About the Journal

AIM AND SCOPE 

Revista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas (RIPS) (ISSN: 1577-239X; legal deposit: C-2058/2000) is a scientific journal with a periodicity of 6 months published by University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) which publishes original articles in Political Science and Sociology disciplines, as well as other Social Sciences. It is aimed at the national and international scientific and academic community.

Studies and research submitted to the journal must fall within one of the following fields of study:

  • Political Actors
  • Analysis of Electoral Processes
  • Political Behavior
  • Political Culture
  • Political Institutions
  • Political Marketing
  • Public Policy and Public Management
  • Political Processes and Social Changes
  • Political Theory

RIPS may include, in addition to the main Articles section, the following complementary sections in regular issues:

  • Research Notes (referring to specific aspects of an ongoing investigation).
  • Bibliographic Reviews (critical information on latest publications in subjects relate to the above disciplines).

RIPS accepts submissions of original work not previously published in Galician, Spanish, English, French, Portuguese and Italian, subject to acceptance by the Editorial Board.

It is an open access scientific journal, which uses the external peer-review system, under a double-blind review methodology, in accordance with the publication standards of the American Psychological Association (APA). Compliance with this system guarantees authors an objective, impartial and transparent review process, which facilitates the publication’s inclusion in international reference databases, repositories and indexes. The journal is published in electronic version (ISSN-e 2255-5986) and each paper is identifies with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier System).

RIPS PEER-REVIEW PROCESS

Articles and research notes will be evaluated by two (or three, if there is a contradiction between the first two) experts from outside the Editorial Board, preserving the anonymity of both the authors and the evaluators. Within a maximum period of six months (which may be extended in extraordinary circumstances), the Editorial Board will send the results of the evaluation to the authors.

Proposals for book reviews will be assessed directly by the Editorial Board, without undergoing the peer review process.

ARTICLES

Identity of both authors and reviewers will be preserved at all stages (double-blind).

The criteria that will be assessed in the manuscript both in the initial and external evaluation will be originality, relevance and scientific interest, as well as suitability to the journal's coverage and publication standards.

The report template provided to evaluators covers content, formal and stylistic issues.

Process from receipt of the article until it is cleared for approval by the Editorial Board will take a maximum of six months.

Reception, Evaluation, Acceptance

Reception: Journal will acknowledge receipt of the paper within a maximum of 10 days.

Initial assessment: It will be carried out by one of the members of the EB or by other specialists in the area designated by the EB, who will decide whether to pass to external review. If the article does not pass this evaluation, it will be rejected, and the authors will be notified and a motivation will be attached.

External assessment: If the ‘initial assessment’ is positive, the paper will be sent to two external specialists. Sending the original for review does not imply any commitment for acceptance, as only after receiving the reports will the journal make a decision on the manuscript.

The evaluators have 30 days to complete the report provided to them. If the two reports received are contradictory, the article will be sent to a third reviewer. Once the reports have been received, they will be sent to the authors within a maximum of 10 days.

Acceptance, acceptance with minor changes, acceptance with substantial changes, rejection:

  1. If the report of the external evaluators is favorable: the article will be accepted and will proceed to its layout and subsequent publication.
  2. If the external reviewers' reports are favorable but condition the publication of the paper on the implementation of modifications (minor or substantial): the authors will be informed that they must consider these modifications, and will have 60 days to send the journal a report with the changes made, as well as a new version of the paper. This second version will be reviewed by the editor in charge and, if deemed necessary, by the external reviewer(s), which will lead to a second round of review, after which a decision will be taken.
  3. If both reports of the external evaluators are unfavorable: the article will be rejected.

Publication of articles. In general, papers will be published according to the date of acceptance. Two papers by the same author will not be published in the same issue, even if they are in different sections. Same author may not publish in the journal for two years after its publication.

Proofreading and final corrections. Proofs will only be sent to the author indicated for correspondence, who must return them within 7 days from the date of receipt. The late return of the proofs will imply the publication of the article without the author's corrections. Corrections involving alterations to the text (incorporation, modification or elimination of text, tables, charts, graphs, footnotes, etc.) will not be accepted under any circumstances. Second proofs will be handled by the editor.

RESEARCH NOTES

Evaluation procedure is the same as that described for articles, although only one report is requested.

BOOK REVIEWS

They will be reviewed by one of the members of the Editorial Board (EB) or by other specialists in the field designated by the EB, who will decide on their publication.

PUBLICATION FREQUENCY

The journal publishes two biannual issues, in June and December. It may also publish up to two monographic issues, for which it welcomes proposals.

