Statement of Ethics and Good Editorial Practices

The journal Estudios Políticos, with ISSN 0121‑5167 / e‑ISSN 2462‑8433, is a quarterly publication of Instituto de Estudios Políticos at Universidad de Antioquia. It is affiliated with its extension program and financed through the Fondo de Apoyo a Revistas Indexadas of the Vice‑Rectory of Research.

The journal’s mailing address is at Ciudad Universitaria, Calle 67 # 53‑10, Block 14, Office 207. Telephone: [+57 604] 219 5690. Fax: [+57 604] 219 5960. E‑mail: revistaepoliticos@udea.edu.co. Website: https://revistas.udea.edu.co/index.php/estudiospoliticos/

Estudios Políticos operates in accordance with specific regulations, as defined by the Rector’s Resolution 22863 of August 9, 2006, which establishes the policies and general regulations for academic journals of the Institution. As a scientific publication, the processes, instances, and decisions outlined in these regulations adhere to technical recommendations provided by various specialized organizations, particularly the Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and Technology-Colciencias and the Scientific Electronic Library Online-SciELO.

The objectives of Estudios Políticos are the following:

a. To stimulate the study, research, analysis, reflection, and debate within the field of political studies, or in relation to phenomena and problems relevant to the understanding of contemporary political issues.

b. To publish original articles resulting from research, review, and political reflection processes that contribute to the understanding of national and international political issues. These articles should demonstrate conceptual and methodological rigor as well as grammatical quality.

c. To share the contributions of national and international authors that provide relevant elements for the study of politics.

d. To promote the publication of research outputs from the research groups affiliated to the Instituto de Estudios Políticos and to disseminate texts that exhibit high quality, relevance, and impact.

The editorial team of Estudios Políticos is committed to ensuring the ethics and quality of the published articles, and is responsible for defining the editorial policies to comply with the standards of indexing and abstracting systems for scientific journals. Estudios Políticos also oversees the implementation of good editorial practices (Colciencias, 2010, pp. 5‑12; SciELO Colombia, n.d.; Latindex, n.d.; CLASE, n.d.).

The journal follows the Code of Conduct and Good Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (n.d. a) to promote intellectual honesty in scientific studies and prevent misconduct (COPE, n.d.b, p. 1).

Estudios Políticos is committed to addressing the needs and concerns of readers and authors, ensuring the quality of published content, and protecting and respecting the integrity of the articles (Rector’s Resolution 21231‑2005, article 9). Additionally, the editorial team is committed to publishing necessary corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when required (COPE, 2009).

In accordance with these good practices, Estudios Políticos discloses the peer review system used for article selection, as well as the criteria considered by peer reviewers and anonymous evaluators. These criteria are regularly updated and based on the scientific relevance of each article, originality, clarity, relevance of the presented work, and adherence to style standards (COPE, 2011a).

1. Editorial Team

Estudios Políticos has an editorial team consisting of a director, an academic editor, an editorial committee, and a scientific committee, who ensure the quality and relevance of the journal’s content. The committee members are selected and evaluated based on their recognition in the field and academic production in the three years prior to each issue’s publication. The editorial team is responsible for reviewing each publication proposal received by the journal and ensuring it meets the requirements specified in the article submission guidelines. Additionally, the team ensures that the reviewers have up‑to‑date and sufficient information regarding these requirements.

1.1. Director

As per Article 9 of Rector’s Resolution 22863‑2006, the director’s responsibilities include: (a) ensuring compliance with all editorial and administrative policies outlined by the editorial committee, scientific committee, and the respective academic unit (Instituto de Estudios Políticos, Universidad de Antioquia); (b) representing the academic journal in accordance with legal provisions and regulations of Universidad de Antioquia; (c) maintaining communication with various academic and administrative entities related to the journal’s activities; (d) presiding over and convening the editorial committee and scientific committee; (e) supervising the tasks of editing, production, marketing, and exchange of the journal; (f) overseeing the budget; (g) performing other responsibilities established by regulations or the editorial committee and scientific committee.

