Guidelines for Authors
If you are interested in publishing your article and analysis in Contemporary Southeastern Europe, please consult the following guidelines for authors before submission.
If you have any questions concerning the journal’s publication process, please contact Branimir Staletovik at branimir.staletovik@uni-graz.at.
GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION
Our principles cover:
- a) honesty in all aspects of research
- b) profundity and excellence in research practice
- c) respect for all participants in and subjects of research
1. Subjects
Contemporary Southeastern Europe igeneralls an international peer-reviewed journal focusing on the recent past, present and future social developments in South-eastern Europe. The journal ascribes the highest importance to innovative social research, and therefore aims to encompass a broad variety of schools of thought, Social Science disciplines, theoretical and methodological approaches and empirical topics. In doing so, Contemporary Southeastern Europe is equally interested in research on Southeastern Europe from various perspectives (Political Science, Law, History, Sociology, Economics, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology), as well as from interdisciplinary standpoints. Furthermore, the journal equally appreciates submissions focusing on theoretical and methodological issues, as well as on empirical issues.
Authors can submit three forms of articles: Research articles; Election analyses or Event analyses. Only manuscripts submitted as research articles will be objected to the double-blind peer review process.
2. Review Structure
The following set of questions and criteria should be used to assess the scientific quality of each submission:
- a) Appropriateness to CSE, considering the journal’s thematic orientation (traditional and emerging theoretical, methodological and/or empirical fields)
- b) Characteristics of the analytical innovation to the field of SEE studies (theoretical, methodological and/or empirical novelty)
- c) Clearness of articulation and consistency of the research structure (core question, research hypothesis, theoretical framework, methodological design)
- d) Clearness of articulation and consistency of key arguments and theses
The review consists of four parts. Firstly, an overall assessment reflecting the questions listed above. Secondly, a recommendation reflecting the question whether the article should be accepted or not. Thirdly, will be specific comments and suggestions for improvement, including comments for editors. And finally, an overall report and quality assessment of the submission. Manuscripts are reviewed anonymously, in a double-blind review process.
3. Reviewer Selection
Each article should be in English, and is reviewed by two external reviewers in a blind review process. Reviewers are internationally active and prominent experts, and need to have at least the equivalent academic qualification level as the author of the submitted article. One reviewer can write a maximum of two reviews per year. Reviewers which are coming from the same institution and country as the author are not allowed. Reviewers will be chosen from different age-groups, gender-groups, school of thoughts, countries of origin and institutions. At least 30% of all reviewers, per year, are women. According to the general principle for the selection of two reviewers for each article, one reviewer will be chosen among experts from the article’s empirical focus, and the other from among experts for the article’s relevant theoretical and methodological approach (with no necessary research focus on Southeastern Europe). We are committed to editorial independence, and strive in all cases to prevent this principle from being compromised through conflicts of interest, fear, or any other corporate, business, financial or political influence. Our editorial processes reflect this commitment to editorial independence. Should one of the reviews be inconsistent, the editors retain the right to send the article to a new reviewer. Reviewers will be asked to declare a possible bias towards the author. In the case of a retroactively disclosed, but non-declared bias, the review will not be taken into consideration and the article will be sent to a new reviewer. All articles reviewed will be treated confidentially. The review process lasts approximately two months.
4. Bias
If there is a potential, existing or supposed conflict of interest between the (po-tential) reviewer and the author, the (potential) reviewer will not evaluate the article. Reviewers are seen as biased if:
- a) They are in competition with the author and, accordingly, can personally, financially or professionally benefit from a positive or negative evaluation
- b) They have worked at the same institution as the author in last six years
- c) They have scientifically cooperated with the author (joint research projects, joint publishing projects, joint research exchange projects, organization of joint workshops and conferences, joint lectures, mutual guest lecturers, etc.)
- d) They belong to a school of thought that is strictly opposed to the author’s school of thought
- e) They have professional or personal ties to the author in some other way (previous joint carrier experiences outside of the academic context, family relationships, etc.)
In any case of doubt, respectively, when it is not entirely clear if a bias exists or not, the potential reviewer will be excluded from the review process. Authors cannot nominate reviewers (‘positive list’), but can identify a maximum of three potential reviewers whom they see as biased. This ‘negative list’ must include a short description of the possible bias, and should be separately sent to the editors.
