I. FOCUS, SCOPE, AND FREQUENCY

The Anuario del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos (hereafter "Anuario DEL CIEP") is an interdisciplinary, open-access academic journal aimed at academic audiences and the public, with the objective of publishing innovative research in political studies. Founded in 2011, Anuario CIEP focuses on Costa Rican, Central American, Latin American, and global politics.

Areas of study include:

• Political culture and public opinion
• Political theory and thought
• Democracy and human rights
• State and public policies
• Political ecology, nature, and power
• Politics, international political economy, and global studies

Anuario CIEP operates under a continuous electronic publication model, with an annual issue opening on March 1st and closing on December 1st each year. The editing and funding of Anuario del CIEP are provided by the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos (CIEP) of the University of Costa Rica (UCR).

II. TYPES OF PUBLICATION

Anuario CIEP accepts three types of submissions:

• Research Articles: These conceptually oriented papers are grounded in empirical evidence (including primary and/or secondary sources) and are based on extensive literature reviews and/or a combination of these three elements. Articles should not exceed 10,000 words (including footnotes, bibliography, abstract, tables, and description of graphs, maps, and images). All research articles will undergo double-blind peer review (see section III).
• Documents: These are works up to 8,000 words (including footnotes, tables, and description of graphs, maps, and images) that may include conference proceedings, essays, documents, high-value research interviews, or texts of interest. All documents must align with the journal’s theme. These are by invitation from the Editorial Board and are not peer-reviewed.
• Book Reviews: These manuscripts provide a bibliographic analysis of a book of academic interest. Reviews should not exceed 3,000 words (including footnotes, bibliography, tables, and description of graphs, maps, and images). These documents are subject to editorial review, but not peer review.

Anuario CIEP publishes research articles within one of three clearly defined sections:

• Thematic Section: Focuses on exploring significant and/or emerging areas of knowledge. The articles in this section are gathered through calls organized by the Editorial Board or Thematic Editors chosen by the Board. There may be more than one Thematic Section per issue.
• State of the Art: Offers literature reviews on key concepts, theories, and/or areas of study in the social sciences. Only manuscripts requested by the Editorial Board will be published in this section.
• Research Articles: An open space for publishing articles that do not fit within the Thematic Section or State of the Art.

III. PEER REVIEW SYSTEM

This academic journal uses a "double-blind" peer review process for each manuscript. After a preliminary assessment by the Editorial Team, manuscripts are sent to a minimum of two external and independent reviewers for evaluation of the scientific quality of the submission, with up to two rounds of review allowed.

The Editorial Board is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject articles for publication. If there are differences in opinion, the Director reserves the right to send the manuscript for an additional round of review by other external reviewers.

III.1. Author and Peer Anonymity

Anuario del CIEP employs a double-blind review process, meaning the identities of authors are concealed from reviewers and vice versa. Authors are requested to remove any identifying information from the text, including references to previous publications, which can be reinstated upon acceptance.

IV. MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

IV.1. What should be submitted?

Authors must submit two files:

1. Article text: This file should include:
   1. Title (in Spanish and English)
   2. Abstract (in Spanish and English)
   3. Keywords (in Spanish and English)
   4. Manuscript text (including bibliography and footnotes)
   5. Images, graphs, and/or maps with their descriptions
   6. Tables (including titles and descriptions)

The manuscript should not contain the authors' names or any information that might reveal their identities.

2. Cover letter: This separate file should include:
   1. Article title
   2. Authors' identities and contact information
   3. A brief bio (max 200 words) for each author, including their ORCID link, for inclusion in the article if accepted
   4. Word count
   5. Statement of interest (see Title VI)
   6. Statement of originality (see Title IX)
   7. Acknowledgments for inclusion in the published article
   8. Funding information for inclusion in the article if accepted

The cover letter must be signed by all authors.

Additional considerations:

• The manuscript should be proofread to avoid spelling and grammatical errors.
• All references in the bibliography must be cited in the text and vice versa.
• Permission must be obtained for the use of third-party copyrighted material.
• Authors should refer to the journal's style guidelines (see section IV.3).

IV.2. How to submit the article?

Manuscripts should be submitted online through the Open Journal System (OJS) platform. Authors must register using the following link:

https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/ciep/user/register

The platform ensures that all files are received by the journal. The accepted formats for the article and cover letter are .DOC, .DOCX, and .ODT.

