Bibliometric analysis of the publications in Spanish Law journals in Web of Science (2018-2023)

Abstract

Spanish legal journals are one of the main platforms for knowledge transfer, ensuring high standards of quality and trustworthiness, and enabling scientific progress. Bibliometrics measures the impact of these publications through indicators of usage and consumption. The main objective of the study is to analyze publications in the field of Law over the last 5 years, through journals indexed in Web of Science. Additionally, indicators provided by SCOPUS and PlumX have been consulted to contrast the adequacy of these results. The methodology used is observational and descriptive, analyzing data from 30 Spanish journals. Secondary objectives include describing characteristics of articles, analyzing the correlation between impact and article usage, and evaluating consumption and impact indicators of the journals. The general results highlight the low impact of these publications in terms of references: they barely receive citations, and the average citation life is quite old. This contrasts with the legal-doctrinal landscape, where diverse legislation and jurisprudence that modify previous standards are continuously published. A predominance of the national sphere over the international is observed: most authors are Spanish, writing in Spanish, and affiliated with Spanish universities. This could be one of the reasons why they have such low impact, as Web of Science shows a clear bias towards English-language publications. In fact, the highest-impact journal is in English. Relations between different indicators is also established. On one hand, a higher number of citations is positively related to a greater number of uses. On the other hand, the various indicators provided by the databases, while not exactly the same are quite similar and offer parallelisms in the results. Finally, a specific journal, Revista Española de Derecho Constitutional, has been analyzed to provide, in addition to general journal data, a specific case study. The results demonstrate that this journal aligns with the general findings.