GUIDELINES FOR MONOGRAPHIC ISSUES

A monographic issue contains a collection of articles that focus on a theme or themes relevant to the objectives and scope of the journal. The journal may invite guest editors to act as guest editors on topics of interest. We also welcome proposals for monographic issues which should be sent to revista.rips@usc.es, including the following information:

  • Proposed title of the monographic issue.
  • List of guest editors (usually no more than three): Names, affiliations, email addresses, ORCID identifiers and CVs.
  • Explanation of the relevance of the Special Issue to the thematic focus of the journal.
  • Call for Papers draft.
  • Provisional timeline.

Guest editors must have an extensive and recognized track record in the proposed subject area. Their ability and commitment to promote the dissemination and implementation of the Call for Papers will be particularly valued.

Editorial Direction will evaluate the initial alignment of the proposal with the journal's criteria of quality, timeliness and scope. After consultation with the Editorial Board, the guest editor will receive a letter accepting or rejecting the proposal.

Guest editors have primary responsibility for overseeing the editorial review process. They receive direct supervision and assistance from the journal's Editorial Direction. All articles received go through the same rigorous peer review process and adhere to the same ethical guidelines as articles in regular issues.

Guest editors are required to indicate any potential conflicts of interest and may be excluded from the peer review process should such conflicts arise. In addition, they should refrain from handling manuscripts in cases where conflicts of interest exist. This includes, but is not limited to, previous collaborations with one or more authors or sharing the same institution with one or more authors. If a guest editor is also an author of an article or has other conflicts of interest with a specific manuscript, a member of the Editorial Board will be appointed to oversee the peer review and make the final decision on the article.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY

RIPS provides unrestricted access to all its content.

Since 2019, this journal provides its contents in immediate open access and full text, under the principle that allowing free access to research results has an impact on a greater exchange of knowledge at a global level.

Publication is free of charge for authors.

INDEXING

RIPS is indexed in ESCI, Redalyc (Network of Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal) REDIB, ERIH PLUS, Dialnet, DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), Fuente Academica Premier, TOC Premier, ULRICH and ISOC- Sociología y CC. Política del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).

It is also included in editorial quality assessment tools such as Latindex.

RESPONSIBILITY DISCLAIMER

RIPS is not responsible for the content of any article and sponsorship of its dissemination does not necessarily imply endorsement of the views expressed.

The publisher, in any case, disclaims any liability for any infringement of intellectual property rights by the author.

REVIEW FORM

Evaluation report

ETHICAL GUIDELINES

Publication of scientific articles involves several agents, including the publisher, the journal management, the reviewers and the authors. Ethical conduct is expected from each of them, with reference to principles, in our journal partially inspired by those provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines.

As a general rule, RIPS assumes the following as basic principles of its authorship and contribution policies:

  • Originality
  • Honesty
  • Responsibility

Editorial

The editorial provides technical assistance and support to the journal's editorial direction in the use of the web platform, and keeps the software updated and in a condition to facilitate the process of submission, evaluation and publication of papers. It also collaborates with the journal's management in its indexing and in providing information on those requirements that contribute to a better positioning of the journal in the classifications in use. In general, it helps to increase the editorial quality of the journal and to improve its visibility, internationalisation and impact.

Editorial direction

The journal's direction ensures that submitted manuscripts are evaluated solely on the basis of their intellectual content, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, political affiliation or philosophical school of thought of the authors. It guarantees the confidentiality of the papers, not revealing the identity of the authors to anyone other than authorised members of the editorial staff, potential reviewers or the journal's editorial board. The journal's direction may decline to publish a paper because it does not meet the formal requirements or because it deals with a subject that is outside its scope. It must communicate, within the established deadlines, once it has seen the reviewers' reports, the acceptance or rejection of the artcle submitted.

Editors

Editorial board members review manuscripts, advise on journal policy, identify topics for special issues and assist editors in decision-making. The work ethic expected of them is based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Their work, in its entirety, is carried out according to strict ethical guidelines: gender, race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and political ideologies are set aside in order to maintain the highest level of professionalism. They observe confidentiality laws and are committed to not disclosing the identity of authors to those who should not have access to the information.

  • Conflict of interest among editors: All editors follow the guidelines issued by the ICMJE which state that they should not have a conflict of interest that could lead to bias or the appearance of decision-making biases (see ICMJE | Conflicts of Interest). By virtue of their positions, editors must be particularly sensitive to the issue of real or perceived conflicts of interest and must be especially rigorous in acting to avoid them. No editor shall derive personal, financial or material gain, directly or indirectly, from their involvement with the editor. All editors are responsible for disclosing to management any personal or financial relationships that may bias their article during the peer review process and for recusing themselves when such conflicts are of sufficient significance. Because it is not possible to anticipate all situations, editors should inform management at the time of manuscript submission of any potential conflict of interest with a potential author or reviewer. Similarly, if an editor perceives an apparent conflict of interest, he or she should inform the management, who will consult with the other editors who are not affected by the conflict, and the affected editor should abide by their decision.

