Submissions

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines and Editors' detailed advice

General Expectations: Regions & Cohesion is committed to publishing texts from different world regions and it is especially committed to providing an international venue for contributions from scholars and practitioners in emerging/transition countries and developing states. The editors and the editorial committee recognize that scientific norms and intellectual customs differ between continents. While we recognize and profoundly respect different academic and intellectual traditions that enrich our cross-regional dialogue, we must follow internationally accepted norms for publications in order to maintain the transparency of scientific methods and the rigor of conceptual dialogue.

These internationally accepted norms also provide a harmonized approach through which scholars from different parts of the world can understand each other clearly. 

Language: Regions & Cohesion is published in English, Spanish and French. Articles are published in their original language but abstracts are translated into the three languages of the journal. Authors must concisely highlight the main points of their articles in their abstracts because these summaries target readers who utilize different languages. It is our experience that authors who have difficulty highlighting the originality of their articles in an abstract, do not have a clear understanding of the main contributions of their work. The abstract is often an indicator of the clarity of the article’s contributions.

Originality: Regions & Cohesion publishes articles that make original contributions to academic (scientific articles) or normative (Leadership Forum) debates. From the introduction, authors are encouraged to highlight the originality of their work. This is a major component of the internal review conducted by the editorial committee and the external peer-reviewers are asked to comment on the manuscript’s originality as well. For this reason, the editors and the editorial committee suggest the following structure for manuscripts submitted to Regions & Cohesion:

1. Introduction: includes research question and methods section
2. Literature Review which positions the article amongst existing scholarship
3. Statement of Conceptual Approach
4. Presentation of Empirical Work
5. Conclusion highlighting the article’s contributions

Introduction: As stated above, the introduction of the article should highlight the manuscript’s originality. It should include a justification of the research presented. It should also and above all, include a clearly defined research question. There is an enormous difference between vaguely declaring a research objective and clearly stating a research question. For example, an article that “aims to examine the relationship between migration and development” could include numerous approaches, concepts or methods. Instead a statement, such as “The present article asks: ‘Given the securitized migration policies implemented by development donors such as the EU and the US, through what mechanisms can PCD promote transformative change in migration affairs?’” (Koff, 2017) defines the issue arena to which the article intends to make a contribution and presents key concepts and research design. In many cases, the research question itself is innovative and represents an originality of the article. Consequently, it is vital that it is clear. 

Research Design and Methodology: Articles submitted to Regions & Cohesion should either include a Research Design and Methodology section or a sub-section within the introduction. This part of the article explains why research cases were chosen. In the case of case studies, it is vital for authors to explain why the selected case can be considered a critical case. Comparative quantitative and qualitative analyses are especially welcome and in these cases, authors are expected to explain how comparative research designs or data sets were selected. Finally, all articles should explain how data was collected for the research presented in the manuscript.

Literature Review: It has been our experience that most of the articles that we could not accept for publication did not include a literature review section, instead opting to cite literature throughout the length of the article. While this form of citation may justify specific claims, it does not necessarily contribute to the overall quality of the manuscript. Authors should include a literature review section, which discusses the strengths and weaknesses of scholarship on the research question and utilizes this review to position the submission and highlight its originality. For example, an article comparing cross-border water governance in Europe and Latin America should conduct a literature review that highlights the regional specificities that dominate the literature. This then positions the article as an innovative contribution that compares cases between world regions.

Conceptual Approach: It is vital that authors clearly explain their conceptual approach to the examination of a research question. Sometimes, this approach can be the originality of the article. For example, the application of “the quality of democracy” framework to issue arenas where it has not yet been employed could be viewed as a major originality of an article. Most importantly, if a conceptual approach is not identified and explained then submissions tend to be descriptive. A descriptive article cannot pass peer-review, which is not in the interest of either the author or the journal. Even normative contributions in the Leadership Forum should clearly identify a line of argumentation though which the analysis is presented in order to avoid simple description.

Presentation of Empirical Work: The empirical research sections generally present data or in the case of qualitative research, the information gathered from fieldwork. Once again, this section should not be purely descriptive. First, the data should be presented in a manner that is coherent with the methods presented in the introduction to the article. Second, the data’s relationship with the conceptual approach described above should be highlighted. For example, research based on ethnographic methods should not only describe the lives of research subjects but it should also link these findings to the conceptual debates addressed by the article. Journal articles are not vehicles for the publication of empirical work for its own sake. They utilize data/information to engage discussions with a higher intellectual purpose. 

