Note from the Editor and Acknowledgment of Reviewers 2023–2024

As we reach this final issue of the 52nd volume of Politics & Policy (P&P), it is always a time I reflect with deep appreciation upon the sheer hard work that so many devote to the stages of getting manuscripts through to final publication in this journal.I am continually amazed at several elements of the double-blind peer-review process we conduct at P&P.First, as a result of the continued rise in submissions to the journal, the huge increase in the number of reviewers we have added to our (already rather enormous!)peer-reviewer database this year has been unparalleled in the almost 20 years I have had the privilege of editing P&P.This surge has, of course, also been reflected in the number of expert reviewers to whom I have extended review invitations over the 2023-2024 production period.Back in 2005, when I first took on the editorial role, I normally needed to ask 5-6 scholars for each paper that made it to the review stage in order to secure agreements to review from the required 3.At the time, that bundle of peer-review requests was composed and emailed out individually, "by hand" as P&P did not move to ScholarOne's electronic system, Manuscript Central (MC), until 2008.So the beginning of our now-huge reviewer database was forged on a very personal level between myself and those wonderful early reviewers who would frequently keep in touch even if I had no papers in their area for them to review.Many still do.I occasionally miss that period before the journal (and the industry in general) was "electronicized."I really enjoyed taking a long time to sift carefully through the new research in the subfields of our discipline(s) to find the perfect scholars to augment each reviewer panel.My first editorial assistant, Cynthia Villegas, and I would cheer every time we received an agreement to review via email, and we added their names to our low-tech wall chart with considerable ceremony!Many of the relationships I forged with reviewers, as well as authors, at that time have continued to flourish ever since.The personal nature of the exchanges kept things as "human" as possible in a business that mechanized very rapidly.Perhaps that is an understatement.From sending hand-tailored requests to 6 reviewers per submission in 2005-2010, the average number of requests I now send out via MC has risen to 17 per paper in order to receive three agreements.Occasionally, I now have to ask over 30.Naturally, one reason for this concerns the huge increase in good submissions that P&P is now receiving, meaning that far more reach review.Another is the generalist nature of the journal itself, which leads to a large majority of submissions falling within our fairly wide aims and scope.A further reason is due to the increasing burdens that all who work in academia have experienced as time has advanced, limiting the number of reviews any single scholar can feasibly take on-no matter how amenable and superhuman they are.(And all journal editors know how many superhuman reviewers there actually are, even if anonymity means others do not!)I have continued to do my best to retain the "human touch" with all involved in the journal production process: authors, reviewers, Editorial Board members, production editors, translators, editorial assistants, Wiley's marketing team, Wiley's legal team, several other Wiley teams, copyeditors, proofreaders, and the folks at ScholarOne and Ithenticate, as well as the editors of other journals on occasion.All do an exemplary job in gatekeeping quality, safeguarding ethical standards, and getting your research polished and published.