By searching the Journal Citation Reports of the Social Sciences Citation Index database, this study investigates the characteristics and compares the differences in citation data for 83 political science journals. The journal citation data that are explored include times cited, the impact factor, the immediacy index, citing half-life, cited half-life, the self-citing rate (synchronous self-citation) and the self-cited rate (diachronous selfcitation). Moreover, the relationships between the various citation data and the two self-citation rates are examined using statistical tests.