TC invokes my old friend (really, Angus' old friend is more accurate) Hyman Minsky. (Hy and I had the same birthday, by the way).
The heterodox, orthodox, boat-ran-into-the-docks, thing has me a little loopy.
Look, if it is published in a journal, it is safe and traditional, almost certainly. There are two sorts of things that get turned down in journals:
(a) Things that are wrong, not well thought out, incomplete, just not very good.
(b) Things that threaten the status quo. The SQ has defense mechanisms. That is why it IS the status quo.
People who get stuff turned down ALWAYS think it is because their paper is in class (b). At best, it is probably an element of BOTH class (a) and class (b) (they are hardly disjoint sets). But most people who see themselves as heterodox are just undisciplined and shallow. Still, it is true that anything revolutionary will NOT, almost be definition, be published (at least not published FIRST) in refereed journals.
All that said, notice that I am in Political Science. The straitjacket of economic techniques, and the restrictions on questions you are allowed to ask....not good for me.
Finally, let me note that the Perestroikan movement in Poli Sci has been a disaster for the 'Stroikans themselves. Before, they could say that the APSR didn't publish their work out of APSR bias. Now, it is clear that most people don't publish in APSR because their papers suck.
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Minsky used to come by my office and physically escort me to his office where he held his "class". Skipping was not really an option. When any of the visitors (mostly Italians) who were sitting in started talking, Hy would just shake his head till they stopped and then point at me to explain to them their error. It was an interesting semester to say the least.
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