Agricultural & Applied Economics Association

Response: What's Good for the Goose Is Good for the GanderAuthor(s): Ray Huffaker and Ron MittelhammerSource: Review of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Autumn - Winter, 2002), pp. 555-558Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Agricultural & Applied Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1349780 .

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Review of Agricultural Economics-Volume 24, Number 2-Pages 555-558

Response: What's Good for the Goose Is Good for the Gander

Ray Huffaker and Ron Mittelhammer

Our case for journal appellate review is straightforward. We characterize the editor as an "impartial judge" in deciding whether to accept/reject a

manuscript. However, the editor is put into the position of self-review if his/her final decision is challenged by an author. We contend that replacing self-review with external review by a journal appellate board will improve the quality of editorial decision-making at reasonable cost. We do not contend that an appellate board is needed to correct the "imbalance of power" existing between editor and author, as alleged by Stefanou and Brandt (S&B). Although this might be an added benefit, we do not argue it for two reasons. First, to our knowledge, the AAEA does not currently grant authors a constitutional guarantee of due process or fairness in their professional dealings with association journals. The editorial staff can decide to reject manuscripts with little or no process. Second, we agree with S&B that the primary purpose of the editorial staff is quality control-not fairness. We state this in the first sentence of our initial commentary.

Agricultural economists, and academicians in general, should be very comfortable with the connection that we draw between external review and quality control. Universities rely on external review to control the quality of the most important decisions they make, including hiring, promotion, and granting of tenure. The rationale is that self-review is not a reliable mechanism for filtering out the contamination of self-interest that may prevent a creditable decision from being reached objectively on the merits.

Most telling, academic journals themselves rely on external review as the primary quality-control mechanism in selecting articles. An article merits communication in an academic journal only if someone other than the author becomes convinced. This places S&B in a tenuous position. They cannot contend that external review is not a reliable mechanism for quality control when editors rely on it so heavily in selecting articles. Consequently, S&B are left to argue that editorial decision making should be one of the last remaining bastions of academic self-review.

We evaluate S&B's case for editorial immunity from external review point-by-point.

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556 Review of Agricultural Economics

Existing Remedies Suffice S&B contend that external review is unnecessary because authors wishing to

test the rationale of an editorial decision have two existing remedies. One remedy is to appeal to the editor to revisit his/her decision. S&B allege that we failed to recognize this remedy. To the contrary, we wrote in our initial commentary that, "[i]n some professional associations (including the AAEA), authors challenging an adverse editorial decision must seek review from the editor who made the decision." However, we criticized this remedy on the basis that, "[t]he editor has the power to avoid this challenge altogether, or to establish the grounds under which his/her own decision is reviewed." Editors justifiably do not accept voluntary or self-structured reviews from authors as an acceptable means of testing the merit of a submitted manuscript. Why should the AAEA accept such a process to test the quality of editorial decision making?

The second remedy that S&B recommend is for authors wishing to test the rationale of an AAEA editorial decision to go elsewhere to publish. Such a remedy represents a step backward from the appeal/self-review mechanism by allowing AAEA editors to avoid reviews of their decision making altogether. While this option may be less burdensome for editors, we believe that authors questioning the rationale of editorial decision making deserve a more thoughtful remedy than being shown the door.

S&B attempt to soften the blow of their love-it-or-leave-it remedy by asking, "why is making sure a particular submission gets accepted into the AAEA publication in question so important?" As we explained in our initial commentary, the point of journal appellate review is not to ensure that a "particular submission gets accepted," just as the point of appellate courts in the U.S. judicial system is not to ensure that a particular case is won. The goal of appellate review, whether in the courts or the editorial system, is to avoid poor decision making prejudicial to a creditable outcome. S&B's remedy is akin to suggesting that litigants challenging the credibility of a lower court ruling in the United States move to Mexico.

External Review Questions the Integrity of the Editor S&B contend that our "recommendation to institute an appellate board

suggests an editor cannot objectively handle an appeal, which questions the integrity of the editor."

Subjecting editors to external review no more questions their personal objectivity and integrity than those traits are questioned when editors subject authors to external peer review of their manuscripts. We recommend appellate board review because it is good process-not because we question the integrity of editorial decision makers.

