Here; an excerpt:
There is a big intellectual flaw in the peer-review system. It is inherently conservative. Suppose an editor succeeds in securing an ideal referee, eminent in the field and working on the same subject area. Such a reviewer could well have a vested interest in protecting a particular view or theory. Paradigm-changing work is unlikely to go down well with those who support an existing paradigm. Many papers in my own field work within an existing set of shared assumptions, offering only small additions or footnotes, which produce a dull read.
There is a variant on the paradigm-sustaining form of research publication, which I like to call the cartel. This is a theoretical possibility, although I have sometimes suspected it of happening for real. If an area is relatively small or new, with only a limited number of experts, then they could referee and recommend acceptance of each other's papers, thus boosting the reputation of the area and each other. Egregious cases, which I again take only as theoretical, would be the editorial-board cartel, where a journal publishes a disproportionately high number of papers by its own board, and a cartel among the editors themselves, where they publish each other's work as a mutual back-scratching.
I will add straight away that clearly we cannot assume malpractice just because a journal publishes work by a board member or other editor. Academics gain such positions chiefly because they are excellent scholars who, of course, should not be excluded from publishing just because of their position. But what we lack is the transparency and public accountability that could reassure us that malpractice never occurs. Government research funding to universities is often allocated according to publication record, yet there is little by way of quality assurance: no system of accreditation, for instance. Editorial and board appointments are usually a matter for learned societies and publishers. But we are also entitled to ask whether they are representative for gender, age, race, social background and so on. Is there anything other than self-regulation that stops them being Oxbridge/London old boy clubs?
And if public funding really is to be determined by the decisions of the journals, let us make them transparent. Let us see with each published paper a date of submission, date of acceptance and names of the referees. Let authors know in advance the average decision time. Let us know if asked to revise and resubmit whether it will go back to the same referees or to different ones.
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