About the Journal

Aims and Scope

The African Journal of Political Science is the flagship publication of the African Association of Political Science. It is an open-access and strictly peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the study of the political in all its dimensions and permutations in African and black societies in general. It targets both academic and non-academic readers interested in various perspectives on political questions facing Africa and the black world. It aims to contribute to growing, strengthening and diversifying the studies of political phenomena in every way desirable. It supports the Association’s objectives and will from time to time publish out of the Association’s colloquia and conferences.

Submissions

Publishes two issues a year in June and in November and a special edition may be considered from time to time. Issues are available as open access.  The Journal invites manuscripts all through the year, submitted online through its website in two versions, one being anonymous. Research articles and essays must be between 5,000 and 7,000 words long. Commentary and debate articles must be 3,000 to 4,000 words responding to a debate or a topical issue. The journal has a dedicated space for the voices of emerging scholars/students. Emerging scholars’ essays must be 1,500 to 3,000 words long.  All must be prepared according to author guidelines. We encourage the submission of book reviews of up to 1,500 words in length. Longer review articles that debate the book will also be considered at 2,000 to 4,000 words in length. 

Author fees

The journal subscribes to the principle that results of largely public-funded research must be published without article processing charges (APCs) on contributors.

Open Access

This journal is fully Open Access. The journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 South Africa (CC BY-NC 2.0 ZA).

Copyright

Authors retain the copyright to their articles. 

 Archiving and Indexing 

The articles published are archived and indexed accordingly through LOCKSS, CLOCKSS and the PKP PN.

Repository policy

This journal allows authors to deposit the published version of their work in an institutional or any other repository of their choice.

Peer Review Policy

All research articles go through a double-blind peer-review process two academic/research peers per paper.  The two reviewers have expertise in the areas that they review on. The decisions on publication are based on the balance of the views of reviewers. Those who are interested in being reviewers must send a note to the editor-in-chief.

 Authorship

Authors are those who make a substantive contribution to a submission. The author who makes more contributions than another must appear first in the authors' list in the submission, regardless of their positions or status. A student must be listed as principal author in multiple-authored publications that substantially derive from their research work.

Funding

Authors must acknowledge their sources of funding under a specific heading.

Conflict of interest

Authors are required to disclose conflict of interest. Journal editors must declare conflict of interests, and recuse themselves from managing submissions where such conflict of interest is present. The conflict of interest matters relating to board members will be declared. The editorial board will serve as an appeal body in cases of disputes.

Publishing ethics

There are standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the publishing of scholarly journal articles: the authors, the journal editors, the peer reviewers, and the publisher. This publication ethics statement is based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. The journal editors, peer reviewers and authors are expected to follow The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)  guidelines on professional publishing standards at publicationethics.org. In addition to COPE, the following organizations have also collaborated to identify best practices for scholarly publications: the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the JSTOR.

 Privacy Statement

The names and addresses specified when registering will be used solely for purposes of correspondence with the Author or reviewers (editors) when preparing the article for publication.
Private data will not be shared with other individuals and organizations without first seeking the permission of the owners of such data.

Editor’s Code of Conduct

The editors of this journal will:

  1. Maintain high-quality assurance and ethical standards in submissions published in the journal;
  2. Ensure the integrity of the peer-review process;
  3. Promote equal and equitable access to publishing opportunities for authors;
  4. Maintain cordial relations among all stakeholders including authors, reviewers, editors and the board;
  5. Attend expeditiously to all complaints;
  6. Treat all submissions fairly and justly on the merits of their content;
  7. Maintain and improve the journal’s reputation.

Role of the editorial committee

The committee is made of the editor-in-chief, editors and editorial assistants of the journal responsible for the day-to-day editorial management of the journal production. They are responsible for soliciting or receiving submissions, quality checking them, assigning reviewers, overseeing the revision of the submissions and supervising the production process. The editor-in-chief leads this committee and assigns editors submissions to work and convenes discussions, where necessary, and ratifies editorial decisions in line with the journal editorial policies. The final decision rests with the editor-in-chief.

Duties of the Board

The editorial board is an advisory and governance structure appointed by the Association in line with best practices in journal governance. It brings together scholars representing various areas of expertise within the scope of the journal’s focus. Board members serve voluntarily for a three-year term subject to renewal. The Board functions include:

  • Promoting the journal in their networks;
  • Providing advice related to the publication of high-quality manuscripts;
  • Serving as a mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions.
  • Receiving an annual report from the Editor-in-Chief detailing the status of operations and including such statistics and other relevant information;
  • Make recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief based on the annual report.

Online ISSN: 1726-3727
Print ISSN: 1027-0353