If the article includes graphs, maps, photographs, diagrams, or other illustrations, these must be attached both within the article text and separately in .PNG or .JPG format with a resolution of at least 300 ppi.

IV.3. Formatting

Structure

There is no prescribed structure for the research articles submitted to this journal. However, authors must include a proper discussion of relevant literature, provide a detailed description of the methodology used to obtain research results, and present these results along with their interpretations. Conclusions should go beyond merely restating research findings and instead discuss the main contributions of the research to broader debates.

Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Each subsection should have a short subtitle, either in bold or highlighted, and should appear on a separate line.

Language of the Article

Articles written in Spanish and English are accepted. Articles that combine both languages are not allowed. The text must be written as clearly as possible, without grammatical or spelling errors.

Title, Abstract, and Keywords

All articles must include a concise abstract of up to 250 words, placed immediately after the title. The abstract should briefly state the research purpose, main findings, and conclusions. It should be self-contained, meaning that bibliographic references should be avoided as much as possible.

All articles must include a list of five keywords immediately following the abstract.
The title, abstract, and keywords must be written in both English and Spanish, regardless of the language chosen for the rest of the manuscript.

Footnotes

Footnotes should be used responsibly and numbered consecutively throughout the article. Endnotes are not permitted.

Format

• The article title should be centered, bold, in uppercase, Times New Roman font, size 14. Afterward, leave a space and write the English title in the same format.
• After the English title, leave a space and write the word "Resumen" (Abstract) in bold and centered. On the next line, develop the abstract in justified text.
• Leave a space and write "Palabras clave" (Keywords) in bold, justified text. The keywords should be separated by commas and written in lowercase, except for proper nouns.
• Then leave another space and use the same format to write the abstract and keywords in English.
• The main body text should be in Times New Roman, size 12, with single line spacing and 10-point spacing between paragraphs, justified. Indents should not be used.
• Section titles should be bold and uppercase. Leave a line of space before the section title.
• Subsection titles should be bold and have only the first letter capitalized unless they contain proper nouns.
• Acronyms should be written out in full the first time they appear, followed by the acronym in parentheses.
• Italics may be used only for the following cases: a) to indicate words in another language (except in the abstract and keywords) and b) to emphasize words or phrases in the text.
• Footnotes should be justified and in Times New Roman, size 10.

Figures, Tables, and Graphs

• Titles should be centered and bold.
• The font size for graphs, tables, or figures should be 9 points in Times New Roman.
• The content of the tables should have 0-point line spacing and be left-aligned.
• The word "Source" should be followed by a colon (:).
• The source should be written in Times New Roman, size 10.

Bibliographic References

This journal uses the Chicago Deusto author-date citation system. It is recommended to follow the brief guide included in section V.7 of our Publishing Guidelines, available at this link. For further details and examples, consult the Chicago Deusto Manual of Style. A Brief Guide to Citations and Bibliographic References, available for free at the following link:

http://www.deusto-publicaciones.es/deusto/pdfs/otraspub/otraspub07.pdf

1. CODE OF ETHICS

The Anuario del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos guarantees that:

• All published research articles are original, unpublished, and have undergone rigorous peer evaluation by academic specialists in the field.
• This academic journal will not accept manuscripts that have been published, in whole or in part, in other academic publications, nor those currently under consideration by other journals.
• Articles with prior knowledge of ethical or legal violations as established by the scientific community will not be published. The journal is committed to publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.
• As a requirement for each article submission, the Anuario requests a cover letter in which the authors guarantee the originality of the article, disclose potential conflicts of interest, explain the sources of funding, and indicate if the research originated from a research project, thesis, or previous articles.
• The Editorial Board's decision to accept or reject articles will be based on the article's importance, originality, clarity, validity, and relevance. All decisions will be based on the evaluations received, and final approval of articles will not be reversed unless there are major issues (e.g., lack of clarity, authorship disputes, plagiarism, violation of ethical standards in data collection, processing, and presentation, etc.). Detailed information about the publication process is provided on this page and in our Publication Guidelines to guide authors.
• The Anuario editorial team provides guidance to reviewers through the section Instructions for Reviewers, including expectations for their reports and ethical guarantees for handling the manuscript.
• The journal will ensure that all received manuscripts are managed confidentially until publication. Reviewers are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript and the information it contains, to inform the editorial team about the manuscript’s originality, and to report any ethical issues in the design and presentation of the research.
• The Anuario del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos evaluates the performance of reviewers and avoids repeated use of those producing poor-quality evaluations.

