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Sociology and Political Science · 472 journals ranked · top 40 listed

Best open-access journals for Sociology and Political Science

The top 40 of 472 Sociology and Political Science journals, open-access only, ranked by Scimago quartile, then by how central Sociology and Political Science is to each journal, then OpenAlex cites/paper (2-year window), drawn from a 17,500-venue index. Predatory venues are excluded; the FAQ below gives the exact ranking rule. These are field-wide rankings — for a shortlist matched to your specific paper, paste your title and abstract into the Journal Finder (a free account starts with 25 welcome credits).

Data as of — the date our venue index was last rebuilt from OpenAlex and Scimago.

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AllBest open-access journals
  1. 1
    PNAS Nexus
    7.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Oxford University Press
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  2. 2
    Big Data & Society
    6.9 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  3. 3
    International Journal of Qualitative Methods
    5.5 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  4. 4
    Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
    5.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Palgrave Macmillan
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  5. 5
    Computers in Human Behavior Reports
    5.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  6. 6
    SAGE Open
    3.3 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  7. 7
    Socius Sociological Research for a Dynamic World
    2.9 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  8. 8
    Demography
    2.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
    Open AccessScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  9. 9
    European Societies
    2.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Routledge
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  10. 10
    Frontiers in Sociology
    2.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Frontiers Media
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  11. 11
    Qualitative Research
    2.2 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
    Open AccessScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  12. 12
    Politics and Religion
    2.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Cambridge University Press
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  13. 13
    GeoJournal of Tourism and Geosites
    1.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Editura Universitatii din Oradea
    Open AccessDOAJScopus
  14. 14
    Revista de Estudios Sociales
    1.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Universidad de Los Andes
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  15. 15
    Surveillance & Society
    1.3 cites/paper · Q1 · Surveillance Studies Network
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  16. 16
    Genealogy
    1.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  17. 17
    Religions
    1.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  18. 18
    Refuge Canada s Journal on Refuge
    1.0 cites/paper · Q1 · York University
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  19. 19
    Estudios Eclesiásticos Revista de investigación e información teológica y canónica
    0.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Comillas Pontifical University
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  20. 20
    Resources Science
    0.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Chinese Academy of Sciences Geography
    Open AccessDOAJScopus
  21. 21
    Problemy Istoricheskoy Poetiki
    0.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Petrozavodsk State University
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  22. 22
    RUDN Journal of Russian History
    0.3 cites/paper · Q1
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  23. 23
    Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia
    0.3 cites/paper · Q1 · Brill
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  24. 24
    Tydskrif vir letterkunde
    0.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Association
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  25. 25
    Scripta Theologica
    0.1 cites/paper · Q1 · University of Navarre
    Open AccessScopusWeb of Science
  26. 26
    Studia Litterarum
    0.1 cites/paper · Q1 · Gorky Institute of World Literature
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  27. 27
    Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
    8.3 cites/paper · Q1 · Wiley
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  28. 28
    Social Media + Society
    5.5 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  29. 29
    Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research
    5.4 cites/paper · Q1 · Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  30. 30
    First Monday
    3.7 cites/paper · Q1 · University of Illinois at Chicago
    Open AccessScopus
  31. 31
    British Journal of Political Science
    3.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Cambridge University Press
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  32. 32
    Media and Communication
    3.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Cogitatio
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  33. 33
    Demographic Research
    2.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  34. 34
    Revista de ciencia política
    2.0 cites/paper · Q1
    Open AccessScopusWeb of Science
  35. 35
    Frontiers in Political Science
    1.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Frontiers Media
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
  36. 36
    HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies
    1.1 cites/paper · Q1 · AOSIS
    Open AccessDOAJScopus
  37. 37
    Colombia Internacional
    1.1 cites/paper · Q1 · Universidad de Los Andes
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  38. 38
    Verbum et Ecclesia
    1.0 cites/paper · Q1 · AOSIS
    Open AccessDOAJScopus
  39. 39
    MGIMO Review of International Relations
    0.8 cites/paper · Q1 · MGIMO University Press
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
  40. 40
    Latin American Research Review
    0.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Cambridge University Press
    Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed

“Cites/paper” is the OpenAlex 2-year citation rate — a transparent signal, not a licensed Impact Factor. Many regional and open-access journals are strong but aren’t covered by Scimago, so they show “no Scimago quartile”; that’s a coverage gap, not a quality judgement.

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Frequently asked

PNAS Nexus, Big Data & Society, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Computers in Human Behavior Reports lead this list, drawn from a 17,500-venue index. The top 40 of 472 ranked venues are listed on this page; all 40 are Scimago Q1. By Scimago quartile first (Q1 → Q4, then venues without one). Within a quartile, venues whose main OpenAlex subfield is Sociology and Political Science come before those that list it second or third, and ties go to OpenAlex cites/paper over a 2-year window. A venue whose main subfield is unrelated to Sociology and Political Science — fewer than a quarter of the venues filed under that subfield (or fewer than five) are also filed under Sociology and Political Science — is listed after all the others. Where cites/paper decides, a journal with fewer than 30 papers in OpenAlex over the four most recent publication years is listed after those with more: a two-year average over so few papers can rest on a single article (3 of the 472 journals ranked here are below that floor; none of them is among the 40 shown). Only open-access venues are included. Venues OpenAlex files only under its catch-all triple of Aerospace Engineering, Sociology and Political Science and Transportation are excluded: that triple is where it puts work it could not place. Cites/paper is a transparent citation rate, not a licensed Impact Factor, and journals flagged as predatory are excluded. For a match to your specific paper use the Journal Finder (15 credits; free account starts with 25).

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