A Bibliometric Analysis of the Electoral Studies Journal

Elections are one of the important topics in the study of global democracy. This study aims to analyze scientific literature in the Journal of Electoral Studies as one of the highly reputable international journals from 2016 to August 2021. The data was analyzed using a bibliometric approach and visualization using VOSViewer and R Studio. This study took 618 articles from various international authors which showed that the electoral studies journal was consistently published with the most authors coming from the United States even though the origin of the university came from the Universiteit van Amsterdam Netherlands. Voting behavior and elections are two important keywords that often appear, indicating that these two issues are most often discussed by authors because they are considered to contribute greatly to electoral studies. These two keywords will also continue to be relevant in future election studies both in electoral studies journals and in other reputable journals because the development of the issue is very dynamic.


INTRODUCTION
Electoral Studies is one of the most reputable international journals that has been published for more than 39 years since 1982 with an Impact factor of 2,070 and 2.4 Cited Score.The main focus of the study is the election phenomenon which summarizes events with this topic in various parts of the world.In addition, the Electoral Studies journal provides discussion space and publications on various topics derived from election studies such as voter participation, voting behavior, campaigns, political parties, electoral systems, and others.This Journal is known to have a substantial knowledge contribution because it can elaborate on empirical data-based phenomena through solid theoretical aspects.In general, this Journal describes the ongoing study of the development of democracy with its very complex dynamics.
Election studies are exciting because they relate to the implementation of democracy at the global level.Not only limited to journals published by Electoral Studies but also in other highly reputable journals.This is evidence that the study of electoral matters has attracted the attention of scholars and is considered to have an essential contribution to science, especially regarding democratic leadership.The electoral topics are extensive, for example from the use of social media/digital activism by candidates in gaining vote support (Shmargad & Sanchez, 2020;Lobera & Portos, 2021;Velasquez & Quenette, 2018;Tang & Lee, 2018;Haleva-Amir, 2021;Reilly & Stewart, 2021;Kovic et al., 2017) and as a means for voters to express sentiment or judgment on candidates (Doroshenko et al., 2019).
Several bibliometric studies of journals have been carried out.Some of A's done about bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Network and Computer Applications (JNCA) for the 1997-2019 (Zurita et al., 2020), Twenty five years of the Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing: a bibliometric ranking (Mulet-Forteza et al., 2018), Twenty-five years of the Information Systems Journal: A bibliometric and ontological overview (La Paz et al., 2020), Thirty Years of the Global Finance Journal: A Bibliometric Analysis (Baker et al., 2021).
Then, Thirty years of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing: a bibliometric analysis (Valenzuela et al., 2017), Two decades of the Journal of Intellectual Capital: a bibliometric overview and an agenda for future research (Dabiae et al., 2020), Twenty Years of the Journal of African Business: A Bibliometric Analysis (Kabongo, 2019), Top 100 mostcited papers in core dental public health journals: bibliometric analysis (Mattos et al., 2021), The Journal of Small Business Management: A bibliometric overview of 1996-2019 (Dana et al., 2021).From the several studies above, there has not been a single bibliometric study on the publication of electoral studies journals from 2016 to August 2021.This article further aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis using the Vos Viewer and R studio applications from 2016 to August 2021 (dijelaskan kenapa 5 tahun terakhir).The contribution of this research lies in the reputation of the electoral studies journal, which has never been done before and can help understand election studies and their developments and problems.It is essential to understand the condition of world democracy which is currently considered the best power management system globally.
Moreover, bibliometrics can be used to describe the author's country of origin and the name of the Journal under study (Merigó et al., 2017), and overall can evaluate research publications on specific topics (Cobo et al., 2015).Bibliometric analysis can measure the relationship and influence between authors through articles written and their journals through citation analysis (Gil-Barragan et al., 2020).Scholars use bibliometric methods to contact research or publication performance and plan the structure of the study focus.Bibliometrics can help researchers identify research trends, lead authors, major journals, and countries with the most publishing activity (Mattos et al., 2021).One of its main advantages is providing an overview that identifies the main trends in the bibliographic material under consideration (La Paz et al., 2020).Bibliometrics can be developed for a variety of purposes, including analysis of research by country (Bonilla et al., 2015) by the author (Martínez-López et al., 2018) and by institutions (Çakýr et al., 2015).This research is sourced from the Scopus database of electoral studies journals with a Period 2016-August 2021.Scopus was chosen because it is a publisher with a high reputation who has a significant influence in developing research studies, one of which is the study of elections.The publication of the last 5 years is considered representative to see the trend of studies in electoral studies journals because it examines political and electoral phenomena that are happening and are the focus of many researchers in the world.
Articles are searched in several stages.First, The article was taken from the Journal electoral studies using a database from Scopus by limiting the time, namely 2016-2021.
Because this data was taken in August 2021, the September and November 2021 publications are not used.Second, after the data was collected, as many as 618 articles originating from articles, proceedings, editorials, and regulations and made in the form of RIS and CSV, which were then analyzed using Vos viewer and R Studio.
Vos Viewer visualizes a bibliography or a data set containing bibliographic fields (title, author, author, and Journal) taken from co-occurrence keywords.Vos viewer retrieves data in RIS format from the Scopus database with 618 articles.R Studio is then used to analyze data in BibTex form based on author name, affiliation, abstract, keywords, references, document type, corresponding author.The main results were descriptive analysis, intellectual structure, and conceptual structure.The descriptive analysis describes the annual publication output and types of documents.It identifies the most contributing authors, institutions and countries.Finally, concept structure Identify various concepts often used in the Journal of Electoral Studies and divide them into classification and mapping studies.

Publication and Country of Electoral Studies
Although consistently published every year, the Journal of electoral studies experiences fluctuating publication developments.From Figure 1, it can be seen that in the period 2016 to August 2021, the highest publication occurred in 2016 (24%).However, from 2016 to August 2021, there was a significant decline in the publication trend.This is not final considering that in 2021 the research data will stop in the August 2021 issue; there are still two volumes (October and December), so the publication of articles will likely increase.

Figure 1. Number of Publications per Year in Electoral Studies from 2016 -August 2021
Furthermore, for the form of documents from 2016 to August 2021, it can be seen that the majority (99%) are in the form of articles (figure 2).It means that electoral studies journals are more focused on publishing articles than conference papers, editorials, and erratum.This is the way for electoral studies journals to maintain and maintain the quality of publications considering that articles have better quality than others.Articles are considered better because they go through more stringent review procedures so that the quality of information and analysis produced is comprehensive.In addition, it also shows the high interest of the authors in writing articles.Furthermore, there are seven authors with four publications, namely Carreas, Fieldhouse, Gschwend, Harteverld, Lobo, Rekker, Zingher, and one author, Algara, with three publications.

Figure 3. The most Authors Contribution in Electoral Studies, 2016 -August 2021
Based on metadata from electoral studies journals, ten countries with the highest number of authors were mapped.From Figure 4, it can be seen that there are five countries with the most authors.The United States has the highest number of authors with 271 articles (44%).The United Kingdom followed them with 102 articles (17%), Germany with 54 articles (9%), Canada with 36 articles (6%), and the Netherlands with 35 articles (6%).The superior status of the United States further confirms its status as a country that excels in publications because one of them is the high cost of research.The United States makes research one of the pillars of its country's progress to support significant funding.