As an internal rule, individuals holding positions in Direction, Academic and Technical Editing, and Editorial Assistance are not allowed to publish in the Anuario. Members of the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board are permitted to publish, but in these cases, compliance with all ethical principles outlined here and in the Plagiarism Detection Policy will be ensured. Final approval of articles submitted by Editorial Board members will be based on external peer reviews. If the author is part of the Editorial Board, they will recuse themselves from decisions regarding the publication of their article.

This journal is part of the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos, but its editorial line is independent of this entity. All decisions made by the editorial team aim to ensure the academic quality and intellectual contribution of the journal. The Editorial Board members will meet at least every two months to monitor internal and external journal matters, issue final decisions on articles and other published materials, evaluate proposals for thematic issues, and define actions to improve the journal in terms of academic quality, editorial innovation, and publication efficiency. Editorial Board and Advisory Board members will act as promoters of the journal and will constantly encourage manuscript submissions to this academic journal.

VI. DECLARATION OF INTEREST

All authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships with third parties and/or organizations that could inappropriately influence the results of the work submitted for consideration by this journal. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include current employment and consultancies, stock ownership, fees, paid expert testimony, joint patent or registration applications, and grants or competitive funds.

Authors must disclose their interests by providing a statement of interests in the "Cover Letter." If there are no conflicts of interest to declare, the following must be written: "Declaration of interest: none" in the cover letter. The declaration will be published if the article is accepted.

VII. DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY

Articles submitted to this journal must be original (except for abstracts, academic conference presentations, or elements of theses or final graduation projects) and not under consideration for publication in other academic journals.

The cover letter must indicate that all authors involved in the preparation of the publication have approved its submission to this journal. If the article is accepted for publication, it must be declared that it will not be published in any other medium, in the same form, or in any other language, including electronically. The originality and absence of plagiarism will be verified using the Turnitin tool.

VIII. ARTICLE FUNDING

The institution that provided financial support for the development of the research and/or preparation of the article must be identified. The role of the sponsoring entities in the different parts of the research—such as study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation, article writing, and the decision to submit the proposal for review—must be briefly described. If the article was developed without external funding, this must be indicated. In all cases, the information should be included in the "Cover Letter."

IX. USE OF INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, communicates respect for all individuals, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Articles should not contain statements implying that one person is superior to another based on race, gender, culture, or any other characteristic, and inclusive language should be used throughout the text. For reference, authors can consult the inclusive language guidelines published by the Centro de Investigación y Estudios de la Mujer (CIEM-UCR), such as the Guía de uso del lenguaje inclusivo de género en el marco del habla culta.

X. AUTHORSHIP CHANGES

Authors should carefully consider the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript for review. Any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of authors must be requested before the manuscript is accepted for publication and only if the change is approved by the Editorial Board. To request such a change, the Editorial Board must receive the following information from the corresponding author, via email to anuario.ciep@ucr.ac.cr: 1) the reason for the change in the author list, and 2) written confirmation (email or physical letter) from all authors indicating their agreement with the addition, removal, or reordering. This includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. If the article has already been published, any request will result in a subsequent correction.

XI. OPEN ACCESS POLICY AND COPYRIGHT

The Anuario del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos guarantees free, immediate access to all published articles. The journal operates under the principle that national and international audiences should have free access to disseminated knowledge. The intention is to promote the widest possible exchange of knowledge.

Therefore, this journal will not charge authors for the submission, processing, or publication of their articles. The journal will not charge subscription fees, nor will it impose paywalls for readers to access articles.

This academic journal has promoted open-access philosophy since its inception. Submission of articles to the Anuario del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos implies acceptance of the journal’s open-access policy. Authors will retain their copyright but grant permission for publication in digital formats under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This means that all articles, essays, and reviews published on this website:

• Can be shared in any medium or format
• Credit must be given to the author
• The articles cannot be used for commercial purposes
• Articles cannot be modified or transformed for other uses
• Authors will not bear any costs for processing or submitting the articles
• Articles may be freely downloaded and stored.

XII. MULTIPLE, REDUNDANT, AND CONCURRENT PUBLICATIONS

Authors should not publish articles that essentially describe the same research in more than one academic publication. Anuario CIEP does not consider this applicable to prior publications in the form of abstracts, conference presentations, or elements of theses or final graduation projects.

