Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Publication Ethics

1.1   The journal Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations aspires to select, through a double-blind peer review process, and publish the highest quality research. In order to achieve this goal, the entire peer review and publication process should be thorough, objective and fair.

1.2   The following statement of publication ethics and best practice describes our policies for ensuring the ethical treatment of all participants in the peer review and publication process. Authors, Editors and Reviewers are required to follow the rules expressed in this statement of publication ethics.

1.3   If you have any questions regarding this Statement of Publication Ethics, its interpretation and application, please contact the Editorial Team (see contacts). If you have complaints or suspicions of misconduct by Authors, Editors or Reviewers, please address them to the Chairman of Editorial Board (see the Editorial Board). Complaints and suspicions of serious misconduct are handled by the Editorial Board in cooperation with the Publisher of the journal.

AUTHORS

2.1   Any manuscript submitted to the peer review process of Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations must be an original work. The manuscript must not have been previously published or accepted for publication elsewhere, whether in Czech or another language. Exceptions to the “originality” rule are the following: conference papers published on the corresponding conference website and unpublished bachelor/magister/doctoral/habilitation theses. An Author may not submit a work that is under review elsewhere to Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations, or submit a work that is under review at Mezinárodní vztahy to another publication outlet.

2.2   The manuscript should be free of any plagiarism, falsification, fabrications, or omission of significant material. Authors are expected to cite others' work and ideas, even if the work or ideas are not quoted verbatim or paraphrased. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. In case of plagiarism and self-plagiarism, the manuscript will be rejected and the Author(s) may be barred from submitting to Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations.

2.3   “Self-plagiarism” (dual publication) is unacceptable publishing behavior. If the manuscript draws upon a work by the Author that was previously published, that is in press, or that is under consideration for publication elsewhere, the Author must cite this work in the manuscript. If exact sentences or paragraphs that appear in another work by the Author are included in the manuscript, the material should be put in quotation marks. While self-citation is encouraged, Authors should avoid excessively citing their earlier works in order to inflate their citation count.

2.4   Authors can develop different aspects of their research in more than one manuscript. However, a manuscript that differs from another work by the same Author primarily in appearance while the content is almost the same does not constitute original work. Publication decisions are influenced by the novelty and innovativeness of the individual manuscripts. The Author must also inform the Editor of any such closely related work and, if requested, send the manuscript of this work to the Editor.

2.5   Authors should report their findings fully and should not omit any data or literature that is relevant within the context of the research question(s). Any underlying assumptions, theories, methods, measures and research designs relevant to the findings and interpretations of their work should be disclosed.

2.6   All those (and only those) individuals who have made significant contributions to the work should be listed as Co-authors. Minor contributions by other people (such as data gathering, data coding, commenting or reviewing earlier versions of the paper) should be cited in the manuscript's Acknowledgements.

2.7   Authors have a responsibility to preserve and protect the privacy, dignity, well-being and freedom of research participants. Informed consent should be sought from all research participants (such as interviewees or participants in surveys), and if confidentiality or anonymity is requested it should be honored.

2.8   Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations follows a double-blind review process, whereby the Authors do not know the Reviewers and vice versa. Authors should respect the confidentiality of the review process and should not reveal themselves to the Reviewers, and vice versa. Authors should be prompt with their manuscript revisions. If an Author cannot meet the deadline given, he or she should contact the Editor as soon as possible to determine whether the deadline should be extended or whether the paper should be withdrawn from the review process.

2.9   Book reviews or review essays should not bear any influence of personal relationships between the authors of the reviews or essays and the authors of the reviewed books. In this respect, the authors of the book reviews and review essays are responsible for assessing their impartiality and fair-mindedness in their relationship towards the author or the authors of the reviewed books.

2.10   Authors should check their manuscripts for possible breaches of copyright law (e.g., where permissions are needed for quotations, artwork or tables taken from other publications) and secure the necessary permissions before submission. Texts published in Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations are available under the licence Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. Anyone is allowed to use, share, copy, distribute, or display the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. The journal allows others to copy, distribute and display only original copies of our publications. 

