Aim and scope

The 'Anuario del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos' (Yearbook of the Center of Political Studies and Research, Anuario CIEP) is an inter-disciplinary and open-access academic journal that publishes innovtative research in political studies and related fields. Founded in 2011, Anuario CIEP focuses in the study of Costa Rican, Central American and world politics. The areas of study are wide, including political culture and public opinion, political theory and thought, democracy and human rights, State and public policy, political ecology, nature and power and international politics, international political economy and global affairs. Anuario CIEP publishes conceptually-led and empirically-grounded research articles, critical reviews of relevant research and essays. Frequently, it also features themed sections that allow for a focused exploration of areas of inqury that are considered emergent and/or significant.

Peer review process 

This academic journal operates using a 'double blind' review methodology. All research articles will be initially assessed by the editor to determine its suitability for the aims and scope of the journal. Once deemed suitable, proposals are then sent to, at least, two expert and independent peer reviewers that will evaluate the scientific quality of the proposals. The final decision on whether to accept or reject a manuscript will always be based on peer evaluations. If differences in criteria arise between the evaluators, the academic editor reserves the right to send the manuscript to additional peer-reviewers. 

Using a 'double blind' review process means that the identities of the authors are concealed to the peer reviewers and viceversa. To facilitate this, authors must include the following separately: 

• Title page (with author details): this should include the title, authors' names, affiliations, acknowledgements and a complete address of the authors, including their e-mail addresses. 
• Blinded manuscript (no author details): the main body of the proposal (including the references, figures, tables, graphs and images) should not include information that enables reviewers to identify the names and affilliations of the authors.

The purpose is to guarantee the impartiality of the academic evaluation process. The implication of this guarantee of confidentiality implies that all work submitted for evaluation at Anuario CIEP will not be used with other goals different than academic evaluation and potential publication. 

Regularity of publication 

The journal is published annualy. Each edition covers a publication period between January and December of each year, with an overall publication date set each December 1st.  Beginning with its twelveth edition - corresponding with the period between January and December 2021 - every article accepted by this journal will be published continuously. 

Submission of proposals

Anuario CIEP receives proposals for review all year long. However, there is a yearly deadline for submissions for the current year volume: July 31st. Any proposal received after this deadline will be published the following year on the next volume, provided it is evaluated positively by peer reviewers and the Editorial Council. 

Open access policy

Anuario CIEP guarantees free and immediate access to all its content under the principle that all national and international audiencies should access knowledge freely. The intention is to promote the largest exchange of knowledge possible. There will not be any fees or charges paid for sending or publishing articles in Anuario CIEP. 

This academic journal promotes a free access philosop´hy since its creation. When you send an article to Anuario CIEP you are implicitly accepting our free access policy. Authors will retain their rights over the material, but they will be granting permit for the publication of their article in digital formats, under a Creative Commons 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence. This implies that articles: 

• May be shared in any medium or format
• Credit must be due to the author
• Articles cannot be used for commercial ends
• Articles cannot be modified or transformed for other uses
• Authors will not assume processing or publication costs
• Articles can be downloaded and stored freely

Protections agains plagiarism

Anuario CIEP has developed measures with the intent of avoiding and detecting plagiarism in the proposals sent to us for publication. For that, we have a specific protocol to engage situations of suspected plagiarism and access to Turnitin as means to detect these situations (http://turnitin.com/en_us/login). The documents analyzed with Turitin may not have more than 20% coincidence (except in cases of multiple concurrent and redundant publications presented in section XV of our Publication Guidelines) and all quote must mention the source, as explained in our Guidelines. 

In case of detecting plagiarism in a manuscript, the journal proceeds in the following fashion: the Editorial Council will present the evidence to the author. The author has 10 days to offer a rebuttal, in case of considering that the Council's resolution has not merit. In such cases, the rebuttal will be analyzed by the Editorial Council. If the Council rejects the article in a second occassion, the manuscript will be rejected. The author does have the right to present an alternate document, re-initiating the evaluation procedure. 

