Problem: A study finds a concerning number of digital links in APSR articles are broken.

* Broken hyperlinks significantly hinder research reproducibility and access to data.

Over 25% of links published in the American Political Science Review* were non-functional by 2014.

Key Findings: Reference rot undermines established practices for enhancing scholarly transparency, impacting both new and older articles.

* The issue persists across all publication years analyzed.

* This limits verification and access to supporting materials cited online.

Implications & Solutions:

* Reproducibility suffers when data sources aren't accessible.

* Authors are urged to archive data in stable repositories, use persistent identifiers (like DOIs), or create web snapshots.