Please read the guidelines in full before submitting your manuscript.
Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
The Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
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 author responsibilities section on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
We also encourage you to familiarize yourself with our Editorial Policies and our Publication Ethics Policies.
Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions and peer review from a diverse range of authors and reviewers from across all countries and backgrounds. Read our diversity, equity, and inclusion pledge.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. Open access options are available – see below.
Please read the guidelines below then submit your manuscript here.
Access: Subscription
Accepts preprints? Yes
Identity transparency: Double anonymized
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
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.
Optional open access publishing is available for a fee via the Sage Choice program, 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. Open Access agreement eligibility is determined by the corresponding author’s affiliation matching an agreement at acceptance. 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 Open Access team at: openaccess@sagepub.com
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:
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:
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)]
Your article must be within the scope of the journal and be of sufficient quality. If not, it will not be reviewed. Please read the journal’s Aims and Scope to see if your article is appropriate.
The manuscript must be your original work, you must have the rights to the work, and you must have obtained and be able to supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, including figures, illustrations, tables, lengthy quotations, or other material previously published elsewhere.
View our Special Issues currently accepting submissions.
Political Studies Review provides a unique intellectual space for rigorous, high-quality, peer-reviewed original research across political science and the study of politics in related fields that aims at stimulating wide-ranging debate and cutting-edge discussion of topical issues. We therefore welcome submissions across a wide range of methodological or theoretical frameworks provided they are relevant to the research question and conform to the highest standards of scientific rigour and research ethics.
(1) Original Research Articles: The journal is a forum for innovative, rigorous and original work of significance to the discipline. Such work may be theoretical in nature, comparative in focus, and/or it may cut across traditional scholarly fields and push disciplinary boundaries.
Original research articles are no more than 8000 words in length, not including the reference list.
(2) Early Results: Many research projects produce exciting early results where the immediacy (and impact) is then lost as researchers seek to fashion full-length articles. In the Early Results section, authors can release early findings from projects without excessive theoretical setup or a long literature review. In essence, these articles will be akin to working papers, where the results will ultimately feature in full articles with an extended argument (in other journals or in PSR). This will provide not only a means by which early findings can be published, but also an arena in which new ideas can be explored, promoted and tested.
Early Results submissions are limited to 3000 words,not including the reference list.
(3) Symposia: PSR welcomes collections of short pieces based on symposia that are early versions of what may become more extensive articles. Such symposia will be subject to an expedited review and publication process (limited to one reviewer and one editor).
Papers in the Symposia section are limited to 3000 words,not including the reference list.
For further information on the process of publishing papers from a symposium, please see the following guidance:
1. Information for guest editors — Symposia [PSR Special Issue - Information for guest editors - Symposia]
2. Guidance on submitting a proposal — Symposia [PSR Special Issue - Symposia - Submitting a proposal]
(4) New Ideas: The journal welcomes articles that explore new ideas and directions for study. These short-form pieces should offer commentary on the discipline with academic rigour, stimulating debate and further reflection.
Papers in the New Ideas section are limited to 3000 words,not including the reference list.
(5) The Null Hypothesis: Many research projects produce results where the hypotheses are rejected but where the results are nonetheless interesting. PSR publishes papers where there were sound theoretical reasons for stipulating hypotheses, but where these hypotheses had to be rejected.
Papers in the Null Hypothesis section are limited to 3000-8000 words,not including the reference list.
(6) State of the Art articles: The journal also hosts significant and encompassing state-of-the-art reviews, with the objective of revisiting and evaluating existing research agenda and the potential for setting new agendas on significant issues across the discipline.
State of the Art articles are no more than 5000 words in length, not including the reference list.
(7) Book Reviews: PSR publishes book reviews of recent volumes on cutting-edge topics on an ad hoc basis. Book reviews are published online only and must be between 800 and 1000 words.
Submitted book reviews are reviewed by an Associate Editor, who makes a recommendation to the editorial board. An Editor makes the final decision on a review's inclusion in the journal.
