Submissions

Author Guidelines

The thematic scope of UNISCI Discussion Papers is that of the International Relations and Security, both understood in a broad sense and from a multidimensional approach, open to different theoretical perspectives. The Editorial Committee welcomes proposals of original research articles, according to the procedure explained below.

Article Proposal

Proposals should be sent as an attached MS Word for Windows file to unisci@cps.ucm.es. The usual length is 1540 pages for articles and 25 pages for book reviews, in 12 points Times New Roman font, singlespaced..

The author’s full name, professional category, institution, main research areas, postal address and email should be stated in the body of the message.1 On the title page, authors should include an abstract of 100150 words, as well as several keywords that accurately describe the contents of the article. Images and graphs should be included in the text and also attached as separate files (.bmp, .gif or .jpg.).

Refereeing and Selection

UNISCI Discussion Papers is a refereed journal: the “doubleblind refereeing” system is used. Consequently, authors should not include any personal identification in the manuscript. Each article is reviewed by two external referees.

The criteria for article selection are the following:

• Relevance of the topic.
• Theoretical rigour and coherence.
• Adequation of the research methods to the objectives.
• Originality of the sources.
• Contribution to the existing literature.
• Clarity of style.
• Compliance with the formatting rules.

The checklist for referees is available at www.ucm.es/info/unisci. Authors will be informed of the motives of the decision, as well as of the corrections (if any) recommended by the referees and required for the article to be published.

Selection Phase Process

Once the article has been selected, two specialist (or authors) in the field will be chosen for the given topic. The author will then be given a maximum of six months to complete the evaluation.

In the event of a positive response, the author will be given four weeks to make the necessary changes or correction to the article. The response will also indicate the issue number and date of the publication. However, in exceptional cases of configuration changes of the projected issue number, the author will be informed of the corresponding issue and date that the article will appear.

A negative response implies that the article will not be considered by the editors due to lack of scientific relevance or correspondence with journal’s thematic approach. The author is welcome to send the article to other journals, should they see it beneficial. An evaluation that entails possible steps for improving the article and passing another evaluation will also be provided.

Copyright

Once an article is accepted for publication, its copyright resides with UNISCI, notwithstanding the rights of the author according to the applicable legislation. All materials can be freely cited, distributed or used for teaching purposes, provided that their original source is properly mentioned. However, those wishing to republish an article must contact the Editorial Committee for permission; in that case, its previous publication in UNISCI Discussion Papers must be clearly stated.

Formatting

Headings and subheadings will be used according to the structure of the text. Headings will be numbered “1.”, “2.” ... etc., and subheadings “1.1.”, “1.2.”... etc..

All notes should be footnotes; additionally, a list of references may be included at the end of the article. The journal will not publish articles that do not follow the style indicated here.

The second and further times that a source is cited, it should include only the author’s surname, “op. cit.”, and the pages. If several works by the same author have been mentioned, the footnote should include the author’s surname, the beginning of the title, op. cit. and the pages.

If there are more than two authors or editors, all of them should be mentioned the first time. The following citations will include only the first author’s or editor’s surname, followed by “et al.”.

When the source is the same as that of the previous citation, “ibid.” is used, followed by the page numbers (if different).

Examples:

⁶ Véase Keohane y Nye, op. cit., p. 45.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 7879.

⁸ An example appears in Snyder et al., Foreign Policy DecisionMaking, op. cit., pp. 5152.

A) Books

Surname, First Name (Year): Book Title, xth ed., Book Series, No. x, Place, Publisher.

Waltz, Kenneth N. (1979): Theory of International Politics, Boston, AddisonWesley.

B) Collective Books

Surname 1, First Name 1; Surname 2, First Name 2 and Surname 3, First Name 3 (Year): Book Title, xth ed., Book Series, No. x, Place, Publisher..

Buzan, Barry; Wæver, Ole and De Wilde, Jaap (1998): Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder / Londres, Lynne Rienner.

C) Edited Books

Editor’s Surname, First Name (ed.) (Year): Book Title, xth ed., Book Series, No. x, Place, Publisher.

Lynch, Dov (ed.) (2003): The South Caucasus: A Challenge for the EU, Chaillot Papers, nº 65, París, EU Institute for Security Studies.

D) Book Chapters

Surname, First Name (Year): “Chapter Title”, in Book Title, xth ed., Book Series, No. x, Place, Publisher, pp. xxxx..

Wendt, Alexander: “Three Cultures of Anarchy”, in Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 246312.

E) Books Chapters in an Edited Book

Author’s Surname, First Name: “Chapter Title”, in Editor’s Surname, First Name (ed.) (Year): Book Title, xth ed., Book Series, No. x, Place, Publisher, pp. xxxx..

Sakwa, Richard: “Parties and Organised Interests”, in White, Stephen; Pravda, Alex y Gitelman, Zvi (eds.) (2001): Developments in Russian Politics, 5ª ed., Durham, Duke University Press, pp. 84107.

F) Jornal Articles

Surname, First Name: “Article Title”, Journal, Vol. xx, No. x (Month Year), pp. xxxxxx.

Schmitz, Hans Peter: “Domestic and Transnational Perspectives on Democratization”, International Studies Review, vol. 6, nº 3 (September 2004), pp. 403426.

G) Press Articles

Surname, First Name: “Article Title”, Newspaper, Day Month Year.

Bradsher, Keith: “China Struggles to Cut Reliance on Mideast Oil”, New York Times, 3 September 2002.

H) Articles in Online Publications

The same as above, but adding “at http://www.xxxxx.yyy”.

Gunaratna, Rohan: “Spain: An Al Qaeda Hub?”, UNISCI Discussion Papers, nº 5 (mayo 2004), at http://www.ucm.es/info/unisci.

I) Other Online Resources

Document Title, at http://www.xxxxx.yyy.

Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, at http://www.ln.mid.ru.

Contact Details

If you have any queries about the journal, please contact us at::

UNISCI Discussion Papers
UNISCI, Departamento de Estudios Internacionales Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología Universidad Complutense de Madrid Campus de Somosaguas 28223 Madrid, España

Email: unisci@cps.ucm.es
Tel.: (+ 34) 913 942924
Fax: (+ 34) 913 942655

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¹ If the article is accepted and published, these details will appear in the title page in order to allow readers to contact the authors.