Submissions

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Thank you for your interest in contributing to Governance and Policy Critique!

We accept submissions on a rolling basis. Interested contributors are requested to go through the categories mentioned below and consider submitting an article/essay for any category that interests them.

Guidelines For Contributions

Contributors are requested to follow the GAP’s style sheet while preparing their articles. The style sheet may be referred to here. It will help immensely for faster processing and error-free editing if writers follow the recommended style sheet, especially with regard to citation and preparation of the bibliography.

Special Articles

GAP  welcomes original research papers in any of the social sciences.

  • Articles must be no more than 7,000 words long, including figures, tables, endnotes and references. Longer articles will not be processed.
  • Contributions should be sent by email.
  • Special articles should be accompanied by an abstract of a maximum of 200 words.
  • Papers should not have been simultaneously submitted for publication to another journal or newspaper. If the paper has appeared earlier in a different version, we would appreciate a copy of this along with the submitted paper.

Graphs and charts need to be prepared in MS Office (Word/Excel) and not in jpeg or other formats.

  •  Receipt of articles will be immediately acknowledged by email. If contributors have not received an acknowledgement within a week of submission, they are requested to check their spam folders for the mail and write to us
  •  Every effort is taken to complete the early processing of the papers we receive. However, we receive a good number of articles every week and adequate time has to be provided for internal reading and external refereeing. It can, therefore, take up to four months for a final decision on whether the paper for the Special Article section is accepted for publication.
  • Articles accepted for publication can take up to twelve months from the date of acceptance to appear in the GAP.
  • Papers with immediate relevance for policy would be considered for early publication. Please note that this is a matter of editorial judgment.

Commentary/Perspective/Insight

GAP invites short contributions to the ‘Commentary’ section on topical social, economic and political developments. These should ideally be between 1,500 and 2,500 words. A decision on Commentary-length articles will be communicated within 6-8 weeks, or earlier.

Keywords-Authors are requested to list six to eight keywords for their articles.

Book Reviews –GAP sends out books for review. It does not normally accept unsolicited reviews. However, all reviews that are received are read with interest and unsolicited review on occasion is considered for publication.

Discussion –GAP encourages researchers to comment on articles published in GAP. Submissions should be 1,000 to 1,600 words.

Letters –Readers of GAP are encouraged to comment (300 words) on published articles.

All letters should have the writer’s full name and postal address.

Postscript –GAP welcomes submissions of 800-1,200 words on travel, literature, dance, music and films for publication in this section.

General Guidelines

  • Writers are requested to provide full details for correspondence: postal address, day-time phone numbers and email address. GAP requests writers not to send revised versions based on stylistic changes/additions, deletions of references, minor changes, etc, as this poses challenges in processing.
  • Revised versions will not be processed. When there are major developments in the field of study after the first submission, authors can send a revised version.

Copyright

  • GAP posts all published articles on its website and may reproduce them on CDs.
  • GAP  also posts all published articles on select databases.
  • Copyright of all articles published in GAP belongs to the author or to the organisation where the author is employed as determined by the author’s terms of employment.

Permission for Reproduction

  • No published article or part thereof should be reproduced in any form without prior permission of the author(s). A soft/hard copy of the author(s)’s approval should be sent to GAP
  • We have no restrictions on the language expression, and technical pieces are also welcome, although they must contain links which would help the readers understand certain jargons and concepts better.

Areas of study

The mandate of the journal is to do research on the discourse of public policy and is based on the following areas where PCI works enthusiastically. These are;

  • GOVERNANCE, INNOVATION & PUBLIC POLICY
  • GROWTH, MACRO TRADE & ECONOMIC POLICY
  • POLITICS, LAW & ECONOMICS
  • SOCIAL MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
  • EMPLOYMENT SKILLS & RURAL TRANSFORMATION
  • AGRICULTURE & RURAL DEVELOPMENT
  • HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT
  • SCIENCE & EDUCATION
  • URBAN TRANSFORMATION
  • MEDIA CULTURE AND SOCIETY
  • STATE AND DEMOCRACY

Themes of the publication of research paper, it should be based on the themes when a call for papers are advertised on the website and circulated in an email. The themes that are prescribed should be focused specifically on Governance and Policy.

Apart from the research articles not submitted during the notification of call for paper can submit their full papers through email. Such type of article if accepted will be published in a special issue as per the decision of the editorial committee. The other research discourse such as opinions, book reviews, commentary, editorials, insights, perspective, etc., can be submitted at any time. Such fields have no time bound submission but the topics in which the paper is based have to be on related with respect to public policy. It is advised to all the interested participants to strictly adhere to the themes.

Who Can Contribute?

GAP Critique prides itself on being an egalitarian space. Anyone can submit a post to the editorial team for consideration, however, we will only publish work that our editors deem to be of good quality and that comply with the guidelines set out on this page.

How to Contribute?

  1. Email the editorial team at journalgap@gmail.com with a draft post. A member of the editorial team will then be in contact to discuss your post and to schedule a date for publication on the website;
  2. Submit your post in Word format only;
  3. A member of the editorial team will then review your post and will provide you with comments and suggested edits;
  4. Once your post is ready, we will then publish it on the website and promote the post via our social media networks.