Figure 4. Author's Countries in Electoral Studies
Even though the United States is the country with the highest number of authors, in terms of universities, the origin of the most authors is the University from the Netherlands, namely Universiteit van Amsterdam with 21 publications (15%).They were followed by the University of Mannheim, Germany with 17 articles (12 %), London School of Economics and Political Science, England with 17 articles (11%), Göteborgs Universitet Sweden with 15 articles (11%), and the University of Montreal Canada with 14 articles (10%).Furthermore, the University of the United States, namely Washington University in St.
Louis, is ranked 7th with 12 articles (9%) The University of Essex is ranked 8th with 11 articles (8%), and the University of Houston is ranked 10th with 11 articles (8%).The researcher identified 8 clusters of 83 items with different color codes (Table 1).This clustering is helpful for research purposes, firstly, seeing the trend of previously researched research and secondly helping researchers find the following research topic (novelty).Table 1 shows each cluster and the concept items in it.It is beneficial for researchers to take specific clusters to determine new concepts to be studied.

Table 1. Cluster and Items of Concept in Electoral studies 2016 -August 2021
Source: Processed via VOSViewer, 2021 In cluster 1, the most dominant keyword is an election.Articles relevant to that keyword are articles written by (Heersink & Peterson, 2017) entitled Truman defeats Dewey: The effect of campaign visits on election outcomes, which shows that one of the keys to Truman's victory in defeating Dewey in Ohio was because of the extensive campaign carried out.Although carried out in a short time, this strategy effectively influenced public opinion to increase support for Truman.
In addition, the dominant keyword in cluster 1 is voter turnout, so articles that are relevant to these keywords are articles written by Tavares & Raudla (2018) entitled "Size, density and small scale elections: A multi-level analysis of voter turnout in sub-municipal governments This study shows that his research of Portugal's sub-municipal governments (SMUs) proves a relationship between the total population density and the level of political participation.The higher the population density, the higher the level of political participation and vice versa.
In cluster 2, the dominant keyword is Europe.Articles that are relevant to that keyword are articles written by Janusz (2021) entitled "Electoral incentives and elite racial identification: Why Brazilian politicians change their race," which shows that more than a quarter of the political candidates who won Brazil's 2014 and 2016 elections used identity politics or racial sentiment.
In addition, the dominant keyword in cluster 2 is populism.Hence, articles related to these keywords are articles written by Schwörer (2021)entitled "Do not call me a populist!The meaning of populism for western European parties and politicians," Which shows that populism is used as a strategy to bring down political opponents as happened in Italy, France, Spain and Germany by the big parties.The difference is that in Italy and France, the strategy is considered reasonable so that it is perceived positively by parties that openly admit it, while in Spain and Germany, they tend to reject the perception that mentions the use of populism in attracting people's votes.
In cluster 3, the dominant keyword is turnout, so articles that are relevant to that keyword are articles written by Martinez i Coma (2016) entitled "Turnout determinants in democracies and non-democracies," Which shows that the level of political participation in democratic and non-democratic countries is highly dependent on the institutional and political designs adopted in those countries.In non-democratic regimes, political participation in elections tends to be high due to mobilization and coercion.In addition, articles that are relevant to these keywords are those written by Northmore-Ball (2016)entitled "Increasingly unequal turnout in Eastern European new democracies: Communist and transitional legacies versus new institutions," whic shows the inequality of public political participation in the new democracies of Eastern Europe.In a country with a higher level of public education, political participation is also increased and vice versa.
In cluster 4, the dominant keyword is elections.The relevant article is an article written by Algara & Hale, (2020) entitled "Racial attitudes & political cross-pressures in nationalized learning mechanism the Republican coalition in the Trump era", Which shows that one of the keys to the victory of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the 2016 United States Presidential Election is to maximize the support of the white race.This is in line with Trump's leadership orientation which emphasizes white supremacy, considered the main class in the United States.
In cluster 5, the dominant keyword is the electoral system.Articles relevant to these keywords are written by Han & Chang, (2016) entitled "Economic inequality, winnerloser gap, and satisfaction with democracy."The study using multilevel analysis of the Comparative Study Electoral Systems (CSES) data shows a gap in democratic satisfaction for winners and losers in elections.The widening economic inequality makes the losers feel dissatisfied with democracy while, on the contrary, the winners feel satisfaction with democracy.
In cluster 6, the dominant keyword is democracy.Articles that are relevant to that keyword are articles written by Lundmark et al. (2020) entitled "Confidence in an election authority and satisfaction with democracy: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of a failed election in Sweden.This study shows that using the case of the 2010 Sweden regional election, which had to be repeated because of procedural errors in voting, it resulted in a decline in public trust.This is also coupled with the condition of regional and national elections, which are also considered less democratic.
In cluster 7, the dominant keyword is partisanship, so articles relevant to these keywords are written by Kang et al. (2021) entitled "Candidate sex, partisanship and the electoral context in Australia".This study shows that from a probability-based sample of Australian voters, female respondents who identify with the left tend to prefer female candidates regardless of the candidate's partisan affiliation and electoral context.In contrast, male voters who identify with the right prefer male over female candidates in intra-party contests between right-affiliated candidates.The study also shows that conservative men are the least supportive of female candidates.Because conservative men dominate Australia's current government parties, the progress of women politicians is hampered." In addition, articles that are relevant to these keywords are articles written by Aidt & Rauh, (2018) entitled "The Big Five personality traits and partisanship in England," which in Which shows that supporters of major parties (Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats) have substantially different personality traits.
In cluster 8, the dominant keyword is voting behavior.Then the relevant article is an article written by Bowler et al. (2018) entitled "Voter preferences and party loyalty under A Bibliometric Analysis of the Electoral Studies Journal cumulative voting: Political behavior after electoral reform in Bremen and Hamburg," Which shows that by taking a study in Bremen and Hamburg, it was found that voters actually have a wider political preference than the number of candidate choices provided.
This shows that there are many candidates the voters do not fully support or that several candidates are supported by the voters but are not available in the ballot box.

