The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjpir to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of The British Journal of Politics and International Relations will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that the journal may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

1. What do we publish?
   1.1 Aims & Scope
   1.2 Article types
   1.3 Writing your paper
2. Editorial policies
   2.1 Peer review policy
   2.2 Authorship
   2.3 Acknowledgements
   2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
   2.5 Data
3. Publishing policies
   3.1 Publication ethics
   3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
   3.3 Open access and author archiving
4. Preparing your manuscript
   4.1 Formatting
   4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
   4.3 Supplemental material
   4.4 Style Sheet
   4.5 Reference Style
   4.6 English Language Editing Services
5. Submitting your manuscript
   5.1 ORCID
   5.2 Information required for completing your submission
   5.3 Permissions
6. On acceptance and publication
   6.1 Sage Production
   6.2 Online First publication
   6.3 Access to your published article
   6.4 Promoting your article
7. Further information

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations (BJPIR) is an international journal that publishes peer-reviewed, cutting edge scholarship across the full breadth of the fields of international relations, comparative politics, public policy, political theory, political economy, and politics. As a flagship journal of the UK’s Political Studies Association, BJPIR is the world’s premier outlet for research on British politics.

The journal has always sought to reflect and drive the major currents of debate in political science and international relations, both in the UK and internationally. Building on this legacy, our vision is to be at the forefront of scholarly efforts to understand and address the politics of global challenges, broadly understood. We encourage submissions that nuance our understanding of the inherently political processes through which these challenges are created, experienced, and responded to. We particularly welcome scholarship that generates new perspectives on some of the core assumptions and debates in political studies and international relations.

Above all, BJPIR provides a forum for a diversity of approaches and voices. In keeping with the journal’s founding concerns for disciplinary pluralism, we welcome diverse epistemological and methodological approaches, as well as genuinely interdisciplinary research agendas. We will continuously aim for a bigger proportion of articles from women scholars and support the discipline-wide effort to see gender parity. We are committed to improving the number of submissions and published articles by authors from underrepresented minority groups, scholars from the Global South, and Early Career Researchers (ECRs).

1.2 Article Types

British Journal of Politics and International Relations seeks to reflect and respond to the changing real world of politics, by publishing articles that are of contemporary relevance to both the study and practice of politics.  We particularly welcome scholarship that generates new perspectives on some of the core assumptions and debates in Political Studies and International Relations. BJPIR publishes a number of different types of article:

1.Original research articles – we welcome original, scholarly articles between 8-10,000 words, excluding the list of references. They should have a well-developed, original argument that is supported, as appropriate, by a rigorous analysis consistent with the manuscript’s methodological approach. 

Manuscripts must be original, not currently under review elsewhere and conforms to the highest standards of proper attribution in line with our policy on equitable citation practices.

2. 'Policy matters' articles - we also welcome submissions of work focused on a particular policy sector or issue, particularly ones that impact on the Academy (such as on matters of educational policy). 'Policy matters' articles are normally between 3,000 and 5,000 words.

3.Special Issues - we invite proposals for special issues on a rolling basis that catalyse our vision for the journal as set out in our Editorial Statement.  Proposals should be sent via email to BJPIR@leeds.ac.uk.  All draft articles that are proposed to be included in a Special Issue must undergo anonymous peer-review. For more information, please see the Call for Special Issue proposals.

BJPIR also occasionally publishes articles commissioned by our editorial team.

PSA Equitable Citations Policy

PSA is committed to addressing inequities in academic publication processes that are suffered by under-represented and minority communities and has set out its position in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy.

As part of this commitment, we recognise that references cited in journals such as ours sometimes replicate and reinforce such inequities by under-representing minority scholars. Clearly not all minority group characteristics are easily visible in citations, but those inferred which are easier to discern include gender, race, early career scholars and scholars from under-represented parts of the world such as the global South, among others.

To address these inequities, we exhort our authors whose manuscripts are accepted for publication to critically examine their references with a view to including citations of equally rigorous and relevant scholarship by under-represented minority authors. To support this effort, British Journal of Politics and International Relations will no longer count reference lists in our word count for all articles.

 

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Authors submitting their work to BJPIR may expect the highest standards of editorial professionalism. Articles will first be screened for quality and for compliance with the aims and scope of the journal. Given the large number of submissions, not all material received will be sent out for review. BJPIR adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties. All referees will ordinarily be asked to review re-submissions that may be requested of authors by the Editors. Additional reviewers will be brought in where necessary.

