Politics | SAGE Publications Ltd

Before submitting your manuscript to Politics, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

The editors invite original articles in any area of politics and international studies — including research in learning and teaching. Politics accepts articles between 4000 and 8000 words in length. All contributions – regardless of length – must make an original contribution to their field. Expectations regarding the extent of this contribution will depend on the length of an article. These word limits include notes, bibliography and supplementary material (e.g., tables) but exclude abstract, acknowledgments and biography.

Politics invites proposals for special issues/sections and forums. Those interested in proposing special issues/sections and forums should send a proposal to the editors for initial consideration. The proposal should: 1) outline the research problematic which runs across the papers; 2) state the case for the relevance and original contribution of the special issue/section/forum to the discipline of politics/international studies; 3) show how the issue/section would speak to the journal’s generalist audience; and 4) provide author details, titles and abstracts for the papers the special issue/section/forum would contain.

Politics does not normally publish responses to articles unless they make an original and substantive contribution to the field in their own right. Those interested in writing a response should contact the editors in the first place to discuss how to proceed. All responses published in Politics will be peer reviewed. A right of reply to any responses will be at the discretion of the editors.

The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.

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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Politics adheres to a rigorous double-blind reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

All parties 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.

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.

Politics encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway

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

Politics requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles 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 can 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.

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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

Politics 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.

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.

Politics offers optional open access publishing via the SAGE Choice programme. For more information please visit the SAGE Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.

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.

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 <journal>, Vol/Issue, Month/Year by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © [The Author(s)]

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The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. The text should be double-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point. (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

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.

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.

Politics uses a modified version of the Harvard system of referencing and submissions that are not in the journal’s house style will be returned to the author for reformatting. Details of the Politics referencing style can be found below:

In-text Citations
Case 1: Bovens and Wille (2011: 64–85) ‘quoted text’.
Case 2: Stilz (2013: 335–336) illustrates the claim as follows: ‘quoted text’.
Case 3: Carens (2013: 9) describes his approach as ‘quoted text’.
Case 4: Bovens and Wille (2011: 64–85) ‘quoted text’, but also stated ‘quoted text’ (Bovens and Wille, 2011: 102).

Notes: 
(a) ‘pp’ or ‘p’ should only be used for articles reviewing a single specific work to avoid repetition.
(b) Displayed quotes should include full citation information at the end of the extracted quote.

Book 
 Miliband R (1969) The State in Capitalist Society. New York: Basic Books.

Herman ES and Chomsky N (1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

Edited Book 
Weiner M (ed.) (1993) International Migration and Security. Boulder: Westview Press.

Chowdhry G and Nair S (eds) (2002) Power, Postcolonialism, and International Relations. London: Routledge.

Translated Book 
Agamben G (1998) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (trans. D Heller-Roazen). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Chapter in a Book 
Benjamin W (1986) A critique of violence. In: Demetz P (ed.) Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. New York: Schocken Books, pp.277–300.

Reprinted Book
Groome TH (1999 [1980]) Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Journal Article 
 van Dijk TA (1992) Discourse and the denial of racism. Discourse and Society 3(1): 87–118.

Gavin N, Saunders D, Brooks T, et al. (2003) The press and its influences on British political attitudes under New Labour. Political Studies 51(3): 573–591.

Electronic Journal 
Grove J (2015) Of an apocalyptic tone recently adopted in everything: The anthropocene or peak humanity? Theory and Event [online] 18(3). Available at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v018/18.3.grove.html (accessed 25 September 2015).

Epub Ahead of Print
Musliu V and Orbie J (2015) MetaKosovo: Local and international narratives. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations. Epub ahead of print 14 July. DOI: 10.1111/1467-856X.12069.

Paper 
 Ford R (2008) Britain coming to terms with diversity: Changing attitudes to ethnic minorities and immigrants. Paper presented at the University of Surrey, Politics Research Seminars, 10 December.

Conference/Event Article
Clark JM and Smith P (2002) Latest research on car exhaust manifolds. In: 17th international conference on strain analysis (ed. L Macadam), London, UK, 23–25 September 2010, pp.12–14. London: Professional Engineering Publishing.

Parliamentary Speech 
 Clarke C (2005) Speech: House of Commons Debates. 26 January, col. 306.

Act of Parliament 
 Great Britain (2002) Adoption of Children Act 2002. London: Stationery Office.

Parliamentary Bill 
 Great Britain (2000–2001) Adoption and Children Bill. House of Commons Bill [117]. London: Stationery Office.

Legal Ruling 
A v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56.

EU Documents 
Council Directive 2001/29/EC of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.

PhD Thesis
Unpublished 
Heath A (2010) A critical reading of EH Carr. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Politics, Newcastle University.

Published
Heath A (2010) A Critical Reading of EH Carr. PhD Thesis, Politics, Newcastle University.

Magazine Article 
 Ma D (2012) Why China wants to slow down its own economy. The Atlantic. 12 June, p.10

Online
Ma D (2012) Why China wants to slow down its own economy. The Atlantic [online]. Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/why-china-wants-to-slow-down-its-own-economy/254374/ (accessed 13 March 2012).

Newspaper Article 
 Morris N (2012) MPs block move to give sleaze watchdog more power. The Independent 13 March, p.10.

Online
Morris N (2012) MPs block move to give sleaze watchdog more power. The Independent [online] 13 March. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mps-block-move-to-give-sleaze-watchdog-more-power-7563393.html (accessed 13 March 2012).

Report by Organisation 
 HM Government (2010) Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review. London: Stationery Office.

Lowles N and Painter A (2011) Fear and HOPE: The New Politics of Identity [online]. Ilford: Searchlight Educational Trust. Available at: http://www.fearandhope.org.uk/project-report/ (accessed 17 October 2011).

Webpage or Blog 
 African National Congress (2009) 2009 Manifesto Policy Framework [online]. The African National Congress. Available at: http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=3390 (accessed 12 March 2012).

McCarvill P (2012) The Hidden Legacy of the Stephen Lawrence Case Left Foot Forward [blog]. Available at: http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/01/the-hidden-legacy-of-the-stephen-lawrence-case/ (accessed 14 March 2012).

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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Politics is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/politics 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.

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.

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).

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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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. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.

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.

SAGE provides authors with online access to their final 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.

6.5 Blog post

Upon acceptance, and in order to proceed to the final publication, authors will be required to submit a 500-word blog post summarising the main contributions and findings of their articles. The language of this text should be simple and aimed to the general public. The editors will provide guidance on this process for those authors with an accepted manuscript. 

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Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Politics editorial office as follows: