ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
The Editorial Board, Editorial Board, Advisory Board, authors and referees of the SBF Dergisi are committed to preventing publishing malpractices in accordance with academic and ethical standards. The ethical principles and publication policy of the Ankara University SBF Dergisi have been prepared in accordance with the guidelines and policies published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Actions Contrary to Scientific Research and Publication Ethics
• Plagiarism: Representing the original ideas, methods, data or works of others as one's own work in whole or in part without citation in accordance with scientific rules,
• Forgery: Using non-existent or falsified data in scientific research,
• Distortion: Falsifying research records or data, falsifying devices or materials that were not used in the research, falsifying or shaping the results of the research in line with the interests of the persons and organizations receiving support,
• Republishing: Presenting duplicate publications as separate publications for academic appointments and promotions,
• Slicing: Inappropriately and inappropriately dividing the results of a research into parts in a way that disrupts the integrity of the research and publishing them in more than one issue and presenting these publications as separate publications in academic appointments and promotions,
• Unfair authorship: Including or excluding people who have not actively contributed, changing the author ranking in an unjustified and inappropriate manner, removing the names of active contributors from the work in subsequent editions, using one's influence to have one's name included among the authors even though one has not actively contributed,

Other types of ethical violations include:
a) Failing to acknowledge the individuals, institutions, or organisations that provided support for research conducted with such support, or failing to acknowledge their contributions in publications resulting from such research,
b) Using theses or studies that have not yet been submitted or defended and accepted as a source without the permission of the owner,
c) Sharing information contained in a work assigned for review with others prior to publication without the express permission of the author,
ç) Using resources, premises, facilities, and equipment provided or allocated for scientific research for purposes other than those intended,
d) Making unfounded, inappropriate, and deliberate allegations of ethical violations,
e) Publishing data obtained without the explicit consent of participants in surveys and attitude studies conducted as part of scientific work, or without the additional permission of the institution if the research is to be conducted at an institution,
f) Failure to comply with the obligation to inform and warn those concerned about possible harmful practices related to scientific research conducted by researchers and officials,
g) In scientific studies, failing to use data and information obtained from other persons and institutions to the extent and in the manner authorised, failing to respect the confidentiality of this information and failing to ensure its protection,
h) Making false or misleading statements regarding scientific research and publications in academic appointments and promotions,

Research Ethics Principles
• Scientific integrity, integrity, quality, and transparency should be adopted as fundamental principles in the planning of research, the development of its methodological framework, its ethical evaluation, and the execution of its implementation processes. Every stage of the research process should be documented and open to audit when necessary.
• The research team and participants should be informed in a clear and understandable manner about the purpose, scope, method, data collection tools, how the data will be analyzed, and the possible uses of the findings. The obligations required for participation in the research, possible risks, and expected contributions should be clearly explained to the participants.
• Personal data obtained from participants must be kept confidential; technical and administrative measures must be taken to prevent the disclosure of identity information. The principles of anonymity and privacy must be observed; actions must comply with data protection legislation (e.g., regulations on the protection of personal data). The research design should be structured in a way that protects the autonomy, human dignity, and fundamental rights of participants.
• Participation in the research should be entirely voluntary. Participants should not be subjected to any pressure, coercion, or expectation of benefit. Participants should have the right to withdraw from the study at any stage without facing any repercussions.
• All necessary measures should be taken to ensure that participants do not suffer physical, psychological, social, or economic harm during the research process. A risk analysis should be conducted, and the research should be planned to minimize potential harm. When children, restricted individuals, or persons with limited mental capacity are involved, permission should be obtained from their legal representatives, and relevant ethical committee approvals should be secured.
• Researchers should maintain their scientific independence and clearly declare any conflicts of interest that could influence the design, analysis, or results of the study. Financial support, sponsorship, or institutional affiliations should be transparently disclosed.
• If the research is to be conducted within any public institution, private organization, or university, official permission should be obtained from the relevant institution and, if necessary, ethical committee approval should be secured. 

Ethics Committee Approval
Our journal requires that the relevant ethics committee decision must be obtained for all studies in all disciplines that require ethics committee approval. In this context, authors should write the date and number of Ethics Committee approval in the “Sampling and Methods/ Materials and Methods” section.
In line with the regulations implemented by Ulakbim TR Index since 2020, studies that do not have ethics committee permission are not evaluated in our journal.
Studies Requiring Ethics Committee Approval
Studies requiring ethics committee approval in our journal include the following:
• All research conducted using qualitative or quantitative approaches that involve collecting data from participants through methods such as surveys, interviews, focus group studies, observation, and interview techniques.
• Retrospective studies within the framework of the Personal Data Protection Law.
For such studies to be considered for evaluation, the relevant ethics committee approvals must have been obtained and clearly stated in the article text.

