INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

The Editors welcome submissions to Global Studies Quarterly that adhere to the Instructions to Authors. Manuscripts that do not meet all of the requirements below will not be considered for publication and may be returned to the authors for completion.

For support and more information please contact the Global Studies Quarterly editorial office:  [email protected]. 

About the journal

Aims and scope

Global Studies Quarterly (GSQ) is a fully open-access journal of the International Studies Association (ISA). Articles published in GSQ offer significant theoretical, epistemological, empirical or normative contribution to the field. The journal is open to all theoretical and methodological approaches to questions of international politics, or the intersection of global politics with economy, society or culture. Global Studies Quarterly actively encourages and administers submissions from scholars and regions that are often underrepresented in academic journals.

Ethical policies

Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication best practice. Falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical or publication malpractice are treated very seriously and will be managed in accordance with the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Further information about OUP’s ethical policies is available here.

Plagiarism

Manuscripts submitted to Global Studies Quarterly may be screened with iThenticate anti-plagiarism software in an attempt to detect and prevent plagiarism. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose part or all of the text has been previously published. Prior to final acceptance any manuscript that has not already been screened may be put through iThenticate. More information about iThenticate can be found here.

Disclosure

Any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated—including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition—should be disclosed. For further information see the FAQ.

If there are none, please declare no conflicts of interest.

If one or a few authors have a conflict to disclose, further to that statement, there should be an additional statement for those remaining authors who do not have any conflicts of interest.

Data policies

OUP’s policy on data and privacy can be found here.

Third-party permissions

In order to reproduce any third party material, including tables, figures, or images, in an article authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder and be compliant with any requirements the copyright holder may have pertaining to this reuse. When seeking to reproduce any kind of third party material authors should request the following:

• non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the specified article and journal;
• electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium;
• the right to use the material for the life of the work; and
• world-wide English-language rights.

It is particularly important to clear permission for use in online versions of the journal, and we are not able to accept permissions which carry a time limit because we retain journal articles as part of our online journal archive. Further guidelines on clearing permissions can be found here.

Self-archiving

The journal’s self-archiving policy can be found here.

Permissions regarding re-use of OUP material

Guidelines on permissions for the reuse of OUP material can be found here.

Funder policies

See this page for information about compliance with funder requirements including PubMed/PMC deposits.

Submissions

Global Studies Quarterly considers all manuscripts on the condition that:

• the manuscript is your own original work and does not duplicate any other previously published work, including your own work.
• the manuscript has been submitted only to Global Studies Quarterly. It should not be under consideration or in peer review or accepted for publication or published elsewhere.
• the manuscript contains nothing that is abusive, defamatory, libellous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

All manuscripts are submitted and reviewed via the journal’s web-based manuscript submission system. Authors should submit their papers via ScholarOne. New authors should create an account prior to submitting a manuscript for consideration.

Questions about submitting to the journal should be sent to the editorial office at [email protected].

Types of Submissions

Original Research Articles: Original research articles should generally not exceed 8,000-10,000 words on first submission and 12,000 as the final version—including all tables, figures, footnotes, and bibliography, but excluding abstract and maximum 10 pages of appendices. These submissions address important global issues relevant to a general international-studies audience. They should have an original theoretical argument supported, when appropriate, by substantive analysis appropriate to the methodological approach of the manuscript. Only original submissions, not published or under review elsewhere, will be considered for review.

Research Notes: Research Notes are submissions that are shorter, more focused, demonstrate a novel perspective on existing research, and encourage scholarly debate (maximum length 4,000 words). Typically, a note does not need to include a full literature review and has a much briefer introduction, argument, analysis, and conclusion. Research notes often include, but are not limited to, a new theoretical perspective, methodological progress, alternative empirical findings, as well as comments on and extensions of existing work. Research notes communicate new insights and the main ideas succinctly, in accessible prose.

