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
Sociology and Political Science journal rankings 2021
1,377 ranked journals · Subfield in Social Sciences
Sociology and Political Science has 1,377 ranked journals in 2021. The median OJR fell 0.10 on 2020 to 1.22, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 2.16. The top three are International Journal of Information Management, American Sociological Review, and Tourism Geographies.
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)
1,377 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1International Journal of Information ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 13.00Q1 | 27.03 10.68 up from 2020 | 514 | 48% | $3,990 | ||
2American Sociological ReviewSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 12.13Q1 | 18.22 3.65 up from 2020 | 128 | 35% | $3,900 | ||
3Tourism GeographiesTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 11.90Q1 | 16.04 12.01 up from 2020 | 225 | 29% | — | ||
4Tourism ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 9.52Q1 | 13.65 1.91 up from 2020 | 605 | 45% | $4,690 | ||
5Journal of Interactive MarketingSAGE Publishing · United States | 9.20Q1 | 12.51 2.93 up from 2020 | 105 | 39% | $5,400 | ||
6Human Behavior and Emerging TechnologiesOAWiley · United States | 8.72Q1 | 16.87 10.99 up from 2020 | 111 | 56% | $840 | ||
7Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social MediaOAPublisher not listed | 8.54Q1 | 5.16 0.31 up from 2020 | 267 | 100% | — | ||
8Information and OrganizationElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 8.42Q1 | 8.97 1.26 down from 2020 | 47 | 60% | $3,590 | ||
9Business HorizonsElsevier BV · United States | 8.17Q1 | 11.54 1.86 up from 2020 | 251 | 23% | $3,410 | ||
10Annals of Tourism ResearchElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 7.98Q1 | 11.76 4.57 up from 2020 | 502 | 61% | $4,060 | ||
11Journal of Sustainable TourismTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 7.94Q1 | 13.19 5.13 up from 2020 | 438 | 40% | — | ||
12Secularism and NonreligionOAUbiquity Press · United Kingdom | 7.79Q1 | 0.89 0.58 down from 2020 | 30 | 100% | $490 | ||
13Information & ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 7.29Q1 | 10.43 2.09 up from 2020 | 283 | 22% | $4,540 | ||
14Big Data & SocietyOASAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 7.13Q1 | 10.96 1.80 up from 2020 | 148 | 100% | $2,000 | ||
15Tourism Management PerspectivesElsevier BV · Netherlands | 7.08Q1 | 10.60 3.12 up from 2020 | 330 | 42% | $3,780 | ||
16Journal of Interactive AdvertisingTaylor & Francis · United States | 6.98Q1 | 5.88 0.33 down from 2020 | 52 | 32% | — | ||
17Social Issues and Policy ReviewWiley · United States | 6.95Q1 | 12.29 1.17 up from 2020 | 34 | 33% | $3,800 | ||
18Journal of Research in Interactive MarketingEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 6.82Q1 | 13.30 6.80 up from 2020 | 72 | 17% | — | ||
19Science CommunicationSAGE Publishing · United States | 6.77Q1 | 9.40 4.76 up from 2020 | 106 | 37% | $3,900 | ||
20Telematics and InformaticsElsevier BV · United States | 6.74Q1 | 10.28 0.87 up from 2020 | 373 | 27% | $4,020 | ||
21Journal of Destination Marketing & ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 6.73Q1 | 8.94 0.73 up from 2020 | 234 | 36% | $4,320 | ||
22Journal of Travel & Tourism MarketingTaylor & Francis · United States | 6.73Q1 | 9.61 1.64 up from 2020 | 175 | 16% | — | ||
23CriminologyWiley · United Kingdom | 6.68Q1 | 7.62 1.21 up from 2020 | 82 | 20% | $3,570 | ||
24Computers in Human BehaviorElsevier BV · Netherlands | 6.57Q1 | 12.00 2.71 up from 2020 | 1,258 | 48% | $3,780 | ||
25European Journal of Information SystemsPalgrave Macmillan · United Kingdom | 6.54Q1 | 12.77 8.28 up from 2020 | 123 | 47% | — | ||
26Journal of Hospitality and Tourism ManagementElsevier BV · Australia | 6.50Q1 | 9.55 1.82 up from 2020 | 291 | 30% | $3,400 | ||
27New Media & SocietySAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 6.39Q1 | 7.69 1.77 down from 2020 | 521 | 49% | $3,900 | ||
28New Technology Work and EmploymentWiley · United Kingdom | 6.32Q1 | 6.08 0.06 down from 2020 | 67 | 60% | $3,980 | ||