Conclusion: Conclusions should conclude. They are not mere summaries of research findings. Articles can include such summaries as introductions to a conclusion if authors consider this to be pertinent. However, the conclusion should highlight the main originalities of the article and emphasize its main contributions and relevance. Conclusions tend to work best when they act to shift the ‘scale’ of the argument, drawing out its consequences in a way that brings the argument to bear on broader intellectual debates. The conclusion is about explicitly explaining to readers not specialized in your research case or geographic areas why your manuscript is relevant for them. Simple summarizing will not achieve this objective.

Internal and Peer Review Process: Regions & Cohesion adopts a constructive dialogue approach to article submissions. As stated in the Manuscript Submission Guidelines, the editorial committee reviews articles before they are distributed to peer-review in order to provide comments to authors and give their manuscripts the best opportunity to pass external peer-review. Authors receive these comments from the committee within 3 weeks of submission. Once articles have been approved for peer-review, it generally takes two months before an editorial decision is rendered and communicated to authors. Peer-reviewers are given six weeks to review articles but we also invest time in finding appropriate reviewers and sometimes they are late. In general, we do our best to maintain communication with authors and provide constructive feedback throughout the process which takes three months total. We invest considerable time and energy in providing constructive comments so we ask authors to engage in this dialogue with us in good faith. If you wish to publish with Regions & Cohesion and you wish to engage us in this constructive dialogue, we welcome your manuscript!

Authorship: The authors of this article confirm that all contributors to the manuscript have been recognized as co-authors. Any change to the author list should be approved by all authors including any who have been removed from the list. The corresponding author should act as a point of contact between the editor and the other authors and should keep co-authors informed and involve them in major decisions about the publication. We reserve the right to request confirmation that all authors meet the authorship conditions.

Publication Ethics: In Regions & Cohesion we are committed to reach high standards of journal management and publication ethics. The editorial team works with honesty, fairness and transparency values to solve all type of editorial issues. However, in case of potential conflicts, allegations or complaints, we will refer to the guidance of the Core Practices by the international Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE): https://publicationethics.org/core-practices 

SUBMISSION INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

The editors welcome contributions in English, Spanish, or French. Please submit articles, reviews, and other contributions as Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format (rtf) files through the online submissions system at https://ojs3.berghahnjournals.com/index.php/reco/login 

Authors must register with the journal on the submission website prior to submitting, or, if already registered, they can simply log in. 

All submissions that do not follow the journal’s style guide will be returned to the corresponding author for formatting before they can be considered for publication.

COVER PAGE

The cover page should provide the title of the article that must not exceed 12 words, complete contact information for each author (mailing address, phone number, and email), biographical data of approximately 100 words for each author including an ORCID, a total word count, the number of tables and/or figures included, and any acknowledgments. Affiliations and email addresses will be posted online for indexing/abstracting purposes.

FORMATTING

The document must be set at the US letter standard size. The entire document (including notes and references) should be double-spaced with 1-inch (2.5 cm) margins on all sides and no extra spaces between paragraphs. A 12-point standard font such as Times New Roman is required for all text, including headings, notes, and references. Any unusual characters or diacritics should be flagged by placing the entire word in red type.

ABSTRACT/KEYWORDS

The article must include an abstract of 125 words and 5 to 8 keywords. The abstract should not duplicate the text verbatim but rather include the research question or puzzle, identify the data, and give some indication of the findings. Keywords should be drawn from the content and not duplicate the article title, listed in alphabetical order, and separated by commas; only proper nouns should be capitalized. The abstract, keywords and biographical note for non-English articles must be submitted in both English and the language of the article.

COPYRIGHT/PERMISSIONS

Upon acceptance, authors are required to submit copyright agreements and all necessary permission letters for reprinting or modifying copyrighted materials, both textual and graphic. The author is fully responsible for obtaining all permissions and clearing any associated fees to  reproduce copyrighted materials.

RESEARCH FUNDING

All research funding (often mentioned in the acknowledgments section) must not conflict with our embargo period outlined in the journal copyright transfer agreement. Prior to submission to Berghahn, authors need to establish the requirements of their funding, and if necessary pursue the gold OA option for their article.

ARTWORK

Figure captions should be included in the text along with the call-out indicating approximate placement (e.g. [Please insert Figure 1 here]). 