Mapping Study
Furthermore, the 8 clusters above are fragmented into 3 clusters to show the network that appears the most.As shown in Figure 7, three essential clusters were found from the R Studio analysis, all of which were related to other themes.This clustering is conceptually the most significant cluster that offers the most dominant and is related to different topics.Meanwhile, clusters related to survey data are closely related to vote choice and voting behavior data because the documents' context is related to voter tendencies.Voter Tourn out is related to political participation, election participation, and elections in the other cluster.Meanwhile, electoral systems are related to political parties, party systems, and electoral systems and representations.

Figure 7. Co-occurrence Network of Electoral Studies using R Studio
After sorting by topic, the author looks further at the interrelationships between networks in clusters (figure 8).The first cluster network is marked with a red color, which discusses a lot of political parties, choices, proportions, and choices.The second blue network discusses a lot related to ethics, government, location, surveys, democracy, and actors.The third network is green, which discusses quality, presidential, consistency, and participant.The three clusters can be said to represent sub-discussions in electoral studies.Therefore, this network can be identified that electoral studies discuss general elections in democracy and ethics, actors, and quality in elections.

Figure 8. Thematic Map Cluster using R Studio
Furthermore, in the thematic analysis in the picture above, network alignment in clusters (figure 9) is also found, namely the first three essential themes related to electoral, voters, and parties.The second is related to data, politics, and support.The third is the election.From each issue development in the data collected, the main topic that is most relevant is the election, while political and support are currently the trend of the publication period discussing electoral studies.On the other hand, discussions related to voters and parties began to decline.It happened in line with the development of democratization globally.This development is because the current general election focuses more on allocating and maximizing the role of data and actors involved in elections.Through several data visualizations that have been presented, as the finalization of data analysis, namely with a word cloud, which is obtained from the amount of data collected, two critical indicators of electoral and voting appear.Wordcloud here is the most dominant word representation of electoral studies from 2016 to August 2021.It can be seen in Figure 11 that two words often appear, namely voting behavior and elections, which are the most frequently discussed.Voting behavior is related to the characteristics and tendencies of voters who continue to dynamically develop so that it is natural that they are often discussed.Likewise with elections because it relates to the central theme of the study of elections.