The director serves as the primary contact in the journal and is responsible for its operations. The director is in charge of accounting for the published content, addressing the needs and requirements of readers and authors, constantly improving the journal, implementing mechanisms to ensure publication quality, defending freedom of expression, maintaining the independence, academic and ethical integrity of each publication, and publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies as necessary (COPE, 2011b). The director also coordinates the editorial process and the indexing and abstracting procedures.

Following the publication of each new edition of Estudios Políticos, the director is responsible for disseminating and distributing it to active subscribers, contributors, reviewers, and entities with which exchange agreements have been established. The director is also responsible for submitting the journal to national and international indexing and abstracting systems (Colciencias, 2010, pp. 5‑12; SciELO Colombia, n.d.; Latindex, n.d.a; CLASE, n.d.).

1.2. Academic Editor

For practical purposes, the functions of the academic editor are understood as all those that support the editor, except for administrative functions. Consequently, their ethical commitment to the publication and its contents are the same. The academic editor’s tasks can be summarized in terms of editorial management: issuing calls for papers, receiving articles, conducting initial reviews of texts, overseeing the peer review process, reviewing final texts, and participating in publication, dissemination, and diffusion activities.

1.3. Editor

The editor assists the director and the academic editor in fulfilling their responsibilities. Consequently, they share the same ethical commitment to the publication and its content.

The editor’s tasks include technical activities such as reviewing compliance with editorial criteria, correcting style and orthotypographic errors, proofreading, coordinating the layout and publication process, communicating with and guiding authors and reviewers, executing the editorial process, ensuring compliance with criteria set by national and international indexing and abstracting systems, updating databases, managing the Open Journal System platform, and providing guidance to users.

1.4. Editorial Committee

The members of the Editorial Committee oversee the editorial quality of serial publications in the field of science and technology, following the criteria established by Publindex (Colciencias, 2010, pp. 5‑12), SciELO Colombia, Latindex (n.d.), and DOAJ (n.d.).

Among the functions of the Editorial Committee is the periodic evaluation of the processes applied to the reception, evaluation, and acceptance of articles. According to Article 11 of Rector’s Resolution 22863, dated August 9, 2006, the Committee is responsible for developing or revising the journal’s internal regulations. The Editorial Committee makes the final decision regarding the acceptance of articles and determines the edition in which they will be published.

1.5. Scientific Committee

The members of the Scientific Committee oversee the scientific quality of the journal. The Scientific Committee serves as a consultative and expert body and is composed of individuals from the national and international academic community with recognized expertise, demonstrated through their training, professional or academic experience, and publications (Rector’s Resolution 22863, August 9, 2006). This committee is responsible for ensuring that the publication adheres to the criteria set by the international scientific community (Colciencias, 2010, pp. 5‑6; SciELO Colombia, n.d.) and periodically evaluating the relevance of publications and the certification and indexing processes.

2. Editorial Process

Estudios Políticos, through the online platform Open Journal System (OJS) and its electronic mail, guarantees the confidentiality of the evaluation process: the identification of the evaluators and authors, the evaluated content, the opinions of the evaluators, and any other communication issued by the editorial and scientific committees will be kept confidential.

Those responsible for the journal will, in all cases, give immediate and satisfactory attention to any clarifications, claims, or complaints that authors wish to send to the journal’s committees or to the article's evaluators.

Although the editorial team approves articles based on criteria of quality, research rigor, and taking into account peer review, the authors are responsible for the ideas expressed in their own texts (Rector's Resolution 21231‑2005, article 6), as well as for the underlying research processes.

Finally, regarding the evaluation of articles, the journal will make every effort to avoid conflicts of interest, defined as links or activities that may distort judgment or modify the selection criteria of the articles by any participant in the process. In any case, those responsible for the journal require that participants in the review and publication process make such conflicts explicit. When relevant to readers, this latter information will be made public (See below: 3.1. Conflict of interest for authors and 4.1 Conflict of interest for reviewers).

The Editorial Committee will be in charge of the final review of the article and whether it complies with the reviewers' recommendations. Once the authors submit all the requested documentation within the indicated deadline, the edition in which the article will be published will be established. The journal reserves the right to make corrections of style, orthotypography, layout, citation, among others.