Special Issues: The editors will occasionally accept a small number of special issues in which a number of research articles are linked together under a common theme, overseen by guest editors. Proposals for a special issue should be sent directly to the Editors-in-Chief. Proposals should be no more than 3,000 words and clearly explain the proposed content of the special issue, the contributors, a justification of the importance and quality of the special issue, and abstracts for 6 to 8 manuscripts.  If the proposal is accepted, each manuscript will be reviewed separately. In situations where only some of the papers survive the review process, we may still offer authors the ability to publish their manuscripts as stand-alone articles. Articles that form the special issue will all undergo regular, independent peer review.

Manuscript preparation

Please ensure that a manuscript meets the following guidelines prior to submission:

• The entire document, including footnotes, references, figures and tables, must be no more than 10,000 words for Original Research Articles and 4,000 for Research Notes.
• All notes should be footnotes, not endnotes.
• We prefer figures and tables to be placed in-line and as close as possible to the first reference made in the text.
• GSQ uses The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) with in-text citations (Smith 1994, 101. See more examples). We do not require using this reference style during the review process, however, manuscripts must have a references section at the end of the manuscript.
• In initial submission, appendices should be no longer than 10 pages total and should be placed at the end of the main document. Please note that any initial submission of supplementary materials — besides the maximum 10 pages at the end of the main document — will not be included in the initial peer review process. After getting a Revise & Resubmit, authors can submit longer appendices as "Supporting Information for Review and Online Publication.
• Authors should limit the number of citations to their own work, using only third person references.
• A separate title page document should be uploaded with your manuscript. The title page should contain the following elements: Document title; Short title for running head; Author name; Affiliations (Institution, Country); Abstract.

Further information on preparing your manuscript can be found here.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Processes

Peer review

All submissions to the journal are initially reviewed by one of the journal editors.  If the paper meets our initial standards, we will assign each paper to reviewers who we believe can offer constructive comments to the authors and a fair assessment regarding its publication potential to the editors. Based on the feedback from these reviewers and the editors’ judgement, a decision is given on the manuscript.

Global Studies Quarterly adheres to a policy of double-blind reviewing, in which the identity of the author will not be identified in the copies given to reviewers, and reviewers will not identify themselves in their review. Authors are therefore encouraged to avoid explicit disclosure of their identity in the text of their manuscript; for example, by use of a header. In some cases the editor may decide that direct discussion between author and reviewer would be helpful, but names are never disclosed without explicit permission from both parties.

Production process

Global Studies Quarterly, manuscripts arrive at OUP and go through the production process until final versions are ready to publish. These are then published into an issue online once the issue has been prepared.

Authors will receive a link to the PDF proof of their manuscript on our online system by email, and it is essential that a current email address is supplied with all manuscripts. Proofing instructions will accompany the PDF file but the proof should be checked immediately upon receipt and uploaded in accordance with covering instructions. Only essential corrections should be made at the proof stage.

Charges

All content published in Global Studies Quarterly is made freely available online under an Open Access Model. There are no subscription fees. However, an Article Processing (APC) fee is charged for content published in Global Studies Quarterly. Authors whose articles are accepted for publication can use the following licences for their articles:

Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY)
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND)

More information about Creative Commons licences.

Charges for CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND publication:

Regular Article Charge: $2,137
Research Notes: $855

ISA member Research Article discount 20%
ISA member Research Notes discount 20%
 

Please see the list of universities that have funding available for Open Access publishing. Even if it is not listed, we encourage you to inquire with your institution about the availability of funds for Open Access publishing.

Waiver Policy

As an Open Access journal, we rely on APCs for the journal's continued operation, and we ask authors to ensure they are able to pay these charges before submitting a paper. We anticipate that most authors will use their funded project grants or institutional funds to cover these charges. However, we recognize this is not always possible for all authors and the APC may be waived in some circumstances, including invited submissions. Authors who have concerns about this charge please contact our Open Access team at [email protected].

We have a developing country initiative whereby corresponding authors from countries listed here, are eligible for a full waiver of these article processing charges which will be automatically applied on your behalf. We also will consider waiver requests from authors outside the developing country initiative but please note our ability to grant such waivers is limited and is at the discretion of the publisher. For authors that do not qualify for our developing countries initiative but would still like to request a waiver, please contact our Open Access team at [email protected] to request a partial or full waiver at submission stage (you will be asked to complete a waiver form to support your request).