Plagiarism Checker
Plagiarism occurs in the form of presenting someone else's work as one's own, copying someone else's work as it is or by changing its form without citation, and appropriating the results of research done by others. Plagiarism is unethical and unacceptable no matter how it is done.
SBF Journal takes a strict stance on issues related to copyright infringement, plagiarism or other violations of quality publishing. It takes all allegations of plagiarism or misuse of published articles seriously. Articles with plagiarized content are removed from publication. Manuscripts submitted to the SBF Journal are uploaded to the plagiarism prevention program and the similarity rate is determined. In addition, methods such as publishing a correction, withdrawing the article, contacting the author's institution or taking legal action may be applied to eliminate the detected errors.

If plagiarism is detected in an article submitted or published in our journal, our journal acts in accordance with the COPE principles (Plagiarism in a submitted manuscript - Plagiarism in a published article).

Relations with the Journal Owner and Publisher
The relationship between the editor and the publisher is based on the principle of editorial independence. In accordance with the written contract between the editor and the publisher, all editorial decisions are independent of the publisher and the journal owner.

Correction, Retraction, Expression of Concern
Editors may consider publishing a correction if minor errors are identified in the published article that do not affect the findings, interpretations and conclusions. In the case of major errors/violations that invalidate findings and conclusions, editors should consider retracting the article. COPE Principles (1,2,3,4,5,6) are taken into account in relation to correction, withdrawal or expression of concern.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights
Our journal is obliged to protect the intellectual property rights of all published articles and to defend the rights of the journal and the author(s) in case of possible violations.

Protection of Personal Data of Participants
All personal data sent to our journal are protected in accordance with legal regulations and ethical rules.

Complaints
Any unethical behavior of the editors, referees, or authors of the SBF Dergisi, or any unethical situation regarding an article in the review process, in early view, or in a published manuscript should be reported to AUSBF.Dergi@politics.ankara.edu.tr. Our journal follows the procedure outlined in the COPE Principles (1,2) for complaints.

Conflicts of interest
Our journal guarantees the independent and impartial completion of the publication process, taking into account the conflicts of interest between the author(s), reviewers and other editors. Our journal acts in accordance with COPE principles (1,2) regarding potential conflicts of interest.

Change of Author
Only the article is processed before acceptance. Authors are required to carefully review the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the final author list at the time of original submission. Our journal acts in accordance with COPE principles (1,2,3,4,5) regarding relevant changes.

Responsibilities of Stakeholders

1- Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

Impartiality and Objectivity:
Editors should evaluate submitted manuscripts based on the quality of the content and should not discriminate based on the identity, institution, gender, language or ethnicity of the author.
Preservation of Double Blind Process:
Editors should not allow direct communication between authors and reviewers and should protect the confidentiality of both parties' identities.
Fair Reviewer Appointment:
Appoint reviewers who are independent, have no conflict of interest, and are appropriate to the field of expertise.
Avoiding Conflict of Interest:
The editor should not intervene in the process if there is any personal or institutional conflict of interest in the submitted manuscript.
Monitoring the Refereeing Process:
The editor should supervise the compliance of referee evaluations with ethical and scientific standards and ensure that the process is completed on time.
Protection of Confidentiality:
Submitted studies should be treated as confidential documents until they are published and should not be shared with third parties.
Intervention in Violations of Publication Ethics:
In cases of plagiarism, fabricated data or suspicion of unethical behavior, the necessary investigation should be initiated and COPE guidelines should be followed.
Considering Author and Reviewer Feedback:
Contribute to the continuous improvement of processes by carefully evaluating feedback.

2- Responsibilities of Reviewers

Objective and Scientific Evaluation:
Evaluations should be made objectively, based on scientific criteria and in a constructive language.
Respect for Confidentiality:
The reviewed article should be considered as a confidential document; it should not be shared with third parties.
Avoiding Conflict of Interest:
If there is a personal or institutional conflict of interest with the article, the reviewer should not accept the evaluation task.
Timely Feedback:
The report should be submitted within the review period; in case of delay, the editor should be informed.
Citation of References:
When important studies that have not been cited by the author are identified, the editor should be notified and the source should be suggested.
Reporting Ethical Violations:
If plagiarism, data fabrication or unethical behavior is noticed, the editor should be informed immediately.

