Research Creativity and Productivity in Political Science: A Research Agenda for Understanding Alternative Career Paths and Attitudes Toward Professional Work in the Profession

A growing body of research investigates the factors that enhance the research productivity and creativity of political scientists. This work provides a foundation for future research, but it has not addressed some of the most promising causal hypotheses in the general scientific literature on this topic. This article explicates the latter hypotheses, a typology of scientific career paths that distinguishes how scientific careers vary over time with respect to creative ambitions and achievements, and a research agenda based on the preceding components for investigation of the publication success of political scientists.