Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2021
Public Administration journal rankings 2021
52 ranked journals · Subfield in Social Sciences
Public Administration has 52 ranked journals in 2021. Its median journal scores above the world average: OJR 1.34 against 1.00, down 0.02 on 2020. A journal needs OJR 2.26 to reach Q1. The top three are Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, and Public Administration.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Social Sciences (22)
52 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Public Administration ReviewWiley · United States | 4.69Q1 | 7.90 3.66 up from 2020 | 357 | 34% | $4,250 | ||
2Public Management ReviewTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 3.72Q1 | 6.37 1.24 up from 2020 | 288 | 51% | — | ||
3Public AdministrationWiley · United Kingdom | 3.68Q1 | 4.46 0.31 down from 2020 | 215 | 45% | $3,950 | ||
4Journal of Public Administration Research and TheoryOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 3.64Q1 | 4.27 0.61 down from 2020 | 177 | 45% | $4,029 | ||
5The American Review of Public AdministrationSAGE Publishing · United States | 3.38Q1 | 8.05 4.59 up from 2020 | 164 | 18% | $3,900 | ||
6Public Policy and AdministrationSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 2.93Q1 | 3.12 0.07 down from 2020 | 100 | 50% | $3,650 | ||
7Perspectives on Public Management and GovernanceOxford University Press · United States | 2.82Q1 | 3.52 0.18 down from 2020 | 72 | 36% | $4,029 | ||
8International Public Management JournalTaylor & Francis · United States | 2.71Q1 | 3.70 0.62 up from 2020 | 114 | 34% | — | ||
9Journal of Behavioral Public AdministrationOAUnited States | 2.69Q1 | 6.30 3.60 up from 2020 | 68 | 100% | — | ||
10Public Performance & Management ReviewTaylor & Francis · United States | 2.46Q1 | 3.42 0.60 up from 2020 | 172 | 11% | — | ||
11Journal of Public Budgeting Accounting & Financial ManagementEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 2.45Q1 | 4.86 3.12 up from 2020 | 137 | 56% | — | ||
12International Review of Administrative SciencesSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 2.36Q1 | 3.01 0.16 up from 2020 | 152 | 52% | $3,650 | ||
13International Journal of Public Sector ManagementEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 2.26Q1 | 3.76 1.43 up from 2020 | 136 | 36% | — | ||
14British Journal of Industrial RelationsWiley · United Kingdom | 2.08Q2 | 2.46 0.24 up from 2020 | 117 | 30% | $3,860 | ||
15Public Money & ManagementTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 2.03Q2 | 3.23 1.09 up from 2020 | 325 | 56% | — | ||
16Industrial Relations JournalWiley · United Kingdom | 1.98Q2 | 2.17 0.20 down from 2020 | 91 | 65% | $2,900 | ||
17Administration & SocietySAGE Publishing · United States | 1.94Q2 | 2.83 0.78 up from 2020 | 134 | 49% | $3,650 | ||
18Journal of Industrial RelationsSAGE Publishing · Australia | 1.89Q2 | 2.61 0.57 up from 2020 | 134 | 38% | $3,650 | ||
19Asia Pacific Journal of Public AdministrationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.89Q2 | 2.70 1.61 up from 2020 | 76 | 29% | — | ||
20European Journal of Industrial RelationsSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.88Q2 | 3.00 0.44 up from 2020 | 76 | 56% | $3,650 | ||
21Industrial Relations A Journal of Economy and SocietyWiley · United States | 1.71Q2 | 2.39 0.49 down from 2020 | 53 | 54% | $3,470 | ||
22Economic and Industrial DemocracySAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.61Q2 | 2.07 0.07 up from 2020 | 147 | 73% | $3,650 | ||
23Financial Accountability and ManagementWiley · United Kingdom | 1.44Q2 | 2.27 0.08 up from 2020 | 103 | 66% | $2,900 | ||
24European Journal of Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.39Q2 | 1.87 0.02 down from 2020 | 244 | 51% | — | ||
25Australian Social WorkTaylor & Francis · Australia | 1.38Q2 | 1.77 0.04 up from 2020 | 214 | 27% | — | ||
26International Social WorkSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.36Q2 | 3.16 1.82 up from 2020 | 275 | 44% | $3,650 | ||
27Teaching Public AdministrationSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.33Q3 | 1.82 0.82 up from 2020 | 74 | 29% | $3,650 | ||
28Journal of Progressive Human ServicesTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.31Q3 | 2.31 1.22 up from 2020 | 43 | 0% | — | ||
29Social WorkOxford University Press · United States | 1.27Q3 | 2.38 0.28 up from 2020 | 143 | 11% | — | ||