29Administrative Science QuarterlySAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 6.24Q1 | 6.55 0.98 down from 2020 | 110 | 30% | $3,900 | ||
30European SocietiesOARoutledge · United Kingdom | 6.22Q1 | 9.55 6.45 up from 2020 | 142 | 66% | — | ||
31Environment and SocietyOABerghahn Books · United States | 6.13Q1 | 2.48 4.52 down from 2020 | 35 | 100% | — | ||
32Environment and Planning D Society and SpaceSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 6.05Q1 | 4.68 1.30 down from 2020 | 181 | 55% | $3,900 | ||
33Internet ResearchEmerald Publishing Limited · United Kingdom | 6.01Q1 | 7.96 1.12 up from 2020 | 239 | 31% | — | ||
34European Review of Social PsychologyTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 5.86Q1 | 6.48 2.35 down from 2020 | 34 | 43% | — | ||
35Social Media + SocietyOASAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 5.85Q1 | 7.89 0.96 up from 2020 | 410 | 100% | $1,000 | ||
36Current Issues in TourismTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 5.85Q1 | 8.60 3.31 up from 2020 | 562 | 24% | — | ||
37MIS QuarterlyMIS Quarterly · United States | 5.75Q1 | 9.62 2.57 up from 2020 | 200 | 16% | — | ||
38Journal of Computer-Mediated CommunicationOAWiley · United States | 5.72Q1 | 10.72 3.23 up from 2020 | 72 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
39Journal of Travel ResearchSAGE Publishing · United States | 5.71Q1 | 8.26 0.93 up from 2020 | 300 | 49% | $3,900 | ||
40Personality and Social Psychology ReviewSAGE Publishing · United States | 5.64Q1 | 15.86 2.06 down from 2020 | 35 | 23% | $3,900 | ||
41Psychology of Popular Media CultureAmerican Psychological Association · United States | 5.60Q1 | 0.75 6.22 down from 2020 | 32 | — | — | ||
42Political PsychologyWiley · United States | 5.60Q1 | 5.92 1.29 down from 2020 | 228 | 57% | $4,250 | ||
43Information Technology & TourismSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 5.49Q1 | 11.28 7.87 up from 2020 | 90 | 67% | $3,590 | ||
44Global Environmental ChangeElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.39Q1 | 14.02 2.49 up from 2020 | 367 | 60% | $6,440 | ||
45Sustainability Science Practice and PolicyOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 5.39Q1 | 13.62 9.70 up from 2020 | 44 | 100% | $778 | ||
46American Journal of SociologyUniversity of Chicago Press · United States | 5.37Q1 | 5.76 0.63 up from 2020 | 111 | 8% | — | ||
47British Journal of Social PsychologyWiley · United Kingdom | 5.37Q1 | 8.48 2.96 up from 2020 | 182 | 59% | $3,970 | ||
48Sociological ScienceOASociety for Sociological Science · United States | 5.37Q1 | 9.00 2.41 up from 2020 | 88 | 100% | $575 | ||
49Journal of Applied PsychologyAmerican Psychological Association · United States | 5.37Q1 | 10.66 3.71 up from 2020 | 272 | 17% | — | ||
50Information Communication & SocietyRoutledge · United Kingdom | 5.32Q1 | 6.49 0.67 down from 2020 | 402 | 43% | — |
Subfields of Social Sciences, with Sociology and Political Science 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.
300 additional Sociology and Political Science 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
- 1,377
- Window papers (baseline)
- 539,978 +15.7% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 1.22 -4.9% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 56
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 | 588 | 615 | 642 | 679 | 716 | 742 | 776 | 826 | 861 | 899 | 960 | 1,005 | 1,049 | 1,090 | 1,140 | 1,184 | 1,233 | 1,300 | 1,315 | 1,325 | 1,333 | 1,377 | 1,389 | 1,403 | 1,402 | 1,388 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 127,769 | 139,962 | 155,545 | 173,690 | 189,148 | 206,415 | 224,690 | 248,047 | 274,644 | 301,558 | 326,495 | 347,409 | 369,647 | 386,451 | 401,728 | 420,106 | 443,739 | 460,936 | 466,601 | 478,291 | 498,577 | 539,978 | 579,161 | 604,240 | 617,692 | 634,590 | |
| Median OJR | 0.92 | 0.98 | 0.95 | 0.99 | 1.09 | 1.1344 | 1.27 | 1.34 | 1.380 | 1.3830 | 1.44 | 1.43 | 1.47 | 1.42 | 1.3831 | 1.35 | 1.3317 | 1.3322 | 1.28 | 1.31 | 1.32 | 1.22 | 1.17 | 1.14 | 1.11 | 1.1341 |
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.