DISCUSSION
Bibliometric analysis is intended to provide an explanation of the development of studies in electoral studies journals by looking at the dominant topics.Studies with electoral topics certainly interested researchers because they reflect the situation of democracy which is considered the best political system in the world along with its problems.The electoral studies journal as one of the internationally reputable publishers greatly contributes to explaining how the electoral situation in the world from various perspectives.
The United States is the country with the most authors in electoral studies journals, which shows their reputation and excellence in democratic political research, especially on electoral topics.The high interest of authors from the United States in this topic is due to the status of the United States as one of the major forces in pushing the democratization process at the global level.The United States has a strong interest in seeing how the electoral process in a country is related to the direction of its foreign policy.
From the bibliometric analysis conducted, 2 keywords often appear as evidence of the main focus of many researchers in the Electoral Studies Journal.These 2 keywords are most often discussed because they are indeed a very frequently researched topic.First, voting behavior.This topic is always interesting for many authors because it explains the voting behavior of people who are always dynamic.Globalization and changes in social, political, and economic conditions in a country certainly greatly affect voting behavior so voting behavior trends are always actual to be researched.This is also increasingly interesting amid the presence of populism and identity politics that greatly affect people's voting attitudes as happened in the United States, Indonesia, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Brazil, and several other European countries.Voting behavior is also one of the main keys to seeing the electability of a candidate.Second, elections.This topic is also very interesting because the electoral studies journal is the main topic related to elections so it is very often researched by the author.In the world, there are 195 countries with more than 80% holding elections so the phenomena related to elections are certainly very many and complex.In elections, many aspects are studied ranging from institutions, candidacy, and public participation to conflicts that occur.
The two keywords above imply that voting behavior and elections are topics that are always interesting to be studied.Further studies in electoral studies remain relevant by linking to these 2 keywords.These 2 keywords are topics that can be researched with a variety of approaches so that they can continue to contribute to electoral studies.

CONCLUSIONS
Since it was first published in 1982, electoral studies have continued to develop into a journal of high international reputation and are currently one of the primary references for understanding the phenomenon of elections in the world.This article conducts a bibliometric study of electoral studies journals in the period 2016-August 2021.It is found that the United States is the country with the highest number of authors, and Universiteit van Amsterdam is the origin of most universities.Voting behavior and elections are two important keywords that appear frequently, indicating that these two issues are most frequently discussed by the authors.The implication of this study is that it provides researchers and academics with clues about topical trends and topics that are rarely discussed in research on electoral topics that will be published in electoral studies journals and other reputable international journals.
However, this study also has some limitations.First, it is only limited to one journal while there are also highly reputable international journals with a focus on electoral issues, so future studies need to combine these journals to analyze scientific literature more comprehensively and deeply.Second, the data mining method is only looking at Iradhad Taqwa Sihidi, Dedik Fitrah Suhermanto, Danang Kurniawan the discovery of bibliometric words in the title, abstract, and keywords in Scopus.More in-depth data mining or meta-analysis on full articles will provide more comprehensive discussion results.Third, the analysis is less comprehensive and in-depth on one issue/ topic because bibliometric studies are only mapping.Future studies can further analyze important topics that appear in more depth on one political event in a democratic country.
For example, the two dominant keywords that emerge, namely voting behavior and elections, can be related to the Indonesian context to see the tendency of young voters' attitudes toward the threat of hoaxes and post-truth or to see the phenomenon of simultaneous elections and simultaneous regional elections in 2024, which of course will have complexities that are very interesting to study.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.The Study Area of Electoral Studies 2016 -August 2021

Figure 9 .
Figure 9. Thematic Map using R Studio

Figure 10 .
Figure 10.Treemap Word Cloud of Abstract using R Studio

Figure 11 .
Figure 11.Word Cloud of Abstract using R Studio