We ask reviewers to consider the following questions when compiling an expert review:

• What is the nature and extent of the submission's contribution to existing debates in politics, IR and relevant sub-fields? How and to what extent is it original and innovative in terms of its substance, approach and/or methodology?
• Does it enable a more general audience to engage with and benefit from the contribution?
• Does it conform to rigorous methodological standards as understood by the intellectual traditions within which they operate?
• Is adequate reference made to the scholarly literature in the field (paying particular attention to the representativeness of citation practices)?
• Are there particular arguments or passages that need further clarification, deletion or expansion?
• Does it spell out the implications of any findings for further research?

 

Contributors should allow time for the process of refereeing to take place.

While the views of external reviewers and members of the Editorial Board will be both respected and of primary influence on editorial decisions, final decision on publication will be taken by the Editors.

 

2.2 Authorship

All parties, and yet only those who have made a substantive contribution to the article, should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis or independent research.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

•    Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input 
•    Identify any entities that paid for this assistance 
•    Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway

2.5 Data

Sage acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles.

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles [“alongside their article submissions” or “if the articles are accepted”] to be published in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information in their articles on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. [The editor(s) may consider limited embargoes on proprietary data.] The editor(s) [can/will] also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. For further information, please contact the editorial office at [email address].

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3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway

3.1.1 Plagiarism

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway

3.3 Open access and author archiving

British Journal of Politics and International Relations offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

Authors retain copyright of your Sage Choice article. Sage will publish your article under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license (CC BY-NC) which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. Authors required to publish under a CC BY licensing by their funder can publish under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which allows use of the work for commercial purposes.

If you require a CC BY NC-ND license, please contact the Sage Production Editor at Clare.Spencer@sagepub.co.uk.

3.4 PSA statement on CC-BY

Please be aware that the Political Studies Association (UK) have issued the following statement about the CC-BY licence:-
The Political Studies Association endorses the principle of freedom of choice and is thus prepared to offer authors choosing to pay an Article Processing Charge under Online Open the option of publishing under a CC-BY licence. However, the Association wishes to draw the attention of authors to the following risks associated with CC-BY licences:-

• Lack of requirement under the terms of the current CC-BY licence (version 3.0) for other parties to give any indication as to how the original work has been modified in any derivative product
• Lack of protection against poor translation
• Lack of recourse against the work being quoted out of context
• Lack of recourse against the work being reprinted in anthologies where the context is offensive to the author
• Lack of recourse against intermediaries republishing work for commercial gain

For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway. Your rights as an author are outlined below:

• You retain copyright in your work.
• You may do whatever you wish with the version of the article you submitted to the journal – version 1.
• You may not post the accepted version (version 2) of the article on your own personal website, your department’s website, the repository of your institution, the repository of another institution or a subject repository, until 24 months after first publication of the article in the journal.
• Once the article has been accepted for publication, you may use the accepted article (version 2) for your own teaching needs or to supply on an individual basis to research colleagues, provided that such supply is not for commercial purposes.
• You may use the accepted article (version 2) in a book you write or edit any time after publication in the journal.
• You may not post the published article (version 3) on any website or in any repository without permission from Sage.
• When posting or re-using the article please provide a link to the appropriate DOI for the published version of the article on Sage Journals (http://online.sagepub.com). 

All commercial or any other re-use of the published article should be referred to Sage. More information can be found at: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

When posting or re-using the article, you should provide a link/URL from the article posted to the Sage Journals Online site where the article is published: http://online.sagepub.com and please make the following acknowledgment: ‘The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in , Vol/Issue, Month/Year by Sage Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © [The Author(s)]

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4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines  

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

4.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files

4.4 Style Sheet

In addition to Sage submission guidelines, it is imperative that authors follow the Editorial Style Guide to avoid delay in consideration of their manuscript.

4.5 Reference Style

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style. However, the journal will accept submissions using any consistent scholarly referencing style, with no requirement to follow specific formatting rules at the submission stage. Should the manuscript be conditionally accepted for publication, the author(s) will be required to (re)format their manuscript to adhere to the Sage Harvard referencing style before their manuscript can be formally accepted.

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file

Please keep endnotes to an absolute minimum and use only for essential contextual background, to provide details of variables or methods, or for similar material which, while essential, would nonetheless be disruptive to the flow of the main text, or of interest only to a minority of readers. Please do not exceed one endnote per word (for instance "word [1] [2]" will not be accepted).

4.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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5. Submitting your manuscript

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bjpir to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

5.1 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. 

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

5.2 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.3 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway

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6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

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7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to The British Journal of Politics and International Relations editorial office as follows:

BJPIR@leeds.ac.uk