30Social Work EducationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.22Q3 | 1.88 0.42 up from 2020 | 380 | 23% | — | ||
31Journal of Teaching in Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.08Q3 | 1.82 0.74 up from 2020 | 103 | 5% | — | ||
32Journal of Social WorkSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.06Q3 | 1.79 0.07 down from 2020 | 176 | 25% | $3,650 | ||
33Journal of Social Work EducationTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.06Q3 | 1.83 0.61 up from 2020 | 290 | 10% | — | ||
34Social Work ResearchOxford University Press · United States | 1.03Q3 | 1.42 0.10 down from 2020 | 92 | 3% | — | ||
35Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.91Q3 | 1.37 0.57 down from 2020 | 106 | 13% | — | ||
36Labor Studies JournalSAGE Publishing · United States | 0.90Q3 | 0.91 0.05 down from 2020 | 64 | 4% | $3,400 | ||
37Qualitative Social WorkSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.84Q3 | 1.74 0.63 up from 2020 | 177 | 55% | $3,650 | ||
38The British Journal of Social WorkOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 0.81Q3 | 1.57 0.20 up from 2020 | 515 | 45% | $4,492 | ||
39Canadian Public AdministrationWiley · United Kingdom | 0.74Q3 | 1.03 0.05 up from 2020 | 117 | 32% | $2,900 | ||
40Journal of Social Work PracticeTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.65Q4 | 1.11 0.12 up from 2020 | 128 | 24% | — | ||
41Advances in Social WorkOAIndiana University School of Social Work · United States | 0.64Q4 | 1.09 0.09 down from 2020 | 134 | 100% | — | ||
42PracticeTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.63Q4 | 1.19 0.40 up from 2020 | 79 | 41% | — | ||
43Comparative labor law & policy journalCambridge University Press · United States | 0.61Q4 | 0.81 0.16 down from 2020 | 41 | 0% | — | ||
44Social Work With GroupsTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.55Q4 | 0.85 0.29 up from 2020 | 105 | 4% | — | ||
45Smith College Studies in Social WorkTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.49Q4 | 0.77 0.21 up from 2020 | 47 | 6% | — | ||
46Chinese Public Administration ReviewOAUnited States | 0.44Q4 | 0.79 0.35 up from 2020 | 36 | 100% | $3,650 | ||
47Journal of Comparative Social WorkOAUniversity of Stavanger · Norway | 0.41Q4 | 0.61 0.03 up from 2020 | 32 | 100% | — | ||
48The Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareWestern Michigan University · United States | 0.22Q4 | 0.25 0.09 down from 2020 | 210 | 78% | — | ||
49Journal of Baccalaureate Social WorkUnited States | 0.22Q4 | 0.25 0.26 down from 2020 | 101 | 48% | — | ||
50The Journal of Practice Teaching in Health and Social WorkUnited Kingdom | 0.21Q4 | 0.40 0.30 up from 2020 | 59 | 64% | — |
Subfields of Social Sciences, with Public Administration highlighted.
- Sociology and Political Science1,377
- Education762
- Political Science and International Relations333
- Communication75
- Gender Studies64
- Safety Research57
- Health55
- Public Administration52
- Urban Studies51
- Transportation50
- Law48
- Linguistics and Language48
- Demography42
- Library and Information Sciences41
- Anthropology38
- Geography, Planning and Development33
- Cultural Studies7
- Development4
- General Social Sciences3
- Human Factors and Ergonomics1
- Archeology0
- Life-span and Life-course Studies0
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
3 additional Public Administration journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 52
- Window papers (baseline)
- 9,519 -3.5% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 1.34 +12.6% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 6
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 39 | 39 | 44 | 46 | 46 | 46 | 45 | 46 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 51 | 51 | 50 | 51 | 51 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 51 | 49 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 5,291 | 5,454 | 5,737 | 6,096 | 6,309 | 6,459 | 7,069 | 7,550 | 8,059 | 8,152 | 8,390 | 8,538 | 8,687 | 9,064 | 9,283 | 9,721 | 9,886 | 10,257 | 9,866 | 9,630 | 9,356 | 9,519 | 9,597 | 9,348 | 9,065 | 8,961 | |
| Median OJR | 1.23 | 1.03 | 0.94 | 0.79 | 0.80 | 0.87 | 1.04 | 0.93 | 1.20 | 1.07 | 1.3317 | 1.51 | 1.41 | 1.21 | 1.239 | 1.48 | 1.3324 | 1.243 | 1.192 | 1.46 | 1.36 | 1.34 | 1.22 | 1.18 | 1.189 | 1.37 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.