their timeline is bimodal, not universally long, because they have a weird setup. they initially only send out to 2 reviewers. that takes the normal amount of time of any journal. if those are negative they reject. if they're mixed or positive, only then do they send it to a 3rd and often 4th reviewer, one or both of whom are on their ed board. this now takes a whole additional full length review process. and then at the end they weigh the opinion of these latter one or two reviews above the first two reviews drawn from the general population of reviewers, which results in really odd seeming outcomes as an author. i had a paper with two gushing positive reviews and then a short dismissal from R3 and it's rejected. and then another where R1 and R2 were pretty harsh but R3 wrote two sentences of support and it got an RR (and was published). each time it took 8-9 months to first response. but another paper was rejected in only 2 months with two negative reviews.
Is World Politics still a good journal?
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They are both still strong hits for anyone, but yes this is 100% correct.
Both World Politics and Comparative Politics are good examples of why journals probably shouldn't stay at one institution for so long. They both just seem behind the times, professionally and academically.
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Recently submitted something to them and agree that it's a terribly run journal. Our paper got desk rejected after two months. That's fine. But they didn't even offer an explanation. Considering the paper had an R&R at BJPS, I think it should have been sent out for review. But even a desk reject would have been acceptable if arrived within a month. Two months for a desk reject with no explanation is a clear sign of poorly run journal.
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I had a six month desk reject at WP a few years back.
Recently submitted something to them and agree that it's a terribly run journal. Our paper got desk rejected after two months. That's fine. But they didn't even offer an explanation. Considering the paper had an R&R at BJPS, I think it should have been sent out for review. But even a desk reject would have been acceptable if arrived within a month. Two months for a desk reject with no explanation is a clear sign of poorly run journal.
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Recently submitted something to them and agree that it's a terribly run journal. Our paper got desk rejected after two months. That's fine. But they didn't even offer an explanation. Considering the paper had an R&R at BJPS, I think it should have been sent out for review. But even a desk reject would have been acceptable if arrived within a month. Two months for a desk reject with no explanation is a clear sign of poorly run journal.
If editors are hardly compensated, why should they do better?