Aims and Scope

The Journal of Public Policy (JPP) is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles that apply social science theories and concepts to significant political, economic and social issues and to the ways in which public policies are made. Methodology and concepts should be instrumental in achieving analytic purposes, and concepts and theories should be grounded in an awareness of government.

JPP often publishes articles that cut across disciplines, such as environmental issues, international political economy, regulatory policy and European Union processes. Every article is intended to be relevant across national boundaries, dealing with problems common in many societies. Articles that make explicit comparisons across nations are particularly welcome.

Types of Article

The journal accepts the following types of article:

• Research Article*
• Review*
• Field Essay*

* All or part of the publication costs for these article types may be covered by one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access. For authors not covered by an agreement, and without APC funding, please see this journal's open access options for instructions on how to request an APC waiver. 

Preparing your article for submission

When you are ready to submit your manuscript, please ensure that you upload at least two documents: 1) Title Page and 2) a fully anonymized Main Document – Anonymous. Figures and tables may be uploaded as separate files or included at the end of the Main Document – Anonymous. LaTeX users, see below.

Your Title Page should include the following:

• Title of manuscript (50-word limit)
• Corresponding author and co-authors
• For each author: name, title, department and institutional affiliation, address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address
• Keywords (4-6)
• Acknowledgements
• Competing interests declaration (see below for guidance on what this should look like)
• A list of all funding sources and disclaimers (if applicable)
• Word count of Main Document – Anonymous (including main body only)
• Self-citations that clearly identify the author(s) removed from the Main Document – Anonymous for anonymous review

Your Main Document – Anonymous should be fully anonymized and include the following:

• Title of manuscript (50-word limit)
• Abstract (150 word limit)
• Body (5,000-8,000 words excluding abstract, reference list and figures/tables)
• Reference list
• Figures and tables
• Supplementary information, if applicable*
• Page numbers

*If you upload a supplementary information file, this file will not sent to the reviewers assigned to your manuscript. If you would like reviewers to be able to see your supplementary information, please include it at the end of your Main Document – Anonymous with the header, “Supplementary Materials (Not for Publication)”.

LaTeX Users

Please upload a single PDF document for your Main Document – Anonymous that includes all your figures and tables. The system will convert this file into a PDF proof file, which includes a cover page and which will be made available to reviewers. Note: The system cannot convert PDF files produced directly from LaTeX, such as pdfTeX-1.40 and similar formats. If your PDF has been created this way, open it in Adobe Acrobat and re-save it in a standard PDF format before uploading it to the ScholarOne system. You must view the system PDF proof by clicking on the green PDF button. If you are submitting a revised manuscript, please upload your LaTeX source files in addition to the Manuscript PDF. You may upload all of your source files in one zip package and designate as "Source Files for Production". If your manuscript is accepted for publication, you must submit a zipped folder of all files so that the production staff can edit your final manuscript.

Formatting Instructions

Your Main Document – Anonymous should be fully anonymized (see How to prepare your materials for anonymous peer review below) and have approximately 5,000-8,000 words excluding the Abstract, References, any text in figures and tables, and any supplementary information. It should be double-spaced and have a left- hand margin of at least 1 inch (2.54 cm). Pages should be numbered consecutively. The entire Main Document – Anonymous should not exceed 45 pages. JPP accepts either English or American spelling. Please upload your submission as a Word document.

Please do not embed your figures and tables into the body of the text. Instead, figures and tables should be included after your references at the end of your Main Document – Anonymous or uploaded as separate files. Please indicate within the text the location of all figures and tables.

If your submission contains footnotes, please convert all footnotes to endnotes in your Main Document – Anonymous. If your manuscript is accepted, your endnotes can be reconverted to footnotes in your final draft. Keep endnote use to a minimum, using them only for points that are relevant but distracting if included in the main text. Jargon should be avoided. Technical terms not widely understood should be clearly defined, and the conclusions of statistical analyses should be set out in prose, as well as supported by quantitative information in tables and text as appropriate.

Be sure to reference any data or conclusions that are not your own. Please also verify that all citations that appear in the text, notes or captions of figures and tables are also in the reference list and vice versa. We prefer and publish each issue of JPP using the citation and referencing format described in the APSA Style Manual; please see past publications to see our formatting. This style uses in-text citations that list the author and year of publication in parentheses, e.g., (Bertelli 2006). The reference list includes all works cited listed alphabetically. When repeated works by the same author appear in the reference list, the author’s name must be written in full for each entry.

JPP Data Replication Policy

If your manuscript employs statistical methods and has been accepted for publication in JPP, you must submit replication materials to the JPP Dataverse repository (https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/JPublicPolicy).