EDITORS

3.1   The Editors should maintain their editorial independence. They should exercise their position of privilege in a confidential, unbiased, prompt, constructive and sensitive manner. They have the duty to judge manuscripts only on their scholarly merits. They should operate without personal or ideological favoritism or malice. The Editors are dedicated to theoretical and methodological pluralism while insisting on the manuscript having a scientific rigour and innovativeness and being accessible for the reader.

3.2   Normally, three Reviewers should be invited to comment on a manuscript, but a minimum of two Reviewers is acceptable. The Reviewers are invited by the Editors on the basis of their contribution to the field (publications), their scholarly merits and their previous experience as Authors or Reviewers for Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations. The Editors should select the Reviewers in an unbiased manner and in good faith with the scientific quality of the journal as the key priority. The Editors invite Reviewers from academic and research institutions (or alternatively from state institutions, NGOs or companies) from across the whole Czech Republic, Slovakia and other countries in order to maintain geographic (institutional) plurality and representativeness. The invited Reviewers should not be from the same institution as the Author(s), and their academic profile should correspond to the empirical, theoretical and/or methodological focus of the reviewed manuscript.

3.3   Authors may request that certain Reviewers not be used, but this decision should be left to the Editors' discretion. Editors should take steps to ensure the timely review of all manuscripts and respond promptly to inquiries from Authors about the status of a review.

3.4   The Editors are expected to ensure the confidentiality of the double-blind review process. They and their editorial staff shall not disclose information about a manuscript and its reviews to anyone other than the Reviewers and the Author(s) of the given particular manuscript and, if appropriate, to other members of the Editorial Team and the members of the Editorial Board. The Editors are responsible for anonymizing the manuscripts and the reviews (removing self-citations and any information that may identify the Authors or Reviewer(s). The Editors do not divulge any information that might identify the Author(s) to the Reviewer(s) or vice versa. The anonymity of the Reviewers can only be lifted if the Editors receive permission to reveal their identities from the Reviewers themselves. All submitted manuscripts, reviews and other material related to the peer review process are securely stored by the Editor-in-Chief for archiving and assessment purposes.

3.5   Editorial responsibility for any manuscript Authored by an Editor and submitted to Mezinárodní vztahy should be delegated to another Editor or a member of the Editorial Board. Editors should excuse themselves from considering a manuscript in which they have a real or potential conflict of interest (for example a case in which the Editor is a supervisor of the Author's dissertation).

3.6   The Editors have a responsibility to provide the Author(s) with an explanation of the editorial decision on a manuscript. The Editors should write high-quality editorial letters that include the Reviewers' comments and offer additional suggestions to the Author(s). However, manuscripts that clearly do not comply with the basic requirements for a scholarly article (see the initiation of the peer review process) may be rejected without such explanations and suggestions.

3.7   The responsibility for acceptance or rejection of manuscripts rests with the Editors, who respect the recommendations by the Reviewers as a collective. The Editors should retrospectively inform the Reviewers about the results of the peer review process and the final decision about the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript.

REVIEWERS

4.1   Reviewing for journals is a professional activity that provides value for the profession as a whole and should be encouraged. Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations has a double-blind review process; thus Reviewers should refuse to review a manuscript if they have already provided written comments on the manuscript or an earlier version of it to the Author. If a Reviewer knows the identity of the Author or Co-author of a manuscript, (s)he should inform the Editor. Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the review process; they should not discuss the manuscript with anyone other than the Editor.

4.2   Reviewers should evaluate manuscripts objectively, fairly and professionally. They should avoid personal biases in their comments and judgments. They should be honest with the Author in terms of their concerns about the manuscript. Reviewers are expected to explain and support their scholarly judgments adequately; that is, they should provide sufficient detail to the Author to justify their recommendation to the Editor. Reviewers should be prompt with their reviews. If a Reviewer cannot meet the deadline given, he or she should contact the Editor as soon as possible to determine whether the deadline should be extended or a new Reviewer should be chosen.

 

 

This statement of publication ethics summarizes and formalizes the existing practice of the Editorial Team of the journal Mezinárodní vztahy / Czech Journal of International Relations. When formalizing the statement, we drew on the following sources: