UC Irvine

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York. The recent shift toward electronic publishing fundamentally changed the production and economics of scholarly journal production—and rapidly changing technology makes this an open-ended dynamic. Simultaneously, professional societies, faculties and university administrators, increasingly exposed to the hyper-competitive world of emerging “neo-liberalism,” are increasingly reluctant to adequate support editorial offices and contribute to journal peer review. This is creating a “crisis” for journals, illustrated here in reference to sociology. The essay concludes with some suggestions for how a regional journal like Sociological Perspectives might be able to adapt and stay relevant in the 21st century.