XIII. PLAGIARISM DETECTION POLICY

The Anuario del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos has implemented measures to prevent and detect plagiarism in manuscripts submitted for publication. To this end, a protocol has been established to address suspected plagiarism cases, and the application "Turnitin" is used to detect it (https://ucr.turnitin.com/home/sign-in). Documents analyzed with Turnitin may not contain more than 20% similarity (except in cases that qualify as multiple, redundant, or concurrent publications, as per point XII), and all citations must mention the source, as explained in the Publication Guidelines.
In the event of plagiarism detection, the journal will proceed as follows: 1) the Editorial Board will present evidence to the author, 2) the accused author will have 10 days to present a response if they believe the resolution is unfounded, which will be re-analyzed by the Editorial Board; 3) if the Editorial Board rejects the article after this second analysis, the manuscript will be rejected. The author will be barred from resubmitting the article to the journal.

In this journal, we aim to avoid such situations, which is why we have outlined the following responsibilities for the participants in the publication process:

• Editors must adhere to the highest ethical standards in overseeing the publication process, ensuring that all reviews are fair and free from ethical bias. This implies that each article will be pre-reviewed by at least two reasonably qualified peers, and the editorial team will develop publication guidelines and policies (as outlined in this section) that provide proper guidance on handling plagiarism cases. Anuario CIEP reserves the right to seek additional peer reviewers if the evaluations received are of low quality.
• Authors must submit original and unpublished articles based on rigorous, transparent, and ethical research processes. To ensure this, Anuario CIEP requires the signing of a declaration of originality for each manuscript. By signing this declaration, the author assumes responsibility for the published research. Our Publication Guidelines require authors to refrain from submitting the manuscript simultaneously to other academic publications and to disclose any conflicts of interest related to the publication.
• All authors must clearly state where the funds for their research were obtained and whether the research originated from research projects, theses, or previous articles. They must also be willing to correct or retract their articles if the situation requires it.
• Reviewers must comment on the originality of the manuscripts they review and alert the Anuario editorial team in cases of redundant publications, fraud, or plagiarism. Reviewers should justify their observations and provide relevant, constructive feedback aimed at improving the quality of the manuscript. All reviewers must refrain from using the content of the manuscripts they are reviewing until the information is published.

XIV. EDITORIAL PROCESS

XIV.1. Preliminary Review

Articles submitted to Anuario CIEP will undergo a preliminary review conducted by the Editorial Team and supervised by the journal’s director. If the article: 1) is relevant to the journal's theme, 2) meets the documentation requirements outlined in section IV.1, 3) complies with this Editorial Standard, and 4) passes the plagiarism check outlined in section XIII, it will be sent for review by at least two external evaluators under the double-blind review process.

In case of non-compliance:

• If the article violates the plagiarism rule outlined in section XIII, it will be immediately rejected and will not be reconsidered by Anuario CIEP in the future.
• If the article violates any other journal standards, except those in section XIII, it will be returned to the author for corrections. The author will have five working days to make the necessary corrections. Failure to meet this deadline will result in the rejection of the work. If the errors persist after the corrections, the article will be rejected.

XIV.2. External Reviewers and Reports

External reviewers will have 20 working days from their acceptance of the review to evaluate the article. They must complete at least an evaluation guide and issue one of the following recommendations:

1. Publish without modifications: The author will be informed of the result, and the publication process will continue.
2. Publish with minor modifications: The author will be informed, and they will have 20 working days to make or respond to the requested changes. The director will then verify that the document meets the reviewers’ requirements.
3. Publish with significant modifications: The author will be informed, and they will have 20 working days to make or respond to the requested changes. The director will then verify that the document meets the reviewers’ requirements. If necessary, the director may request another round of reviews.
4. Do not publish: The author will be informed, and a summary of the reviewers’ arguments will be provided.

If contradictory reports are received, more reviewers will be consulted for further input.

XIV.3. Decision on the Article

The decision to publish or reject an article is made by the director, who will always inform the Editorial Board of their decision. In case of controversy, the final decision on the article rests with the Anuario CIEP Editorial Board, which will consider—though is not bound by—the opinions of the reviewers, the editorial team, and the journal's director. The Editorial Board may also request additional modifications to the article before making a final decision if deemed appropriate.

XIV.4. After the Decision on the Article

Approved articles will proceed to the style review process. At this stage, authors will respond to all questions and comments raised by the Anuario CIEP editors. Once the style review is complete, the article will proceed to the layout stage and then to the final proofing and design reviews. Once these stages are completed, the article will be published online.