 (accessed 1 August 2018).
12.
GlassmanJ (2006) Primitive accumulation, accumulation by dispossession, accumulation by ‘extra-economic’ means. Progress in Human Geography30(5): 5608–5625.
13.
GreenT (2018) We’re still failing to deliver open access and solve the serials crisis: To succeed we need a digital transformation of scholarly communication using internet-era principles. Zenodo [online]. Available at: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1410000 (accessed 22 October 2018).
14.
GuédonJ-CJubbMKramerB, et al. (eds) (2019) Future of Scholarly Publishing and Scholarly Communication: Report of the Expert Group to the European Commission. Brussels: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission.
KramerBBosmanJ (2018) Towards a Plan S gap analysis? (1) Open access potential across disciplines. Innovations in Scholarly Communication, 5December. Available at: https://zenodo.org/record/1979937 (accessed 13 June 2019).
MerrettC (2006) The expropriation of intellectual capital and the political economy of international academic publishing. Critical Arts20(1): 196–111.
23.
NygaardLP (2017) Publishing and perishing: An academic literacies framework for investigating research productivity. Studies in Higher Education42(3): 3519–3532.
24.
O’CarrolCRentierBCabello ValdesC, et al. (eds) (2017) Evaluation of Research Careers fully Acknowledging Open Science Practices: Rewards, Incentives and/or Recognition for Researchers Practicing Open Science. Brussels: Open 2017 Science and ERA policy, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission.
25.
PerelmanM (2000) The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
26.
PhillipsA (2009) Business models in journal publishing. In: CopeBPhillipsA (eds) The Future of the Academic Journal. Witney: Chandos Publishing, pp.139–158.
27.
PirieI (2009) The political economy of academic publishing. Historical Materialism17(3): 31–60.
28.
SassenS (2010) A savage sorting of winners and losers: Contemporary versions of primitive accumulation. Globalizations7(1–2): 25–50.
29.
ShreevesSL (2009) ‘Cannot predict now’: The role of repositories in the future of the journal. In: CopeBPhillipsA (eds) The Future of the Academic Journal. Witney: Chandos Publishing, pp.299–315.
