Gatekeepers or gatecrashers? The inside connection in editorial board publications of Turkish national journals

This study investigates publication portfolio of 2684 editors in 255 Turkish university journals in Social Sciences. It argues that semi-closed structures of university journals are places fostering insider culture and editors engaging in inside publication practice are likely to publish inside articles of their colleagues from the same institution. The research relies on the contrast between inside articles and international articles to quantify editors’ publication behaviour. Results show that editors demonstrate widespread insider behaviour and rarely publish international articles. Editors’ inside articles correspond to nearly one third of their national research output and outnumber Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) publications by 3.5 to 1. Two measures, board inside articles and inside-to-SSCI article ratio are used to test the association between editor and journal inside publications and show that editors publishing through inside connections facilitate publication of inside papers. At the individual level, editorial seniority, academic seniority and academic experience are related to insider behaviour, while female editors and editors with overseas PhD degrees are negatively associated. Education journal editors are the most prolific SSCI publishers (2 papers per editor) while Faculty of Science and Literature journal editors are the most prolific insiders (6.6 inside papers per editor). Results indicate an underqualification problem and highlight the importance of meritocratic editor selection to mitigate insider bias.