5. Submission and Author’s Responsibilities
Manuscripts cannot be longer than 6.000-9.000 words, including notes and references. Manuscripts submitted to Contemporary Southeastern Europe must fully comply with the provided document template. Manuscripts over 9.000 words, or those not complying with the document template, will be returned to the author for editing. The author should prepare the manuscript to facilitate the double-blind review and, in doing so, avoid any form of possible self-identification in the text (including the list of references). All submissions have to include a short academic biography in written form (three to five sentences), an abstract (max. 200 words), and five key words. Furthermore, we want to point out that the abstracts and keywords will be used to identify potential reviewers, and should, hence, be chosen carefully. Manuscripts cannot have already been published by any other journal, or through any other media. Manuscripts submitted to Contemporary Southeastern Europe may not be under simultaneous consideration from any other journal. Manuscripts can be submitted solely via email to the editor: Branimir Staletovik ( branimir.staletovik@uni-graz.at) or here. Authors are obliged to participate in peer review process and they should provide a list of references. Revised manuscripts should consist of two parts. Firstly, the revised version of the text, and, secondly, a separate letter containing clear responses to comments and suggestions from reviewers and editors, including a clear indication of the changes made to the manuscript. The authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
6. Tables and Figures
Please send your images, tables, schemes, maps etc. (if you have any) incorporated into the MS Word document, with the article’s text document including source information. Send us a picture of the author, which will be put on our webpage, together with a short academic biography. All of the tables, images, schemes, pictures etc. should be sent in the highest possible picture resolution.
7. Ethics and Liability
Publishers and editors take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred. In no case shall a journal or its editors encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct the publisher or editor shall deal with allegations appropriately. The journal will retracting or correcting articles when needed. Publishers and editors are always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed. In other words, authors must clear all of the questions (bilaterally and in written form), in regard to the copyrights of the material they use with the entitled person or institution, before submitting the manuscript. Contemporary Southeastern Europe is not a legal party in this bilateral relationship, and takes no legal and ethical responsibilities in case of a possible conflict of interest between the author and holder of the copyright. All authors confirm this regulation of responsibility by signing the Contemporary Southeastern Europe Declaration of Originality.
8. Plagiarism
Authors must respect the ethical standards of academia and, therefore, completely avoid any form of cheating, plagiarism, self-plagiarism (duplicate or redundant publication, or ‘self-plagiarism’, occurs when a work, or substantial parts of a work, is published more than once by the author(s) of the work without appropriate cross-referencing or justification for the overlap), dishonesty and source vagueness. Thus, authors are exclusively carrying the legal and ethical responsibility for their published articles and analysis. Authors are also carrying the exclusive legal and ethical responsibility in regard to the copyrights of the material which they use, such as images, tables, schemes, maps etc. Plagiarism is defined as ‘using someone else’s ideas, words, data, or other material produced by them without acknowledgement’. Plagiarism can occur in respect to all types of sources and media, including:
- a) text, illustrations, musical quotations, extended mathematical derivations, computer code, etc.;
- b) material downloaded from websites or drawn from manuscripts or other media;
- c) published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations and grey literature.
We do not tolerate plagiarism in any of our publications. Submissions containing suspected plagiarism will be rejected.
9. Libel and Freedom of Expression
Freedom of expression is critical to us as academic publishers, but we do not support publishing false statements that harm the reputation of individuals, groups, or organisations.
We will also never be complicit in censorship and we are fully committed to the principle and promotion of freedom of speech and expression.
10. Copyright
CSE is a fully open access journal, and that means that all articles - research articles, event analyses, election analyses, conceptual analyses and book review essays - are available on the journal homepage to all users upon publication.
Non-commercial use, distrubution and copy of all published articles in any medium is allowed, free of any charges, provided the author and the journal are properly/fully credited. CSE definitely does not charge article processing and there are no submission charges in any form.
11. Publication Frequency
The Contemporary Southeastern Europe is a non-profit journal, with one issue in the summer and one winter issue.
12. Archiving
All articles ever published in our journal are available at our homepage in electronic form.
13. Author about Article
Contemporary Southeastern Europe wants to stimulate authors and readers to move beyond the published articles. In doing so, Contemporary Southeastern Europe strongly encourages authors to submit a list of three to five publications, including Internet links (if available), which they find important for the understanding of their article. The journal also welcomes a list of links of visual or audio material, which is connected to the article. The list of publications, and the list of links, should be sent to the editors after the notification that the article has been accepted for publishing. Furthermore, each published author is invited to conduct a short video, which will be also published on the journal’s webpage. Videos last around five minutes, and are structured around the following questions: 1. What is the state-of-the-art in relation to the research field? 2. What are the innovative analytical aims of the analysis? 3. What are the main research theses? 4. What are the characteristics of the research approach? 5. What are the main research findings that go beyond the state-of-the-art?