Please submit all figures and tables in separate electronic files (clearly named and consecutively numbered) along with your article document. Figures and tables should never be embedded within your article document.

We ask that tables and figures (drawings, photographs, charts, graphs, maps, etc.) meet certain standards before being submitted along with the articles.

Format

For optimal reproduction in print and online, figures or photographs (with no text or graphs) should be submitted as high-resolution JPEG or TIFF files. Charts, graphs, and line art created by authors are best submitted in the format in which they have been created so that the production team can adjust the text (for font and any grammatical/style guide inconsistencies) and create an EPS. Figures may be submitted in color for the online edition, but they must be fully legible in black and white for the print edition (e.g., hatch marks for lines in graphs, patterned fills for legends in maps). Options for printing in color are available for a fee to be covered by the author.

Tables must be submitted as separate, titled Word documents (not as spreadsheets).

Resolution & Size

Figures must be a minimum of 300 ppi and at least 4 x 4 inches in size. Ppi refers to the pixels per inch within an image. If a figure is less than 300 ppi, it will not be crisp and clear for print, and we will reject the image. Colour images can be used for webfiles, but be sure that colour images will also read well when converted to black and white for print.

All artwork must comply with the requirements of the Artwork section of Berghahn Journals. 

PROCESS FOR REFEREEING AND ACCEPTING ARTICLES

Regions and Cohesion is a refereed journal. Submissions are considered on the understanding that the article is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Articles are sent to at least two scholars with relevant experience and expertise. Referees are asked to advise the editors as to whether an article should be published and, if so, with what recommended changes. The editors respond to the author with a decision, a list of any changes needed for the article to be accepted for publication, and the anonymous referees' comments, or a summary thereof.

PUBLICATION

Manuscripts accepted for publication that do not conform to the style guide may be rejected or returned to the author for amendment. The editors also reserve the right to alter usage to conform to the style guide issued by the publisher. Authors cannot supply new materials or request major alterations following the copyediting stage, so please ensure all text is final upon acceptance. Contributors of research articles will receive one free copy of the relevant issue and may purchase additional copies at a reduced price or purchase offprints. 

Have other questions about submitting your manuscript? Please refer to Berghahn’s Journal Author FAQs for additional information.

STYLE GUIDE

The Regions and Cohesion style guide is based on APA Style 6th edition. Please note that the journal uses US punctuation and spelling for English, following Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

CITATION SYSTEM

Regions and Cohesion follows the in-text author-date system, with full documentation in the reference list. Any other notes should be endnotes (using Word’s automatic endnote function) and kept short and to a minimum.

Author-Date Examples

Smith (1987) argues…

(Pickett & White, 1985; Smith, 1987)

Jones’s research (1977, 1979a, 1979b)

(Kant n.d.; McGinnis, forthcoming)

Single author with multiple sources: (Smith, 1993, p. 63; 1998, pp. 124–169)

Three or more authors: (Jones et al., 2001)

Authors with same last name: (D. Smith 1981; G. Smith 1999)

Original date of publication plus edition used: James (1890/1983)

Direct quotation from online material without pagination: (Basu & Jones, 2007,

para. 4)

The first mention of an author in the main body text (not in-text citations) should include the first and last name. Multiple sources in a parenthetical note should be listed alphabetically. Please note that translations of all non-English titles in the reference list are required for indexing/abstracting purposes (see the translated title examples provided below).

The references cannot be more than 20% of the total word count which means that bibliography should not surpass more than 30 references. Only two self-citations per author in the contribution are allowed.

REFERENCE LIST EXAMPLES

Book with one author/editor

Koff, H. (2008). Fortress Europe or a Europe of fortresses: The integration of migrants in Western Europe. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang.

Edited volume

Maganda, C., & Koff, H. (Eds.). (2009). Perspectivas comparativas del liderazgo

[Comparative perspectives on leadership]. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang.

Multiple authors/editors

Castles, S., & Miller, M. J. (2003). The age of migration. (3rd ed.). New York: Guilford

Press.

Edited book with an author or authors

Plath, S. (2000). The unabridged journals. K.V. Kukil, (Ed.). New York: Anchor.

Chapter or other part of a book

Cesarin, S. M. (2008). Los nuevos escenarios de integración en Asia y América Latina y el Caribe: La ASEAN y el MERCOSUR desde una perspectiva comparativa. In P. De Lombaerde, S. Kochi & J. B. Ruiz (Eds.), Del regionalismo latinoamericano a la integración interregional (pp. 281–312). Madrid: Siglo XXI España Editores.

