A comparative study on communication structures of Chinese journals in the social sciences

[Zhou, Ping]

Dear Tom,

Marxism does play a fundamental role in China. But less specialization of Chinese social sciences cannot be attributed to Marxism. Similar situation also happened in non-communist countries, as indicated in our paper: The current state of the social sciences is comparable to that in the smaller countries of Europe during the 1970s. Reorganizations during the 1980s transformed, for example, the Dutch system from a locally oriented one to an international one. National journals are nowadays also specialized. Scandinavian countries went through similar transitions during this period, and Spain and Italy followed during the 1990s. French and German journals have become more specialized and are now sometimes multilingual.

With best regards,
Ping Zhou

From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics [mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Tom Wilson
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 3:48 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] A comparative study on communication structures of Chinese journals in the social sciences

nist ideology - it was the same in the days of the Soviet Union - Marxist/Leninism is presumed to be the only philosophy/methodology needed to explain social life and for a social scientist to explore different avenues was positively dangerous. With the collapse of communism in Russia, social scientists there and in the former dependencies are now exploring Western social philosophy and, to a certain extent, anything Marxist is considered suspect - a complete reversal of the previous situation.

Given the tight control of society in China, I imagine that looking beyond Marxism for social explanation would also be considered suspect.

Tom Wilson

On 22 February 2010 14:33, Zhou, Ping <Ping.Zhou at econ.kuleuven.be<mailto:Ping.Zhou at econ.kuleuven.be>> wrote:

Dear David,



The "stagnation" is concluded based on two types of comparison: comparison with natural and life sciences domestically and the specialization comparison between Chinese and international communities.



Domestic comparison shows that China's world share of publications in the social sciences lags dramatically behind that in the natural and life sciences (see Figure 1 of the paper).



International comparison shows that China is less specialized than its international counterparts. We argue that specialization links to maturity of a discipline; less specialization may lead to slower progress.



The full text of the paper can be retrieved at:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.3590



With kind regards,



Ping Zhou


From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics [mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU<mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>] On Behalf Of David Wojick
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 12:57 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU<mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] A comparative study on communication structures of Chinese journals in the social sciences


What do you mean by "stagnation" and how are you measuring it? This seems like an odd conclusion to draw from a citation analysis.

David

On Feb 22, 2010, Zhou, Ping <Ping.Zhou at ECON.KULEUVEN.BE<mailto:Ping.Zhou at ECON.KULEUVEN.BE>> wrote:

Title: A comparative study on communication structures of Chinese journals in the social sciences

Source: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, forthcoming

Authors: Ping Zhou, Xinning Su, Loet Leydesdorff

Abstract: We argue that the communication structures in the Chinese social sciences have not yet been sufficiently reformed. Citation patterns among Chinese domestic journals in three subject areas-political science and marxism, library and information science, and economics-are compared with their counterparts internationally. Like their colleagues in the natural and life sciences, Chinese scholars in the social sciences provide fewer references to journal publications than their international counterparts; like their international colleagues, social scientists provide fewer references than natural sciences. The resulting citation networks, therefore, are sparse. Nevertheless, the citation structures clearly suggest that the Chinese social sciences are far less specialized in terms of disciplinary delineations than their international counterparts. Marxism studies are more established than political science in China. In terms of the impact of the Chinese political system o!
n academic fields, disciplines closely related to the political system are less specialized than those weakly related. In the discussion section, we explore reasons that may cause the current stagnation and provide policy recommendations.



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