Political Ideology and the Law Review Selection Process

45 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2018 Last revised: 13 Feb 2020

Date Written: February 10, 2020

Abstract

We investigate the role that political ideology plays in the selection process for articles in law reviews. To do so, we match data on the political ideology of student editors from 15 top law reviews from 1990 to 2005 to data on the political ideology of the authors of accepted articles. We find that law reviews with a higher share of conservative editors accept a higher share of articles written by conservative authors. We then investigate potential explanations for this pattern. One possibility is that editors have a preference for publishing articles written by authors that share their ideology. Another possibility is that editors are objectively better at assessing the contribution of articles written by authors that share their ideology. We find evidence that the relationship between editor and author ideology is driven by editors' greater ability to screen articles written by authors that share their ideology.

Keywords: Academia, Publication Process, Political Ideology, Law Professor, Law Review

JEL Classification: I23, J15, J70, J71, K0, M51

Suggested Citation

Chilton, Adam and Masur, Jonathan S. and Rozema, Kyle, Political Ideology and the Law Review Selection Process (February 10, 2020). University of Chicago Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper No. 832, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3119903 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3119903

Adam Chilton

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.adamchilton.org

Jonathan S. Masur

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773.702.5188 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/masur/

Kyle Rozema (Contact Author)

Northwestern University - Pritzker School of Law ( email )

375 E. Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL 60611
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.kylerozema.com

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