We are looking for a team of publicly engaged scholars to become the managing editors of the political science blog Mischiefs of Faction. For more than a decade, Mischiefs of Faction has published challenging pieces, informed by political science research, reaching academics, practitioners, and journalists. We welcome a new editorial team with their own vision who will build on this foundation and take the blog in new and exciting directions. This is an opportunity to publish, and recruit others to publish, about political science for a popular audience on a platform with credibility and reach.
Mischiefs of Faction was founded in 2012, and has functioned both as an independent blog and, from 2015 to 2019, as part of Vox.com. Devoted to the study of political parties, Mischiefs’ primary emphasis has been the American party system. However, it has also featured comparative politics scholars and at times taken on issues of public interest in the political science discipline, including race and gender. It has been cited frequently by political journalists and has a respected name in the field.
The current team of editors (see below for names) has found themselves with less time to maintain an active blog due to other professional commitments. We're proud of what we built, though, and hope that a new team could build on that foundation. The new editorial team would receive full access to the blog’s Wix.com development site, as well as access to Mischiefs’ Twitter (7,400 followers) and Facebook (1,600 followers) accounts. Seth Masket and the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver have been paying for use of Wix.com’s software (~$250/year), and the new owners would take on the responsibility of paying that or finding a new service.
The current owners welcome proposals for running the blog. Proposals should be between one and four pages and include the following:
A list of regular editors (and possibly additional regular contributors), along with their CVs
A vision statement for the editorial direction of the blog, including topics and subfields of emphasis
A description of how the blog would be run, including (but not limited to) the following:
How frequently articles would post
How the editorial system would function
How and whether outside contributions are solicited and managed
Thoughts about technical infrastructure: whether to remain on Wix or move to a new site, and whether to move to new social media platforms
Discussion of how to promote the blog to academic and non-academic audiences, and to maximize visibility of posts
A plan for creating an inclusive team of editors and contributors, including by relevant demographics, institutional characteristics, and areas of scholarship
Proposals should lean into your strengths, ideas and passions, as well as new ideas and directions for the site.
Proposals are due by midnight EDT on September 30, 2023. Please submit a single document per team. Submit proposals here.
The current editorial team will stay on as an advisory board, with relative roles and responsibilities to be negotiated with the new editorial team. We understand that junior editorial teams may want more guidance initially than relatively senior teams would.
Current editors:
Julia Azari, Matthew Green, Gregory Koger, Jonathan Ladd, Seth Masket, Hans Noel, Richard Skinner, Amy Erica Smith, Jennifer Nicoll Victor