The editorial team at Anuario CIEP wishes to avoid these situations, so we have defined the following responsibilities and dutires for the people that participates in our publication process: 

Editors should follow the highest ethical standards in their supervision of publication processes, guaranteeing that all evaluations are fair and without any ethical biases. This implies that all articles will be reviewed by a minimum of two reasonably qualified peer reviewers and that the editorial team will develop Publication Guidelines and policies (such as the defined in this section) offering adequate orientation about what to do in cases of plagiarism or unethical research practices. Anuario CIEP reserves the right to seek additional peer reviewers in case that evaluations are considered of poor quality. 

Authors should present original and non-previously published articles based in rigorous, transparent and ethical research processes. To guarantee this, Anuario CIEP asks for a declaration of originality of every manuscript received. By signing this declaration, the author assumes responsibility of his or her research when published. Our Publication Guidelines ask the author to abstain sending the manuscript simultaneously to other means of academic publication and point out potential conflicts of interest in their publications. All authors must clearly identify where did they get funding to develop their research and if research originates in research projects, thesis or previous articles. They should be willing to correct or retract their articles if the situation demands it. 

Peer-reviewers should comment on the originality of received manuscripts and alert our editorial team in cases of redundant publications, fraud or plagiarism. Reviewers must justify their observations and will offer pertinent and constructive comments with the objective of improving the quality of the manuscript for publication. All reviewers should abstain from making use of the content of the manuscripts under review not until the information be published. 

Ethics code (ethical principles for academic publication)

Anuario CIEP guarantees that all articles are original, non-previously published and that have been submitted to rigorous evaluation by academic peers with expert knowledge on the issues discussed. This academic journal will not accept publication of manuscripts that have been published in other means of academic publication, nor being evaluated by other journals. We will not publish articles about which there is prior knowledge of non-compliance with ethical or legal rules governing research. The journal is committed to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when the situation merits it. As a requisite for taking articles into consideration, Anuario CIEP wil demand authors to offer a letter guaranteeing the originality of the article, revealing potential conflicts of interests and explaining the origins of funding and if their research originated in a research project, thesis or previous articles. 

The decision of our Editorial Council on whether or not to accept the publication of an article will be based on its importance, originality, clarity, validity and relevance. All decisions will be based on peer-review evaluations and we will not revert final decisions to approve articles, except in cases in which evident and manifest problems are present (e.g.: lack of clarity or disputes regarding the authorship of the material, plagiarism, inadequate ethical practices in the collection, processing and presentation of information, etc.). In this webpage and in our Norms of Publication, there is a detailed description of the publication process to guide authors. 

The editorial team at Anuario CIEP offers sufficient orientation to peer-revieiwers through the section Information for Peer Reviewers, including our expectations regarding the review and ethical guarantees regarding the handling of the manuscript. Anuario CIEP will safeguard the confidential management of manuscripts until their publication. It is expected that peer-reviewers guarantee the confidentiality of the manuscript and the handling of information contained there. Peer reviewers will inform the editorial team on the originality of the manuscript, as well as other ethical faults in the design and preparation of research. Anuario CIEP evaluates the performance of its peer-reviewers and avoid the reiterated use of reviewers that produce bad quality reviews. 

People occupying positions of Director, Academic and Technical Editors and Editing Assistants may not publish in Anuario CIEP. Members of the Editorial Council and the Advisory Council can publish. In this cases, compliance with all ethical principles established here will be guaranteed. Final approval of articles sent by Council members will be based on peer-reviews. If the author is part of our Editorial Council, he or she will be separated from decisions regarding the publication of his or her article. 

Anuario CIEP is part of the Center of Political Studies and Research (CIEP), however it has editorial freedom from this entity. All decisions made by the editorial team will safeguard the academic quality and intellectual contribution of the journal. The Editorial Council will meet at least every two months to give follow-up to internal and external affairs of the journal, offer final decisions on articles and any other published material, consider proposals for thematic issues and define actions to improve the journal in terms of academic quality, editorial innovation and publication efficiency. People integrating the Editorial and Advisory Councils will serve as promotors of the journal and will be constantly incentivizing the sending of proposals to this academic journal. 

Preservation policy

The journal uses online repositories for safekeeping of all the articles published since its launch and including the most recent issues. The objective of this archive is to avoid the loss of material in case of technological accidents.