Chilipunk'd! Journal Edition

So, I get this email....

Dear Prof Munger,

Please find attached an article that has just been published in Politics, one of the flagship journals of the UK Political Studies Association. Politics seeks to publish timely, research-led reflections on the start of the art, the state of the world, and the state of disciplinary pedagogy.

After consulting with the author, we identified you as one of the key experts in this particular field. Therefore we felt that you might like to see the article, entitled The Incumbency Advantage in the US Congress: A Roller-Coaster Relationship, as soon as it was published.

We hope it is of interest. Please get in touch if you have any questions, and do consider Politics as an outlet for your own research in future.

Best,  Dr Martin Coward

Editor, POLITICS

Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics

Newcastle University

(Attached:  PDF of paper)

 

And I'm thinking, okay, finally I get the respect I am due in this world.  I have published several papers on incumbency advantage, and the effects of incumbency on campaign contributions.  So, cool.

 

I look at the paper, and it never cites me.  Now, that's fine, too.  My papers on incumbency advantage are deservedly obscure, perhaps.  Fair enough.  A paper is published that doesn't cite me, no complaints.

 

Here's my question:  Why BOTH?  Why would someone single out a scholar, in another country, to receive a special copy of a paper that deals with a topic in which I'm a "key expert," and not cite that "key expert's" own work?  The only possible effect is to piss off the "key expert."  Why contact someone whose work is relevant, when you clearly don't really think the work is relevant?

 

Or, I guess, another possible effect is to cause the KE to write sarcastic blog posts about the whole thing...