3- Responsibilities of Authors

Presenting Original and Authentic Work:
Authors should only submit their own original research and avoid plagiarism and copy-paste content.
Data Accuracy:
The data used must be factual; no fabricated, distorted or misleading information should be presented.
Ethics Committee Approval:
For studies requiring ethics committee approval, the relevant permission must be obtained and clearly stated in the article.
Author Contribution Statement:
All authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the study and their contribution rates must be clearly stated.
Declaration of Conflicts of Interest:
Any financial or personal conflicts of interest should be clearly stated.
Multiple Submissions:
The same study should not be simultaneously submitted to another journal or previously published.
Proper Citation of Sources:
All sources used must be properly cited and citations must comply with ethical rules.
Responsibility for Correction or Retraction:
If an error is noticed after publication, the editor should be informed and a correction or retraction should be requested.

PUBLICATION POLICIES

1- General Principles
• SBF Dergisi is a pioneering peer-reviewed journal that has been published quarterly (March-June-September-December) since 1943, following an open publication policy, especially in the field of political science and economics, for original research and analysis.
• Our journal adopts an inclusive and broad perspective by accepting social, political and economic research and analysis on issues concerning Turkey and the world.
• The target audience of our journal consists of professionals, experts, academics, researchers, specialists and doctoral students working in the field of political science, international relations and economics, as well as undergraduate and graduate students studying in related fields.
• The following qualifications are sought in the articles submitted to the journal: Original conceptual framework and methodology, new empirical findings supporting policy making and implementation, and critical analysis and debate.
• Original, previously unpublished manuscripts, manuscripts that are not under review in another journal, and manuscripts whose content and submission have been approved by each author are accepted for review.

2- Article Evaluation Process
In our journal, the article evaluation process consists of four basic stages: preliminary review, peer review, revision, and publication.

A. Preliminary Review
Submitted works are first evaluated by the editor in terms of their compliance with the journal's publication policies, academic writing principles, and the APA 7 System. At this stage, a similarity scan is performed using the İThenticate software used by the journal. The similarity rate is expected to be below 15%, except in exceptional cases such as the text having been previously published as a working paper.

B. Peer Review Process
For works that meet the preliminary review criteria, a double-blind peer review process is initiated. The article is sent to two independent reviewers who are experts in the field. Both the author's and the reviewers' identities are kept confidential throughout the review process, which is conducted in accordance with ethical principles and confidentiality guidelines.
If both reviewers submit positive reports, the work is accepted for publication.
If one of the reviewers submits a negative report, the article is referred to a third reviewer, and the decision is made based on that reviewer's decision.

C. Revision Process
If revisions are requested by the reviewers, authors must submit the suggested corrections marked in a different color (e.g., red) in the work. During the revision process, the author is expected to upload a text/texts containing responses to each of the reviewers' comments to the system. The changes made are first reviewed by the editor and then by the relevant reviewers.
Studies that have completed the referee process are also reviewed by the journal's language editors.
In cases where it is deemed necessary in terms of language and spelling, authors are asked to make additional corrections. The linguistic revisions made are checked again and approved.

D. Publication Process
All scientific, technical, and linguistic processes completed, articles are prepared for publication after typesetting and layout. Approved works are published in early view.

NOTE: The final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of all submissions to our journal is made by the Editorial Board. 

3- Copyright and Open Access Policy
The copyright of articles published in the journal belongs to the authors, while the commercial use rights belong to our journal. All articles published in our journal under open access are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. You can find detailed information about our copyright policy on the Copyright Form. Click here for Copyright Form.

License Scope
Share: You may copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format.
As long as you comply with the license terms, the license holder cannot revoke these freedoms (the specified rights).
Under the following conditions:
Attribution: You must provide appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may comply with these conditions appropriately, but this does not imply that the license holder approves of you or your use.
Non-Commercial: You may not use this material for commercial purposes.
No Derivatives: If you have mixed, transferred, or worked on the material, you may not distribute the updated material.
No additional restrictions: You may not use laws or technology to restrict the rights granted by the license to others.

4- Archiving Policy
Articles published in our journal are digitally archived in LOCKSS and DSpace. Articles published in our journal can be accessed free of charge at https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/ausbf/archive. Our journal also allows authors to archive versions of their work on their own websites, institutional websites, and other repositories. Since our journal is open access, there is no embargo period.

Special Issue Policy
With the decision of the Editorial Board, a special issue may be published once a year. For articles to be published in the special issue, the publication and evaluation principles are applied as applied in the planned issues.

Price Policy
Article submission, evaluation and publication processes in our journal are completely free of charge. No fee is charged for articles submitted or accepted for publication. In accordance with our publication policy, sponsorship and advertising are not accepted and all expenses of our journal are covered by Ankara University.