The question of changing URPE's name arose in slightly different form
at a meeting of the RRPE Ed Board in Salt Lake City, I think in April
1989. There, the debate was over changing the title of the journal
to Review of Political Economy or something similar. But the reason
was basically the same - concern about whether the RRPE would be
accepted as a 'real' publication on people's CVs. The move was
defeated by only 1 or 2 votes.
I certainly think you have a problem in the US that we don't really
face in the UK. Here, the only queries about the name of the
Conference of Socialist Economists have been about the apparent
restriction to economists, and the peculiar use of 'conference' to
designate an organisation. But that's because (a) there is a
comparatively much larger part of the academic economics world in the
UK that has no problem with the idea that an economist might be
socialist; (b) the CSE journal title 'Capital & Class' might not be
recognised as socialist by a really straight economist; and (c) we
find it relatively easier to publish in other more-or-less
sympathetic journals as well (Cambridge J of Econ, Review of Pol
Econ, Internat Review of Applied Econ, the new Rev of International
Political Economy) without disguising what we write, so we're not so
reliant on the one outlet.
I would suggest that URPE should consider again a change of name of
the journal, but I don't see much point in changing the name of the
organisation - since there's no need to announce your membership of
it on a CV anyway. Personally, however, I'd prefer a more difficult
alternative: since the RRPE has a loyal readership and a consistent
politics as it is, URPE members should make a strong effort to open
links to other journals and help its members to 'twin-track' their
publication efforts.
