Fewer than half of reviewer invitations are accepted at many political science journals, increasing editors' workloads and lengthening the review process for authors. This study examines which invitations succeed and whether simple changes to invitation letters can improve acceptance at the Canadian Journal of Political Science.

📊 What Was Analyzed:

• A coded dataset of almost 1,500 reviewer invitations sent to the Canadian Journal of Political Science between 2017 and 2020.
• An experiment that tested three different invitation-letter variations appended to the journal’s auto-generated system message.

🔍 Main Findings:

• Baseline acceptance rates were low: fewer than half of invitations were accepted.
• Predictors of higher acceptance included:
• Personal familiarity with the editor (known reviewers were more likely to accept),
• Shared country with the journal (reviewers located in the same country were more likely to accept), and
• Lower seniority (more junior scholars were more likely to accept invitations).
• Experimental results on letter wording:
• A short, personal note from the editor accompanying the automated message may increase reviewer acceptance rates.
• Emphasizing the journal’s prestige did not increase acceptance.
• Offering reviewer recognition also did not increase acceptance.

🛠️ Practical Implications:

• Small, low-cost interventions (brief personalized notes) can improve invitation uptake and help reduce editorial burden.
• Editorial-team design and outreach strategies should account for reliance on personal networks, national proximity, and the greater willingness of junior scholars to review when distributing workloads.

📌 Why It Matters:

• Improving acceptance rates shortens the review timeline for authors and eases editors’ workloads. The findings identify specific, implementable steps journals can test to make peer review more efficient without relying on prestige-based appeals.