If It Ain't Broke -Don't Fix It S&B require proof that the editorial system is "broke" as a prerequisite for

adopting appellate board review. This creates a "catch 22" because they later indirectly admit that the necessary evidence is unavailable to the general public. They list "three important pieces of information not available to the author" that impair his/her ability to draft an informed appeal. Coincidently, this is

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Response 557

information needed to test whether the editorial system is "broke." Given that such evidence is not publicly available, why not simply avoid the test altogether? Allow AAEA members to reveal their preference for an appellate mechanism by giving them the opportunity to appeal adverse editorial decisions to an impartial body when they feel such an appeal is defensible.

More generally, why should anyone suggesting change be required to first show that the status quo is "broke"? Did farmers wait for the yoke to break before buying their first tractor? Did members of the profession wait for their typewriters and mechanical calculators to break down before switching to word processors and computers? There is room for improvement in almost all endeavors-and nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The AAEA Is Distinguishable from the Entomological Society of America

We cited the Entomological Society of America (ESA) as an example of a national academic organization that has adopted appellate board review. S&B claim that the ESA represents "a very special case that cannot be viewed as a broad case in point." The basis of their claim is that a rejection decision from any ESA journal "comes at a very heavy price" since the author is then precluded from resubmitting the particular manuscript to any of the ESA's other peer-reviewed journals. S&B allege that the ESA has compensated for the lack of alternative publication outlets by adopting appellate review for each of its journals.

We do not agree that rejection by an ESA journal comes at a higher price than rejection by a comparable AAEA journal, and, consequently, that the ESA has more need of editorial appellate review than the AAEA. The ESA and AAEA are both national organizations providing the top-tier peer-reviewed journals in their respective disciplines. The ESA's journals divide cutting-edge basic and empirical research into fields, that is, "medical," "economic," and "environmental" entomology. The comparable AAEA journal is The American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE), which combines cutting-edge basic and empirical research into only one journal covering all fields. Other AAEA journals and publications cater to significantly different types of articles than those submitted to the AJAE (e.g., case studies and commentaries). The rejected ESA author is precluded from resubmitting the "cutting-edge" article to another ESA field journal, but the rejected AJAE author also is effectively precluded from resubmitting the "cutting-edge" article to another AAEA field journal because there is only one such journal. Rejected authors in each discipline have the similar option of submitting their papers to the next tier of peer-reviewed journals operated by regional associations. In sum, both the ESA's experience with, and motivation for, appellate board review are perfectly applicable.

The Appellate Board Will Intrude upon the Editor's Authority

S&B allege that the "logic" of our statement that the appellate process will not intrude upon the editor's authority "is not clear." We believe our logic is crystal

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558 Review of Agricultural Economics

clear. Editors will do everything that they do now, but their decisions will be subject to external review. Surely, it does not impinge on editorial decision-making authority if an appellate board remands a paper back to the editor to correct a significant procedural or substantive error. No editor should expect to have the authority to make an undetected and uncorrected error in judgment. Moreover, S&B's concerns that an editor might have to put an asterisk by a published remanded paper "indicating the article's review was taken outside the normal peer review process" is much ado about nothing. No asterisk would be needed because appellate board review will constitute "normal peer review process."

Miscellaneous Issues S&B ask, "[a]t what point does the external check on the editorial process

end?" They also ask, "[w]hat if the authors find the appellate committee also falls for the same argument the editor subscribed to in issuing a rejection?" We answered these questions in our original commentary as follows: "The decision of the appellate board would be final and incontestable."

Conclusion S&B conclude by agreeing with us that "an editor's decision should be able to

stand the light of day." The best way to ensure this is for an editor's decision to see the light of day. Let the quality of editorial decision making be tested by the same type of external review mechanism used to ensure the quality of manuscripts accepted into the journal. Such a mechanism is initiated by the author desiring review (not by the reviewed editor), and conducted by external reviewers (not by the reviewed editor) in accordance with established procedure (not set by the reviewed editor in an ad hoc manner).

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