Abbreviated title (ISO 4) PA Language English Impact factor
(2009) 0.583 | Discipline Area Studies Publication history 1928 to present | |
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Publisher University of British Columbia (Canada) | ||
Pacific Affairs (PA) is a Canadian peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes academic research on contemporary political, economic, and social issues in Asia and the Pacific. The journal was founded in 1926 as the newsletter for the entirety of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). In May 1928, PA adopted its current name, and has been published continuously since. From 1934 to 1942, the journal was edited by Owen Lattimore, the pioneering scholar of Central Asian history, then William L. Holland.
The journal moved from the IPR headquarters in New York to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, in 1961. Pressure from Senator Joseph McCarthy led to the dissolution of the IPR in 1960. It is currently housed in the Institute of Asian Research [1] at the University of British Columbia.
The journal's executive committee is composed of an editor, associate editors (based on the following geographic regions: Asia General, East Asia (China and Inner Asia, Japan, Korea), South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australasia and the Pacific Islands) and members representing Simon Fraser University [2], University of Victoria [3], University of Northern British Columbia [4], and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada [5].
Ingenta is the electronic provider for Pacific Affairs′ online subscriptions. Subscribers also have access to the entire contents of the journal from its inception in 1926 in JSTOR with a four-year moving wall.
In addition to scholarly articles based on original research, the journal publishes "perspectives," which are shorter articles, and often groups articles with a common theme into special issues. Some recent themes include democratization and communication in Asia, contemporary Japan-North Korea relations, and East Asian cross-regional agreements.
Book reviews
PA publishes 40–50 book reviews in each issue, under the headings of Asia General; China and Inner Asia; Northeast Asia (Japan and Korea); South Asia; Southeast Asia; and Australasia and the Pacific Region. Books from social sciences and humanities disciplines are reviewed by reviewers who are invited by PA’s executive committee. PA also publishes review articles which are also invited by the executive committee members. A review article is more in-depth, longer and compares the conclusions of several different authors on a single topic. The journal does not accept unsolicited book reviews.
In terms of chronological coverage, books that deal with topics before the 1860s are not reviewed unless there are explicit thematic or analytical links to contemporary affairs and/or theory.