Deposited materials must be sufficient to replicate results in all tables and figures included in the final accepted version of the manuscript, exclusive of supplementary information and materials. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs. 

A data dictionary (a summary file of the data and a codebook) should be included with the data files with sufficient description for an independent researcher to reproduce the results in the tables and figures.

JPP may consider limited embargoes on proprietary data. JPP may also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. If you have questions about your ability to comply with this policy, please contact us.

While replication materials are required only for manuscripts employing statistical methods, should you be interested in depositing replication materials for qualitative or theoretical studies, the JPP Dataverse is available to you for these purposes at your discretion. If you choose to use them, please follow the procedure described above.

JPP assumes no responsibility for the data uploaded to the Dataverse. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the data are usable, the files uncorrupted and for any eventual questions from scholars wishing to replicate the data work. We refer authors to Harvard Dataverse's Terms of Use for more details on the government of all Dataverse applications.

See this JPP Dataverse Guide for step-by-step help uploading your data and materials.

Citing Data

To demonstrate compliance with the JPP policy, you should include a Data Availability Statement at the end of your manuscript. This should state that the replication materials can be found in the JPP Dataverse and should include the persistent identifier to help users find this data. For example:

Data Availability Statement: Replication materials are available in the Journal of Public Policy Dataverse at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RXMV9W

If the replication materials are under embargo or cannot be publicly released for legal, ethical or other exceptional reasons, the data availability statement should state this and any alternative methods of access. This will be considered by the JPP team in line with the policy. For example:

Data Availability Statement: Replication materials for study are not publicly available due to [state reasons] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

If the article does not employ statistical methods (e.g. qualitative or theoretical studies) and no data is available, this should be stated. For example:

Data Availability Statement: This study does not employ statistical methods and no replication materials are available.

In addition, in the reference list, you should cite the replication materials and any other data sources created by others in a consistent way that includes full information on a dataset’s author(s), title, date, version, and a persistent identifier to the fullest extent possible. For example for this dataset:

Adolph, Christopher; Breunig, Christian; Koski, Chris, 2018, "Replication Data for: The Political Economy of Budget Trade-offs", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RXMV9W, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:cdCGf3H0GUX64Tn4kEvVGg==

Abstract and Keywords Preparation

For guidance on how to prepare your Abstracts and Keywords, please refer to these guidelines.

How to prepare your materials for anonymous peer review

To ensure a fair and anonymous peer review process, authors should not allude to themselves as the authors of their article in any part of the text. This includes citing their own previous work in the references section in such a way that identifies them as the authors of the current work.

Please refer to our general guidelines on how to anonymise your manuscript prior to submission.

Tables and Artwork

Please refer to the following guidance about preparing artwork and graphics for submission.

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

If your article contains any material in which you do not own copyright, including figures, charts, tables, photographs or excerpts of text, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder to reuse that material. Guidance on how to do that can be found here.

Ethics and Transparency Policy Requirements

Please ensure that you have reviewed the journal’s Publishing ethics policies while preparing your materials. 

Please also ensure that you have read the journal’s Research transparency policy prior to submission. We encourage the use of a Data Availability Statement at the end of your article before the reference list. Guidance on how to write a Data Availability Statement can be found here. Please try to provide clear information on where the data associated with you research can be found and avoid statements such as “Data available on request”.

A list of suggested data repositories can be found here.

Funding statement

A declaration of sources of funding must be provided if appropriate. Authors must state the full official name of the funding body and grant numbers specified. Authors must specify what role, if any, their financial sponsors played in the design, execution, analysis and interpretation of data, or writing of the study. If they played no role this should be stated. 

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

• to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s).
• to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
• to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript.
• must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission.

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.

Acknowledgements

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organisers, family members, etc. that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that that any type of funding information or financial support is listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can be recorded separately (see Funding statement above).

We are aware that authors sometimes receive assistance from technical writers, language editors, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication. Such assistance must be noted in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section, along with a declaration that the author(s) are entirely responsible for the scientific content of the paper and that the paper adheres to the journal’s authorship policy. Failure to acknowledge assistance from technical writers, language editors, AI tools and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section may lead to disqualification of the paper. Examples of how to acknowledge assistance in drafting manuscripts:

• “The author(s) thank [name and qualifications] of [company, city, country] for providing [medical/technical/language] writing support/editorial support [specify and/or expand as appropriate], which was funded by [sponsor, city, country]."
• “The author(s) made use of [AI system/tool] to assist with the drafting of this article. [AI version details] was accessed/obtained from [source details] and used with/without modification [specify and/or expand as appropriate] on [date(s)].