The American Political Science Association (APSA) is delighted to announce that Ana Arjona and Wendy Pearlman of Northwestern University have been selected to lead the APSA flagship journal Perspectives on Politics from June 1, 2023, until May 31, 2026. The journal will be housed in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University.
Co-Editors:
- Ana Arjona, Associate Professor, Northwestern University
- Wendy Pearlman, Professor, Northwestern University
The incoming editorial team is excited to share their vision for the journal:
“We are delighted to be selected as the next co-editors of Perspectives on Politics. Perspectives stands apart from other political science journals due to its commitment to research that is both of the highest scholarly quality and purposefully cross-cutting, broadly engaging, methodologically pluralist, and boldly relevant. We believe in the journal’s unique mission and are honored to take it on as our own for the next three years.
Building on the accomplishments of previous editors, we undertake to reinforce the journal’s position as a platform that serves the entire discipline by fostering dialogue and collaboration among political scientists with wide-ranging subfield specializations, epistemological perspectives, analytical approaches, and thematic interests. We aspire to continue building Perspectives’ role as an impactful conduit for political science’s engagement beyond the academy by promoting research on issues of substantive significance, presented in language that is accessible to broad audiences of policymakers, practitioners, and publics. In leading the journal, we will hold inclusion and representation as paramount priorities as we work to ensure that a diversity of voices — and especially those of scholars from traditionally underrepresented communities in the United States and abroad — are heard and respected.”
The new co-editors will oversee the peer-reviewed research article section of the journal. A search remains open for a book review editor. Please direct any inquiries or nominations to jgurstelle@apsanet.org.
Meet the Team
Ana Arjona, Associate Professor of Political Science
Ana Arjona is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. She obtained her PhD in political science from Yale University (with distinction) and has been a Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame. She was the director of the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs at Los Andes University in Colombia (2018-2019) and is the founding director of the Network of Studies on Drugs in Latin America (REDESDAL). Her work has been funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the SSRC, the United States Institute of Peace, Yale University, and Northwestern University in the U.S.; the IDRC in Canada; the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden; and the DID, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Global Challenges Research Fund in the U.K. Her research investigates the dynamics and legacies of organized violence, especially civil wars and organized crime, as well as local governance and state building. She is the author of the award-winning book Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War (Cambridge, 2016), co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil War (Cambridge, 2015), and author of several articles and book chapters.
Wendy Pearlman, Professor of Political Science
Wendy Pearlman is Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, where she also holds the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence and the Crown Professorship of Middle East Studies. She earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University and has received fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Fulbright, the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad at the American University in Cairo, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is the author of forty academic articles or book chapters and five books: Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003); Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge, 2011); We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins, 2017); Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States that Host Nonstate Actors (with Boaz Atzili, Columbia, 2018); and Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out (with Muzoon Almellehan, Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2023). Her sixth book, on displaced Syrians’ stories and reflections about the meaning of home, is forthcoming from Liveright Books in 2024.