World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
Governance
H-index 19

Governance

Ranking & Metrics

Discipline name Position Best Scientists Publications D-Index
Political Science 32 67 70 19

Additional Metrics

Number of Best Scientists*: 76
Documents by Best Scientists*: 77
Top 100 Ranked Scientists*: 13
SCIMAGO H-index: 99
SCIMAGO SJR: 1.426
Impact Factor: 3.1

Overview

Top Research Topics at Governance?

The journal mainly tackles studies in Public administration, Politics, Political economy, Corporate governance and Government. Some problems in Public administration that were presented in the journal overlapped with concepts under Bureaucracy, Public relations, Accountability, State (polity) and Public policy. The journal connects research in Politics with the related topic of Economic system.

  • Public administration (27.54%)
  • Politics (17.42%)
  • Political economy (12.41%)

What are the most cited papers published in the journal?

  • Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy‐Making (1822 citations)
  • Legitimacy and the Privatization of Environmental Governance: How Non-State Market-Driven (NSMD) Governance Systems Gain Rule-Making Authority (912 citations)
  • Transition management for sustainable development: A prescriptive, complexity-based governance framework (898 citations)

Research areas of the most cited articles at Governance:

Public administration, Politics, Corporate governance, Government and Public relations are the main subjects of interest in the most cited publications. The journal publications hold forums on Public administration that merge themes from other disciplines such as Bureaucracy, Accountability, Public policy, Legitimacy and Democracy. Competition (economics), Transparency (behavior) and Political economy are some topics wherein Politics research discussed in the journal publications has an impact.

What topics the last edition of the journal is best known for?

  • Law
  • World War II
  • Politics

The previous edition focused in particular on these issues:

The discussions in Governance mainly cover the fields of Political economy, Politics, Public administration, Economic history and Government. The work on Political economy tackled in the journal brings together disciplines like State (polity), Authoritarianism, Democracy and Corruption. Politics research discussed connects with the study of Corporate governance.

While the journal primarily focused on Corporate governance, it also opened dialogues on the discipline of Download. Topics in Public administration explored in Governance were investigated in conjunction with research in Quality (business) and Agency (sociology).

The most cited articles from the last journal are:

  • Bridging the citizen gap: Bureaucratic representation and knowledge linkage in (international) public administration (7 citations)
  • Blunt force regulation and bureaucratic control: Understanding China's war on pollution (7 citations)
  • Information exchange networks at the climate science‐policy interface: Evidence from the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, and Portugal (5 citations)

Papers citation over time

A key indicator for each journal is its effectiveness in reaching other researchers with the papers published at that venue.

The chart below presents the interquartile range (first quartile 25%, median 50% and third quartile 75%) of the number of citations of articles over time.

The top authors publishing in Governance (based on the number of publications) are:

  • Christopher Hood (11 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • 冬二 童門 (11 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • Robert Henry Cox (11 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • Michael Barzelay (8 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • B. Guy Peters (8 papers) absent at the last edition.

The overall trend for top authors publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top authors.

Only papers with recognized affiliations are considered

The top affiliations publishing in Governance (based on the number of publications) are:

  • London School of Economics and Political Science (41 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition, 2 more than at the previous edition,
  • University of Gothenburg (31 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition, 3 less than at the previous edition,
  • Harvard University (27 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition, 1 more than at the previous edition,
  • University of Oxford (24 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition, 2 less than at the previous edition,
  • Aarhus University (23 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition, 2 more than at the previous edition.

The overall trend for top affiliations publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top affiliations.

Publication chance based on affiliation

The publication chance index shows the ratio of articles published by the best research institutions in the journal edition to all articles published within that journal. The best research institutions were selected based on the largest number of articles published during all editions of the journal.

The chart below presents the percentage ratio of articles from top institutions (based on their ranking of total papers).Top affiliations were grouped by their rank into the following tiers: top 1-10, top 11-20, top 21-50, and top 51+. Only articles with a recognized affiliation are considered.

During the most recent 2021 edition, 10.08% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 14.66% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 9.48% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 20.69% of all publications and 55.17% were from other institutions.

Returning Authors Index

A very common phenomenon observed among researchers publishing scientific articles is the intentional selection of journals they have already attended in the past. In particular, it is worth analyzing the case when the authors participate in the same journal from year to year.

The Returning Authors Index presented below illustrates the ratio of authors who participated in both a given as well as the previous edition of the journal in relation to all participants in a given year.

Returning Institution Index

The graph below shows the Returning Institution Index, illustrating the ratio of institutions that participated in both a given and the previous edition of the conference in relation to all affiliations present in a given year.

The experience to innovation index

Our experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The group intervals were selected empirically to best show the diversity of the authors' experiences, their labels were selected as a convenience, not as judgment. The authors were divided into the following groups:

  • Novice - P < 5 or C < 25 (the number of publications less than 5 or the number of citations less than 25),
  • Competent - P < 10 or C < 100 (the number of publications less than 10 or the number of citations less than 100),
  • Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625 (the number of publications less than 25 or the number of citations less than 625),
  • Master - P < 50 or C < 2500 (the number of publications less than 50 or the number of citations less than 2500),
  • Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500 (both the number of publications greater than 50 and the number of citations greater than 2500).

The chart below illustrates experience levels of first authors in cases of publications with multiple authors.

Top Publications

  • The effects of new public management on the quality of public services

    Victor Lapuente;Victor Lapuente;Steven Van de Walle

    (2020)
    216 Citations
  • The polity of implementation: Organizational and institutional arrangements in policy implementation

    Unknown

    (2022)
    107 Citations
  • Bringing political science back into public administration research

    (2022)
    79 Citations
  • An agenda for the study of Public Administration in Developing Countries

    Anthony M. Bertelli;Mai Hassan;Dan Honig;Daniel Rogger

    (2020)
    74 Citations
  • Multilevel blame games: Blame‐shifting in the European Union

    Tim Heinkelmann‐Wild;Bernhard Zangl

    (2020)
    63 Citations
  • Reversing delegation? Politicization, de‐delegation, and non‐majoritarian institutions

    (2022)
    48 Citations
  • Modes of regulatory governance: A political economy perspective

    Mattia Guidi;Igor Guardiancich;David Levi‐Faur

    (2020)
    37 Citations
  • On democratic intelligence and failure: The vice and virtue of incrementalism under political fragmentation and policy accumulation

    Christian Adam;Steffen Hurka;Christoph Knill;Yves Steinebach

    (2021)
    31 Citations
  • Understanding Felt Accountability: The institutional antecedents of the felt accountability of agency-CEO's to central government

    Thomas Schillemans;Sjors Overman;Paul Fawcett;Matthew Flinders

    (2021)
    31 Citations

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