That post on Reductionism was intended to be the first in a series. I have the second fully written and the third begun. I haven’t posted them yet because a) I want to think a bit more about them; and b) I’ve had more pressing work occupy my time lately. But I will come back to them soon, as these posts are a bit of an experiment for me: I’m going to try to get a revised/refined version of them published somewhere at some point. The goal is to process-trace how we got from “complex interdependence” to OEP, in a way that might be useful for undergrads or new graduate students, esp those (like me) who didn’t have a ton of exposure to the discipline before going into grad school.

So blogging on the topic is kind of like circulating a working paper in stages. I have no idea if it will be “worth it”, but it allows me to kill at least two and possibly three birds with one stone: first, to think through these issues myself; second, to write about them in public so that others can be involved in the conversation; third, to possibly get a published paper out of it somewhere down the line.

I’ve not done this with anything I’ve intended to submit to a journal before, but I have done it with posts that were adapted/refined and then published at ForeignPolicy.com, NationalInterest.com, and Footnote1.com. Those experiences have been positive. Again, I know that professionally these don’t count for a lot, but not writing them counts for nothing.

I think that you’ve articulated a middle-ground position in which long blog posts like this are complements to journal articles as a currency for academic credentialing, T+P, etc. As much as I agree, I think that this still leaves us in a position in which the exact role of self-published, non-peer-reviewed research has an unclear value. Which means that its value can be contested.

I was actually thinking of your long post on the Reductionist Gamble as another example of something close to original research being published online first. I didn’t include it because I guess I forgot. But this does exemplify new research ideas being published first online.

But I am super pleased to hear that I’ve gotten at least one more person interested in the nitty gritty of Malaysian politics. Really, it’s great.

Tom

Great post. I know nothing about Malaysia. In spite of that, or because of it, I’ve really enjoyed these posts. I want to know more about Malaysia (and Indonesia) as they are both intrinsically interesting places and because I have a sense, admittedly uninformed, that they have the potential to become increasingly important in world politics over the next few generations. Because the topic is so far off from my normal research it is unlikely that I’d take the time to read the scholarly literature normally, but it’s more likely that I’ll do so now. If I did I’d probably start with your book, which is in my Amazon wishlist now but wasn’t before you started blogging on the subject. I know that doesn’t mean much, but it’s not nothing…

This is, I think, a big comparative advantage of blogging. It doesn’t have to be as “good” as a professional article. It just has to highlight what is interesting or important about the topic, bring some theory/evidence to bear on this interesting/important topic, and the reader will get something out of it.

Could you turn it into an article? Probably, if you wanted to. John Quiggin blogged draft versions of every chapter of his Zombie Economics book (Princeton UP) at Crooked Timber, and used it to incorporate comments and revise his drafts. Laura Sjoberg turned her posts at Duck of Minerva on feminist IR into an article at ISP (or maybe ISR… can’t remember now). I’ve blogged on topics as “thinking out loud” as a precursor to more serious work, and intend to do more of that in the future.

The feasibility of this will obviously vary by topic. Some journals will be interested in a detailed look at Malaysia’s recent election, others won’t be. Some will be hesitant to publish revised/refined versions of blog posts. But that’s not the only possible reward. In the recent TRIPS survey something like 70% of scholars thought that scholarly blogging should count as academic service. I’m sure this varies enormously by department, but it’s a marked change from just a few years ago. Perhaps in a few more years it will count as “research” as well. It will never replace a peer-reviewed article or book, but that doesn’t mean that it has no scholarly value at all. Eventually that might be recognized. If so, being ahead of the curve could be advantageous.

(I remember I owe you an e-mail. I’ll get to it soon, I expect.)

Thanks again!

The adjusted R2 of model 4 is lower than model 5 in table one (peninsular) 0.58 vs 0.69.