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Positions a World Politics manuscript within comparative-politics or IR debates so the contribution reads as cross-case rather than single-country. Useful when drafting the introduction, addressing reviewer feedback, or building a review article.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/wp-skills:wp-literature-positioningThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
World Politics expects every article to **engage with theoretical and substantive literatures** and to
World Politics expects every article to engage with theoretical and substantive literatures and to draw conclusions of broad importance. Positioning is therefore not throat-clearing — it locates the paper in a comparative-politics or IR debate that crosses cases, where the contribution is visible to scholars beyond one country or region.
wp-research-design).A review article must do more than a book review: it synthesizes thematically related books, draws out their collective contribution and tensions, and sets an agenda for how the field should proceed. Position the books against the broader debate and state what the synthesis lets the field newly see.
wp-submission)World Politics referees are expert in the cross-case literatures, so positioning failures get named quickly. Each objection maps to a repair.
| Referee objection | Venue-specific fix |
|---|---|
| "Missed obvious work / doesn't engage the debate" | Name the live comparative or IR disagreement and cite the 3–6 works that define it, not a citation pile |
| "Empirical but not theoretically generative" | Reframe the gap so resolving it moves a cross-case theory, not just adds a country observation |
| "Reads as a single-country conversation" | Connect the case to the general; show why a comparativist on other cases should care |
| "Closest competitor not addressed" | State the nearest prior paper and how your design adjudicates against it |
A review article draws a distinct objection — "just a sequence of book summaries." The fix is to make the synthesis itself the contribution: extract the books' collective claim and tension, then set the field's next agenda.
A hypothetical study of autocratic survival after resource booms could be positioned narrowly ("first study of country X's oil politics") or for World Politics:
Debate: does resource wealth entrench autocrats, or only where institutions are already weak?
Domain: comparative politics, with IR spillover (sanctions, external rents)
Key works: the rentier-state and resource-curse strands that frame the disagreement
Gap: the conditioning role of prior state capacity is contested, not untested
Move: a paired comparison that holds boom size fixed and varies pre-boom capacity
Rival: "it's just commodity prices" — design adjudicates by within-case timing
This positions the paper inside a cross-case debate the field already argues about, so the contribution travels. (Engagement expectations can change; confirm against current guidelines.)
【Debate】the live cross-case disagreement / open question
【Domain】comparative / IR / both
【Key works】the 3-6 that define it
【Gap】what is contested / mismeasured / untested across cases
【Move】how this paper (or review article) changes the debate
【Strongest rival】and how the design will adjudicate it
【Next】wp-theory-building
../../resources/official-source-map.md — scope, article types, and engagement expectationsnpx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin wp-skillsPositions a CPS manuscript against the comparative-politics literature and rival explanations. Use when writing the literature review or introduction gap paragraph.
Positions an APSR manuscript against the literature to avoid desk rejection for failing to engage relevant work. Helps frame the contribution for a discipline-wide audience.
Positions a BJPS manuscript against cross-subfield, international literature so it reads as a contribution of wide interest. Useful when drafting introductions, responding to reviewer concerns about parochialism, or writing a Comment.