3. Responsibilities of the Authors

Authors are required to submit their articles within the specified deadlines through the OJS platform available at https://revistas.udea.edu.co/index.php/estudiospoliticos and follow the instructions provided. Any queries or communications should be directed to revistaepoliticos@udea.edu.co. The journal has public access rules for authors, guidelines for the submission of articles, essays, and critical reviews, as well as editing rules, which can be consulted on the platform.

According to COPE recommendations (n.d.b, p. 1), any article resulting from a research process must be appropriately justified, adequately designed, and approved by the corresponding ethics committee of the author’s institution. Conducting research below these standards and its subsequent publication may constitute a case of research misconduct. While “inadequate analysis does not necessarily represent misconduct […], fabrication and falsification of data do constitute misconduct” (COPE, n.d.b, p. 2). Additionally, prior “quality control and frequent review, as well as long‑term retention (up to 15 years) of all records and primary results” (COPE, n.d.b, p. 2) must be ensured.

All articles submitted for evaluation and publication must be original, representing the intellectual production of the authors themselves. Each author is responsible for the content of the article and must certify that it is of their complete authorship (see Originality Letter Form). Any data or text taken from published or unpublished works by other authors must be properly cited and referenced in accordance with the Guidelines for Authors available on the journal’s website under Submissions.

All articles must be original and should not have been published or accepted elsewhere. Simultaneous submission to other publications is not permitted, and authors must provide a certification of non‑simultaneous submission. Authors should refrain from submitting the article to another publication until they receive the final notification of acceptance or rejection from Estudios Políticos. Failure to attach the “certification of originality and non‑simultaneous submission” will result in the article not being evaluated.

Upon acceptance, authors grant permission for the inclusion of their text in the journal by signing the Certificate of Unpublished, as well as the use of their economic rights, including reproduction, public communication, transformation, and distribution. By signing this certificate, authors confirm that the text is their own and that the intellectual property rights of third parties have been respected.

The article should acknowledge all individuals who have made substantial contributions to the design, data collection, data analysis, and writing of the article. Therefore, “It is recommended that the precise roles of contributors and co‑authors, as well as authorship and publication issues, be agreed upon at an early stage” (COPE, n.d.b, p. 1). All authors must approve the publication of the final version of the article and assume full responsibility for its content. Additionally, authors should explicitly acknowledge the contributions of research assistants and project advisors within the text (COPE, n.d.b, p. 2).

Authors must agree to have their texts evaluated by academic peers and to take into account the comments of the reviewers and the Editorial Committee. Any requested adjustments should be accepted by the authors within the specified timeframe. Once the modified article is received by the journal, the author will be informed of its final approval.

3.1. Conflict of Interest for Authors

Authors are required to inform editors of any conflicts of interest to that may influence the judgment of what is published. These include personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial interests that, if disclosed, could reasonably cause a reader to feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academical or financial, and include affiliation, research funding, shareholding or ownership of a company, payment for papers or travel, consultancies and support from a company (COPE, n.d.b, pp. 2‑3). If the Editorial Committee determines that a conflict of interest is significant, they will evaluate the appropriateness of publication.

3.2. Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism

“Plagiarism ranges from the absence of references to the use of other people’s ideas, published and unpublished, including applications for research grants, as well as the presentation of a ‘new’ authorship of an entire paper, sometimes in another language” (COPE, n.d.b, pp. 3‑4).

Estudios Políticos is strongly committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific and academic community, and therefore, plagiarism is strictly prohibited. Texts identified as plagiarized will not be published, and if already published, a retraction will be issued, clearly stating the reasons for its removal and explaining the decision.

If an article is discovered to have been published in another journal after its publication in Estudios Políticos, the editorial team will contact the editor of the journal in question and request the retraction of the publication, leaving a note explaining the reasons for such decision.

4. Double-Blind Peer Review

Once the Estudios Políticos editorial team confirms that an article meets the criteria outlined in the submission guidelines, the text will be sent to two anonymous peer reviewers who are not affiliated with the authors’ institution.

The academic peers are selected through direct communication based on their area of interest, academic level, publications, research experience, and others. Upon accepting the refereeing request, the peer reviewers agree to submit their feedback within 30 days (see Article Evaluation Form).

