From our point of view, politics seems to be primarily driven by general strain and urgent matters. Therefore, the modus operandi of the political system tends to be problem-driven and re-active. The long-term goal is to eradicate this sequence of events and become active or even pro-active.

With Political Excellence, the editors of JPoX proposed an expression which is not yet defined. What’s more, the underlying concept is no matter of discussion. Political Excellence, for us, is neither a normative phrase nor a description of a fixed state; it is rather a process. In that sense, excellence is the continuous strive for the better.
It is all about continuously observing and reflecting the political system in order to create new forms of the system. Hence, the concept is applicable to all political systems, not only to established democracies.

Political excellence is about improving political systems! 

Most electronic journals are unattractively designed and hardly ever user-friendly. What they care for is the content they provide. Furthermore, they seem to reproduce the well-known format of the hard copy periodicals.
Although electronic journals do have the same contributors and the same target readers as the hard copy journals, at least in the majority of cases, they do hardly make use of all the functionalities the internet provides for.
But an electronic journal which strives for attracting a wide audience ought to apply these features.

That is exactly what we are going to offer with JPoX. The new hybrid that emerges will be an exploration into new forms of communication. Democratic possibilities of the internet will be exploited allowing for interaction.
In the best possible world, a debate between segments of the society that until now have largely engaged in parallel, but separate discourses will come into existence. Therefore, submitted papers can be commented by the visitors. The same holds for the video interviews the JPoX team has conducted or the editorial reflections which have been written by the editors. To round off things, the journal will be presented in a state-of-the-art design.

The Idea

The idea of having an e-journal dates back to springtime 2007. Louis Klein, Jan Lachenmayer and Stefan Rupp discussed the severe lack of institutionalised self-reflection of the political system. No-one within the system really addressed the topic, and even in social science there was no systematic discussion about that topic. Thenceforward, we decided to address the topic via an electronic journal which be baptised JPoX – Journal on Political Excellence. It is entitled JPoX (“jay-pox”).
As we had observed that there was neither a debate on that subject nor a steady exchange between the political system and the scientific community, we knew that we had to bring together both sides in our journal.
As a result the concept of three streams was created. A paper stream related to the logics of science and scientific journals, an interview stream appealing to politicians, and an editorial reflection stream to provide a holistic view on the ongoing debate. We called the search for improving the political systems of established democracies a search for Political Excellence. However, during the course we realised that it is rather about political systems in general than about established democracies.

The first steps

After having sketched a project plan, the JPoX team grew over summer with Maria Alzaga. Louis Klein supervised the project while Maria Alzaga, Jan Lachenmayer and Stefan Rupp went to work.
In fall, we launched www.JPoX.eu where we described who we are and what we wanted to do. We used a lot of time on presenting, explaining and discussing JPoX with people from scientific and political communities.
JPoX got plenty of attention – some people were impressed, others to a lesser extent - but generally speaking there was a consensus on the necessity of such a discourse. We decided to make the pilot issue an invited one and started to search for interesting contributors. Over the time the list of authors and interviewees grew, as did our team. Leonardo Bazzo strengthened the editorial staff in January.

Sourcing

JPoX is financed with capital from the SEgroup investment fund, providing for a basic configuration. However, we are still striving for additional funding so as to extend the project. A good portion of work is done on voluntary basis.

Becoming reality

In early winter, we sat together with our designer and programmer to specify our ideas. In very little time they did a great job to accomplish a difficult task. Ever since, we were intensively working: we collected all the contributions, cut the videos and wrote the editorial reflections. And here we are, proudly presenting the launch of JPoX – Journal on Political Excellence on Mach 10, 2008.

Words of gratitude

Such a project would have never been accomplished without the work of countless people. First of all we would like to thank the investment fund of SEgroup, whose appropriations made the project come alive. Furthermore, the editors of JPoX would like to thank Louis Klein for his inspiring supervision and Doris Schröder for her support in external communication. Special thanks to Joanna Bertholo, who not only designed our website, but who also cut the footage. Likewise, we would like to thank Christof Höfler who programmed the website. Several people have read through our texts and suggested improvements, amongst others Errol Bailey and Sandra Vinh. Our logo has been designed by Karin Vogt, thank you for that one. David Vogt programmed our first website – thank you. And a warm thank you goes to all contributors, whose ideas and input made JPoX possible and an inspiring endeavour.