To submit a book review proposal and for any questions about publishing a book review with PSR, please contact dafydd.townley@port.ac.uk
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, Political Studies Review will no longer count reference lists in our maximum word count of 8,000 for all articles.
Special Issue Policy
Political Studies Review (PSR) accepts proposals for special issues on a rolling basis.
The selection of special issues will be based upon which proposal, in their judgement, has the most potential in terms of:
a) the quality of the individual papers submitted,
b) the extent to which the proposed Special Issue as a whole makes an original, coherent and creative contribution to the field,
c) the extent to which the proposal stimulates wide-ranging debate and cutting-edge discussion of a topical issue or political issue that appeals to a broad audience in the UK and internationally,
d) the extent to which the proposal seeks to demonstrate the essential utility of political science through enhancing understanding and dialogue both within the political science profession, across disciplinary subfields and outside the scholarly community
Proposals should be a maximum of 3000 words long in total and should include the following information: include institutional affiliations and short biography and confirmation of their commitment to the Issue.
• Abstracts for each paper (350 words maxeach).
• Provide details of the origin of the proposal, e.g., a workshop, conference, research project etc.
• The current stage of development of the proposed issue.
For any questions about publishing a Special Issue with PSR, please contact james.dennis@ulusofona.pt
For further information on the process of publishing a special issue with PSR, please see the following guidance:
1. Information for guest editors — Special Issue [PSR Special Issue - Information for guest editors]
2. Guidance on submitting a proposal — Special Issue [PSR Special Issue - Submit a proposal]
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. You do not need to follow a template, but please ensure your heading levels are clear, and the sections clearly defined.
Your article title, keywords, and abstract all contribute to its position in search engine results, directly affecting the number of people who see your work. For details of what you can do to influence this, visit How to help readers find your article online.
Your manuscript’s title should be concise, descriptive, unambiguous, accurate, and reflect the precise contents of the manuscript. A descriptive title that includes the topic of the manuscript makes an article more findable in the major indexing services.
Please include an unstructured abstract of 350 words between the title and main body of your manuscript that concisely states the purpose of the research, major findings, and conclusions. If your research includes clinical trials, the trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract. Submissions that do not meet this requirement will not be considered.
Please include a minimum of 4-5 keywords, listed after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic.
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures, and graphs in electronic format, please read Sage’s artwork guidelines.
Figures supplied in color will appear in color online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. If you have requested color reproduction in the print version, we will advise you of the costs on receipt of your accepted article.
Please 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 Frequently Asked Questions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
To ensure fair and anonymous peer review, your manuscript must be fully anonymized. Please ensure any identifying information is removed from the main manuscript document and included on the Title Page instead. Do not include any author names in the manuscript file name and remove names from headers and footers. This version of the manuscript will be sent to the peer reviewers. The Title Page will not be sent to peer reviewers. See the Sage Journal Author Gateway for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
The Title Page should include:
If you are including an Acknowledgements section, this will be published at the end of your article. The Acknowledgments section should include all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship. Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your manuscript.
Writing assistance and third party submissions: if you have received any writing or editing assistance from a third-party, for example a specialist communications company, this must be clearly stated in the Acknowledgements section and in the covering letter. Please see the Sage Author Gateway for what information to include in your Acknowledgements section. If your submission is being made on your behalf by someone who is not listed as an author, for example the third-party who provided writing/editing assistance, you must state this in the Acknowledgements and also in your covering letter. Please note that the journal editor reserves the right to not consider submissions made by a third party rather than by the author/s themselves.
You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.
Please include a section with the heading ‘Statements and Declarations’ at the end of your submitted article, after the Acknowledgements section [and Author Contributions section if applicable] including each of the sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your submission, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office.
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. You can find information on what to say in your ethical statements as well as example statements on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.
All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript.
Please include any participant consent information under this heading and state whether informed consent to participate was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section. More information and example statements can be found on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.
