Ethical standards

The Journal of Political Communication subscribes to the ethical principles and best practices established as international standards by the organizations CSE (Council of Science Editors) and COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). Among these are the standards adopted at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity, Singapore (2010):

Editorial Team

  • The editorial team must perform its editorial functions based on best practices in scientific publishing, promoting transparency, originality, integrity, and quality in all publications.
  • It must adopt measures for the detection of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, fraud through falsification or manipulation of data, and redundant or duplicate publication.

Editor

  • The editor is responsible for everything published in the journal. They must base their decisions on the validity of the work and its importance to the readers; therefore, they are free to express their impressions derived from the review of articles in a critical but responsible and respectful manner.
  • Editor Decisions to accept or reject an article for publication must be objective and based solely on the importance, originality, and clarity of the subject matter.
  • You must maintain cordial and respectful communication with members of the editorial team, scientific and editorial committees, authors, and reviewers.
  • You must promote responsible behavior and discourage poor editorial practices.
  • You must act as a guarantor of the confidentiality of the information contained in received manuscripts and evaluation comments.
  • You must provide updated information on authorship criteria, following international ethical standards in publishing.
  • You must take corrective action in cases of plagiarism or other misconduct.
  • You must inform authors if the article will be admitted to the peer review process.
  • You may retract published articles in cases of proven misconduct.

Authors

  • Authors must be committed to the ethical and responsible development of their research.
  • Their research work must be their own original, unpublished, and original work. It must not contain plagiarism or self-plagiarism. Authors must provide their personal information correctly.
  • Articles must be consistent with the content of the work; that is, the identified research problem must correspond to the article's objectives, methodology, results, and conclusions.
  • Authors must submit all documentation required by the editorial team in a transparent and original manner.
  • Authors must provide permissions if they used resources from other authors (images, etc.).
  • Authors must confirm that their manuscript proposal has not been submitted to another journal.
  • Authors agree to declare any potential conflicts of interest.

Reviewers

  • Reviewers must adopt a comprehensive approach when evaluating articles. The review must be objective in relation to the content of the work.
  • Reviewers' decisions must be based on scientific rigor and quality.
  • Their comments must be well-reasoned, always showing respect for the author's work.
  • Reviewers must inform the editor if they detect any similarity between the work they are reviewing and any published work, or if they are aware of a similar work under review. Reviewers will not have access to the authors' data and may not request information about them.
  • They must submit their reviews within the journal's deadline.

Furthermore, follow the editorial best practices protocols of Elsevier (PERK Publishing Ethics Resource Kit) and Wiley (Ethics Guidelines), which guide decision-making regarding the following conflicts:

  • Authorship conflicts.
  • Duplication, concurrent publication, or simultaneous submission to multiple publications.
  • Appropriation of research results.
  • Research fraud or errors.
  • Violation of research standards.
  • Undisclosed conflicts of interest.
  • Reviewer bias.