Publication ethics and malpractice statement

Ethical guidelines for journal publication

Power and Democracy (PaD) is inspired by the principles of the ethical code of publications developed by COPE (Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors). Therefore, PaD takes all necessary decisions against any fraud or incorrect practices that may occur during the publication of a work on itself. It is necessary that all the actors involved (Editor, Editorial Board, International Advisory Board, Editorial Staff, authors and referees)  – must know and share the following ethical requirements.

 

Section I –Editor’s and Editorial Board’s duties

1. a) Decisions on publication

The Editor of PaD is responsible for the decision to publish or not publish the proposed articles, after reading and considering the comments received by the referees. The Editor and the Editorial Board Committee are bound by the requirements of the laws in force concerning defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarianism. The Director may consult with members of the International Advisory Board or Editorial Board in adopting his decisions.

1. b) Fairness

The Editor and the Editorial Board evaluate the articles submitted for publication only regarding to their content, without discrimination on the basis of authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, citizenship, political orientation.

1. c) Confidentiality

The Editor and any member of the Editorial Board or of the Editorial Staff must not disclose any information on a manuscript submitted to anyone other than the corresponding Author, referee, potential referee or editorial consultant, as appropriate.

1. d) Conflict of interest and disclosure

Unpublished materials contained in a submitted manuscript must not be used in the personal works by the Editor, nor by a member of the Editorial Board or Editorial Staff, without the express written consent of the Author.

 

Section II – Referees’ duties

1. a) Contribution to the decision of publishing

Through peer review process, the referees help the Editor to decide to publish or not the submitted articles and can suggest changes to the Author to improve his/her work.

1. b) Respect of the timing

The referee who does not feel adequate to the proposed task or who knows he/she cannot perform the evaluation within the assigned time is required to immediately inform the Editor.

1. c) Confidentiality

Any manuscript assigned for peer review process must be considered confidential. Therefore, these articles must not be discussed with other people without the explicit authorization of the Editor.

1. d) Objectivity

Peer review process must be conducted objectively. Any personal judgment on the Author is inappropriate. The referees must be clear that the purpose of the peer review process is not to superimpose their personal preferences or beliefs to those of the Author, but only to provide an assessment of the suitability of the paper to be offered to the knowledge and discussion of the scientific community. Referees are required to adequately motivate their judgments.

1. e) Indication of texts

The referees undertake to indicate precisely the bibliographical details of fundamental works that may have been neglected by the Author. The referees must also report to the Editor any similarities or overlaps of the text received in reading with other works known to themselves.

1. f) Conflict of interest and disclosure

Confidential information or indications obtained during the peer review process must be considered confidential and cannot be used for personal purposes. Referees are required not to read articles for which there is a conflict of interest, declaring it to the Editor.

 

Section III – Authors’ duties

1. a) Recognition of sources

The Author provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions quoted in the writing, so that they can be consulted for a reasonable period of time after publication. Fraudulent or knowingly false claims represent an ethically incorrect conduct and are unacceptable.

1. b) Originality and plagiarism

The Author must guarantee that the work is the original product of his/her own thinking. The Author must also guarantee that,  in case the work and / or words of others have been used, this has been appropriately indicated or quoted.

1. c) Multiple publications

The Author has the duty to not send or propose to PaD  papers that are substantially identical in their language and final form to articles already published or proposed by themselves to other journals or other publishers –  unless that is done to increase the degree of scientific and/or international diffusion of the writing. In this case, an agreement with the previous magazines or previous publishers is needed. Such a procedure cannot, in every sense, infringe existing copyrights or third party rights.

 

1. d) Authorship of the work

The authorship of the work must be correctly attributed. All those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, organization, implementation and reworking of the research underlying the writing, must be indicated as coauthors. If other people have participated significantly in some phases of the research, their contribution must be explicitly recognized. In the case of multi-hand written contributions, the Author who sends the text to PaD is required to declare that:  i) he/she has correctly indicated the names of all the other co-authors; ii) he/she has obtained their approval of the final version of the article and their consent to publication in PaD.

1. e) Conflict of interest and disclosure

All Authors must indicate in their manuscript any financial conflict or other conflict of interest that could be interpreted in such a way as to influence the results or interpretation of their work. All sources of financial support for the project must be indicated.

1. f) Errors in published articles

When an Author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her published work, he/she is obliged to promptly communicate it to the Editor of PaD and to collaborate with him/her to withdraw or correct the text.

 

Copyrights information

 

The Authors who publish in Power and Democracy accept the following conditions:

The Authors retain the rights to their work and assign the right of first publication of the work to Power and Democracy. The work is simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution that allows others to share the work indicating the intellectual authorship and the first publication in Power and Democracy – International Journal of Politics, Philosophy and Law.

The Authors may adhere to other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. depositing it in an institutional archive or publishing it in a monograph), provided that the first publication has taken place in this magazine.

Authors can disseminate their work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their website) before and during the submission process, since it can lead to productive exchanges and increase citations of the published work as effect of our open access policy.