Journal reviewers

Reviewers should refuse to review a paper if they do not consider themselves qualified in the subject area of the paper or if they are unable to undertake the review within the deadline set by the journal. The evaluation report must be objective and must be expressed in a reasoned and clear manner. It should avoid ad hominen, offensive or humiliating allusions and comments should be aimed at improving the research. Manuscripts received must be treated as confidential documents and their content may not be used in own works. Reviewers must refuse to review articles when there is any conflict of interest resulting from a possible relationship, past or present, with the authors of the work or with the institutions to which they report.

AUTHORS

Authors should submit papers that present original research on a clearly identifiable and previously unpublished topic. They should not submit papers that include a substantial part of previously published work. Papers should be written in a way that can be understood or replicated by reviewers. If ideas from others are used, they must be clearly referenced; plagiarism is unacceptable behavior and its detection implies the archiving of the paper or its removal from the website, if it has already been published. In the case of co-authorship, authors of a research are all those who contribute significantly to the paper; each author should be able to identify for which parts of the work the other co-authors are responsible and must keep the various contents confidential until the paper is published. Simultaneous submission of the study to another journal or journals is sufficient condition for it to be archived. If, during the editing process, the authors discover errors or improprieties in their research, they will inform the editor of the journal as soon as possible and will collaborate in correcting them. Authors must state the possible conflict of interest between the conclusions of their study and the sources of funding for it.

Informed consent. In all cases of articles directly involving individuals as subjects or objects of research, the author must obtain informed consent from the research subject; in the case of a person who is not capable of giving informed consent, the researcher must obtain consent by proxy from a duly authorised representative. In any case, the author commits himself/ herself to:

  • communicate to the potential participant all the information necessary for him/her to give properly informed consent;
  • give the potential participant a full opportunity to ask questions, and encourage them to do so;
  • exclude the possibility of unjustified deception, undue influence or intimidation;
  • seek consent only after the prospective participant has sufficient knowledge of the relevant facts and the consequences of participation, and has had sufficient opportunity to consider participation;
  • as a general rule, obtain a signed informed consent form from each potential participant as proof of informed consent, and
  • renew informed consent for each participant if major changes in research conditions or procedures occur.

Before seeking an individual's consent for participation in research, the researcher should provide the following information in a language that the individual is able to understand:

  • that each individual is invited to be a research participant, and the objectives and methods of the research;
  • expected duration of the individual's participation;
  • benefits that could reasonably be expected to accrue to the participant or to others as a result of the research;
  • any foreseeable risk or discomfort that may affect the individual associated with participation in the research; --any other procedure or treatment that would be as advantageous to the participant as the procedure or treatment being tested;
  • the extent to which the confidentiality of files identifying the participant will be maintained;
  • the individual is free to refuse to participate and shall be free to withdraw from the research at any time without penalty or loss of benefits to which he or she would otherwise be entitled.

These guidelines are in line with the code of ethics of the University of Santiago de Compostela, publisher of the journal: https://www.usc.es/gl/goberno/valedor/codigoetico/CodigoEtico.html

AMENDMENTS, WITHDRAWLS AND DELETIONS

RIPS through the USC publisher is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record. Therefore, articles that have been published will be preserved as unaltered as possible. However, circumstances may arise in which an article is published that subsequently needs to be modified, retracted or deleted.

In this aspect, the policies of the journal's editorial board are as follows:

  1. Expressions of concern
  2. Errata and corrections
  3. Withdrawal of an article
  4. Retraction of an article
  5. Deletion of an article

Expressions of concern

The journal direction may publish an expression of concern if it considers that readers should be informed of the potentially misleading content of an article. The Editorial Direction, aware of the repercussions such an act could have on the reputation of its authors, will only publish such an expression after consulting an independent expert committee to make a judgement on the matter.

Errata and corrections

Authors who find typos or honest mistakes, once the article has been published, should inform the journal of them. Errata that do not affect the comprehension of the text (typographical or formatting errors) may be rejected in order to maintain the integrity of the published work. When errors affect the visibility, citation possibilities or correct understanding of the article, a warning of the error will be published together with the metadata of the published article and a note of the error together with the file containing the content of the error, and a link will be created between the two.