After the reviewers have been assigned, they are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the article evaluation and refrain from “making use of the data, arguments or interpretations, unless authorized by the authors” (COPE, n.d.b, p. 3; 2013, pp. 1‑2).

Since the journal considers peer review to be a collaborative exchange that strengthens the academic community, their participation is appreciated and acknowledged. Referees who participate during the designated period will receive appropriate credits and a referee certificate that can be submitted to their respective institution. Additionally, if the academic unit to which they belong requires academic collaboration, the professors and researchers of the Instituto de Estudios Políticos are available to assist them.

4.1. Conflict of Interest for Reviewers

Reviewers must inform the editors about conflicts of interest that may influence the judgment on what is evaluated. These are “those that, if disclosed, would make a reasonable reader feel that he or she has been misled or lied to. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial,” which include affiliation, research funding, stock or ownership interest in a company, payment for papers or travel, consultancies, and support from a company (COPE, n.d.b, pp. 2-3; 2013, p. 1). If the Editorial Committee determines that a conflict of interest is significant, they will evaluate the appropriateness of the reviewer’s participation.

5. Evaluation

Committed to “diligently issue accurate, courteous, unbiased and justifiable reports” (COPE, n.d.b, p. 3; 2013, p. 1), the evaluation will address the relevance of the topic for publication in the journal, relevance of the topic in the political situation, theory, philosophy or research; structure and writing of the text, and soundness of the sources. The evaluation should consider the contribution to the knowledge of the subject, the novelty of the ideas presented, the development of critical judgment, the appropriate citation format, the use of relevant bibliographical references, and the correctness of the writing, among other criteria. If pertinent, recommendations for modifying and improving the evaluated text will be provided. “If reviewers suspect any inappropriate conduct” on the part of the author, they should duly inform the editor (COPE, n.d.b, p. 3; 2013, p. 1).

Based on the recommendations of the referees, the authors will be informed of the argued result of the evaluation, along with the observations and comments of the peers (“Publishable,” "Does not meet the conditions to be published,” or “Could be published, provided the following adjustments are made”), through the OJS platform and the email address they have provided.

6. Publication

If the article is accepted with modifications, the authors are required to submit a new version of the article that addresses the referees’ observations and incorporates the suggested changes. They should use the Track Changes tool to indicate the adjustments made. The editorial team will evaluate the compliance with the requested modifications and will decide whether or not to proceed with the publication of the article.

The director and the academic editor of the journal will communicate in a timely manner to the authors the decision to publish an article and the decision on the edition in which it will be included.

7. Retraction

Retraction is a mechanism that seeks to correct information already published and alert readers about unreliable, incorrect or incomplete information that may partially or completely affect the nature of an article (COPE, 2009).

The journal Estudios Políticos reserves the right to retract articles in the electronic version in the following circumstances: unreliable findings, unintentional errors, previous publication, plagiarism, unethical conduct, and other similar cases outlined in the COPE retraction guide (2009).

8. Copyright and Intellectual Property

Estudios Políticos is governed by the following regulations: Political Constitution of Colombia, Article 61; Law 23 of 1982, Articles 1 and 2; Law 44 of 1993, Chapter II, Article 6 and Chapter IV, Article 51; Law 599 of 2000 (Criminal Code), Articles 270, 271 and 272. The journal is also governed by the guidelines of the National Copyright Office and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for Colombia. Finally, it abides by the Rector’s Resolution 21231 of August 5, 2005, which establishes the Statute on Intellectual Property.

For Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike contents in Open Journal System: The material created by you may be distributed, copied, and exhibited by third parties if properly credited. No commercial gain may be made, and derivative works must be licensed under the same terms as the original work.

Reference

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2. Colciencias. (2010). Publindex. http://201.234.78.173:8084/publindex/docs/informacionCompleta.pdf

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14. Colombia. Universidad de Antioquia. Rector’s Resolution 22863. (August 9, 2006). Por la cual se definen las políticas y el reglamento general para las revistas académicas de la Institución. http://secretariageneral.udea.edu.co/doc/i22863-2006.rtf

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