Journal article (always include the doi)

Ceballos Medina, M. (2011). La política migratoria de Ecuador hacia Colombia Entre la integración y la “contención.” Regions and Cohesion 1(2), 45–77. https://doi.org/10.3167/reco.2011.010204 

Translations

Runciman, W. G. (1978). Weber: Selections in translation. (E. Matthews, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Article in a newspaper or magazine

Pelletier, E. & Pontaut, J.-M. (2005, 17–23 November). La sécurité: Proximité ou bâton. L’Express, 2837, 46–47.

Mohammad, Hani. (2011, 26 October). Yemeni women burn veils in protest. Washington Post.

Organization as authoring agent

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). (2007). IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4). Retrieved from http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml. 

OIM (Organización International para las Migraciones) (2005). Migración mundial 2005: Costos y beneficios de la migración internacional (No. 3, página 459). Ginebra: OIM World Migration Report Series.

Archive materials

Archive materials may be cited according to the particular kind of archival material being cited. Note that public documents might be cited differently than private documents in archives. 

Allport, G. W. (1930-1967). Correspondence. Gordon W. Allport Papers (HUG 4118.10). Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA.

Sparkman, C. F. (1973). An oral history with Dr. Colley F. Sparkman/Interviewer: Orley B. Caudill. Mississippi Oral History Program (Vol. 289), University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.

Websites and blogs

Access dates are only required when no date of publication or revision can be determined

from the source.

Marshall, R. (2011, 28 February). Falling on the sword of the spirit. Immanent Frame.

http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2011/02/28/falling-on-the-sword-of-the-spirit.

Plumwood, V. (2004). Environmental justice, in institutional issues involving ethics and justice. In R. C. Elliot (Ed.) Encyclopedia of life support systems (EOLSS). Oxford: UNESCO and Eolss Publishers. Retrieved from http://www.eolss.net. 

ARTICLE SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

•  Copyright assignment form is signed and submitted (no later than the final revised

article submission);

•  Cover page is included and provides:
•  Title of the article not exceeding 12 words;
• An abstract of 125 words that is a summary or overview of the entire article, and does not duplicate verbatim sections of the main text (in both English and French/Spanish if applicable); o Five to eight keywords (with only proper nouns capitalized) in alphabetical order and separated by commas (in both English and French/Spanish if applicable) not duplicated from the title;
• Complete contact information for each author (mailing address, phone number, and email);
•  A bio of 100 words for each author (including an ORCID) (in both English and French/Spanish if applicable);
• Total word count, the number of tables and/or figures included, and any acknowledgments.o
• For any figures, ensure that:

*Placement indicators and captions (with source/copyright information) have been provided in the main text for all figures and tables;

* Separate files are provided (clearly named and consecutively numbered) and in the required format with all accompanying permissions (for figures and tables sources should be stated). Figures should be submitted as individual file images with the above-mentioned characteristics. Tables should be submitted as individual word documents. 

PLEASE ENSURE THAT:

• The style guide has been followed;
• All text, including headings, notes, and references, is in a standard 12-point type, such as Times New Roman, with a 1-inch margin on all sides and no extra spaces between paragraphs;
• US spelling is used throughout, and a spellcheck has been performed;
• Different levels of headings are indicated by varying the typeface. Use bold type for an A head (a main text heading). Use bold italic for a B head (a first-level subheading). Use non-bold italic for a C head;
• Superscript note reference numbers and/or asterisks are not placed on article titles, headings, epigraphs, or the contributor’s name;

• Contributions are referred to as articles (not essays or papers);
• Numbers less than 10 are spelled out (as are large whole numbers, e.g., nine hundred), and all number ranges are non-abbreviated;
• Foreign-language words that are not common in US usage are italicized on every instance;
• Double quotation marks are used for all quotations and terms, except for quotes or terms within quotes, and quotations of more than 60 words are indented as extracts with no quotation marks;
• URLs are not located in the main text when used in a bibliographical sense (although names such as Amazon.com are acceptable). Any URLs have been relocated to endnotes or the reference list; 
• Abbreviations such as e.g., i.e., etc., and et al. are not used in the main text except within parentheses; 
• Every author mentioned in the reference list is cited in the main text or notes, and every author cited in the main text and notes is listed in the reference list.