Withdrawal of an article

Authors may request the journal to withdraw their work before publication. To this end, they must send a written request that includes a reasoned justification for such a request and, in the case of co-authorship, must be signed by all the authors concerned.

Retraction of an article

An article shall be withdrawn if:

  • It would have been previously published in another journal or publication medium.
  • Contains false claims of authorship, fraudulent use of data or multiple submissions.
  • Include defamatory or gratuitous comments that injure the personal or professional honour of others.
  • Contain findings that have been previously published and are not cross-referenced.
  • Engages in plagiarism or inappropriate authorship.
  • Omit a major conflict of interest during the publication process.
  • There is disputed authorship

The decision to withdraw or delete a paper will be taken by the journal's Editorial Direction, on the advice, if necessary, of the editorial board and under the guidelines of COPE guidelines.

Retractions of published articles will be done by publishing a retraction note, linked to the published article and without altering the original research in any way other than to add a prominent link to the note. In this way, the original article remains in the public domain and the retraction notice will be indexed.

The retraction note will include the title of the study, its authors and a brief description of the reason for the retraction. The .pdf version of the article will be watermarked on all pages indicating that it is retracted; the html or xml version, if any, will be deleted. There shall be no partial retractions.

Any retraction is a retraction of the entire work.

Deletion of an article

An article will only be removed from the database when it infringes legal rights of others or is the subject of a court order. In this circumstance, while the metadata will be retained, the text will be replaced by a notice stating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.

Claims and appeals management

At any stage of the editorial process, authors may make claims and/or appeals when they understand that there has been discretionality in decision-making, unsubstantiated evaluations, value judgments in the evaluation or situations of defenselessness. All claims and/or appeals must be substantiated. Such complaints should be sent by e-mail to revista.rips@usc.es to the journal's director, accompanied by a numbered argumentation and any other documentation deemed relevant to the case.

RIPS undertakes to provide a response in accordance with the principles established by COPE within a period of up to two months, being the decision unappealable.

REVIEWERS

RIPS publishes in the second issue of each year the list of evaluators of the two issues of the year.

PRESERVATION POLICY FOR DIGITAL ARCHIVES

This journal develops several processes aimed at ensuring the permanent accessibility of the digital objects it hosts on its own servers:

  • Back-up copies.
  • Monitoring of the technological environment to foresee possible migrations of obsolete formats or software.
  • Digital preservation metadata.
  • Use of DOI.

The files published on this website are available in easily reproducible formats (PDF).

POLICY ON DATA EXCHANGES AND REPRODUCIBILITY

RIPS, in general, has a policy aimed at the openness of materials intended for research and their reproducibility. Therefore, from the beginning of the editorial process, authors are advised to accompany the general manuscript with those data, materials and/or databases that allow a correct evaluation both by the journal's management and by the persons acting as evaluators. Likewise, once the article has been approved, it is advisable to include relevant data in a section of annexes. In order to work in a more agile way with the data, the form of presentation of the article in the OJS platform accompanies images separately from the text in PDF. Likewise, RIPS encourages authors to indicate the location of the data used for comparison, especially when using data from public organizations (e.g., the Sociological Research Center).

ANTI-PLAGIARISM AND MALPRACTICE POLICY

A process is established for the identification and handling of complaints regarding research misconduct by the Editorial Board. In this regard, publishers and editors will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of articles in which research misconduct has occurred. This includes plagiarism, fabrication of data, or misuse of citations.

This journal is a member of Similarity Check, an initiative launched by Crossref that brings together several publishers to protect the originality of the content they publish. Similarity Check uses iThenticate software to detect matches and similarities between the texts submitted for evaluation and those previously published in other sources.

Likewise, authors must respect third party copyrights, and this is supervised by the journal's Secretariat prior to submission for peer review.

INTEROPERABILITY PROTOCOLS

RIPS provides an interface OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) that allows other websites and information services to harvest the published content metadata.

Specifications:

OAI-PMH Protocol Version 2.0
Dublin Core Metadata 1.1

URL for harvesters:
https://revistas.usc.gal/index.php/rips/oai

SOURCES OF SUPPORT AND INSTITUTIONAL AND ECONOMIC TRANSPARENCY

RIPS has an open access policy and provides unrestricted access to all its content. Publication is free of charge for authors. Likewise, its main source of income is the institutional and organisational support of the University of Santiago de Compostela.

RIPS accepts advertising from third parties in the form of sponsorship, which in no case influences the decision making regarding the acceptance of the content of the articles. This sponsorship is included in the final part of the section ‘About the journal’, separated from the published content.

Likewise, there is no direct marketing of the journal.