Submissions containing any data from an individual person (including individual details, images or videos) must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent to publish but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file in addition to the statement confirming that consent to publish was obtained within the manuscript text. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.
The journal requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors so that a statement can be included in your article. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, see our policy on conflicting interest declarations and the ICMJE recommendations.
If no conflict exists, your statement should read: ‘The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article’.
All articles need to include a funding statement, under a separate heading, even if you did not receive funding. You’ll find guidance and examples on our Funding page.
Sage acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles.
Political Studies Review requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles alongside their article submissions 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 editors 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. For further information, please contact the editorial office at psr@port.ac.uk
The journal follows the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms.
Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year.
Authors should update any references to preprints when a peer reviewed version is made available, to cite the published research. Citations to preprints are otherwise discouraged.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.
This Journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Author Services. Visit Sage Author Services for further information.
As part of the submission process you will need to confirm that this is your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that this is for first publication in this Journal, that it is not being considered for/has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that the journal may accept submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.
Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission.
Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed.
Submit your manuscript online via Sage Track.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in Sage Track 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.
Manuscripts should only be submitted with the consent of all contributing authors. The individual responsible for submitting the manuscript should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the manuscript are listed as authors.
Ensure you upload all relevant manuscript files, including any additional supplemental files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please view our authorship policies, which includes information on criteria for authorship, who should be the corresponding author and more.
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.
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal:
Identity transparency: Double-anonymized
Reviewer interacts with: Editor/ Associate Editor
Review information published: None
Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejected without peer review at this point if they are out of scope for the journal or otherwise unsuitable.
After passing the initial evaluation, your manuscript will then be peer reviewed. You can log in at any time to check the status of your manuscript. We will notify you when a decision has been reached.
PSR adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
We also may also offer one independent review for: Early Results, Symposia, New Ideas.
To ensure the integrity of the peer review process we assign reviewers and cannot accept author recommendations.
All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Associate Editor and Editors, Editor makes final decision who then makes the final decision on all manuscripts, including those appearing in a special issue or special collection. 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.
The journal has an Editorial Board who serve the journal as external peer reviewers. Each member of the Editorial Board are active researchers in the field and selected based on strict criteria, ensuring they possess the necessary expertise and experience. The Editor(s) may use Editorial Board Member as a reviewer for each manuscript, and will then reach beyond this pool to include additional reviewers to meet the required number before a decision can be made. This ensures a comprehensive and robust peer review process, aligning with our commitment to publish the most credible and valid research. Care is taken not to invite any Editorial Board Member that has any potential conflict of interest with any author of the paper.
As a COPE member we engage with multiple forms of post-publication discussion in line with wider guidance from Sage: Commentaries, Critiques and Responses.
You can view our complaints and appeals policy here.
Read Sage's complete peer review policy.
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Before publication, we require the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive license agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and license 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 Journal Author Gateway.
If your manuscript was posted on a preprint server prior to acceptance, you must include a link in your preprint to the final published version of your published article.
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 should be returned promptly to avoid delaying publication. 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. This is the final opportunity to make changes to your manuscript. Further corrections will not be possible after publication. Changes to the author list are not permitted at this stage.
OnlineFirst publication: This enables us to publish final articles online immediately, without waiting for assignment to a future issue of the Journal. This usually significantly reduces publication lead time. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite OnlineFirst articles.
Access to your published article: We provide you with online access to your published article. The online access link is provided to the corresponding author for sharing with their co-authors.
Publication is not the end of the process. Between us, we can ensure that your article is found, read, downloaded and cited as widely as possible. Many of the most effective tactics are those you can do quickly and easily to your network of contacts and peers. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway for numerous resources to help you promote your work.
The Sage Journal Author Gateway has some general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance your article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journals Solutions Portal.
You can view our complaints and appeals procedure.
You can direct any questions to the journal’s editorial office
Political Studies Review