Notes from the Editors

Extract

We introduce this issue with a thought. There has been much made of the need for our discipline to be “policy relevant,” and much ridicule has been directed at the Review recently that comments how little the Review offers that is relevant for decision makers. But what does it mean to be policy relevant? Generally, scholarly journals publish the best in basic research, which hopefully can be used by those in positions of authority to good effect. This often means that there are no catchy titles, nor opinion-editorial pieces that are so often portrayed as the model of policy relevant work. In our view, the role of the Review is to expand knowledge on important scholarly questions, not only to publish work that is currently popular or somehow ordained as useful by pundits. There is certainly a place for such work, but not in the pages of the Review. On the other hand, we as the editors of the Review understand the need to make the Review accessible to as broad an audience as possible, and we have made great efforts to do just that.