Lectio Socialis is an international, double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal of political science that also welcomes work in public administration, international relations, and economics bearing on governance and power. The journal uses a continuous-publication model: once accepted, an article is copy-edited, assigned a DOI, and published online immediately, then gathered into a single annual volume at the end of the calendar year (December).

These guidelines explain how to prepare and submit a manuscript. Please follow them closely and use the journal’s article template. Submissions that do not meet these requirements may be returned for correction before review. The guidelines should be read together with the journal’s Ethical Principles and Publication Policy.

Scope and eligibility

–   The manuscript must fall within the journal’s aim and scope and make an original contribution that is policy-relevant or otherwise pertinent to political science and its related fields (public administration, international relations, and economics).

–   The journal publishes original research and review articles. Manuscripts are accepted in English only.

–   The work must be original, not previously published, and not under consideration elsewhere.

–   The main text (excluding the abstract, references, tables, and appendices) should be 4,000–10,000 words. Longer manuscripts may be considered at the Editor-in-Chief’s discretion.

–   The abstract should be 150–220 words and accompanied by five keywords.

Open access, copyright, and fees

Lectio Socialis is fully open access. Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction provided the original work is properly cited. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. The journal charges no submission or publication fees (no article-processing charges).

Because articles are published under CC BY 4.0, authors may also deposit the published version of record in institutional or subject repositories and on personal pages, provided they cite and link to the published article.

Manuscript preparation

Manuscripts must be prepared and submitted in the format of the journal’s article template. The template sets the page size (A4), the typeface (Cambria), and the house style described below; submissions that do not follow it may be returned before review.

→ 📝 Lectio-Socialis-Article-Template.docx   (with author details)

Files to upload (double-blind review)

→ 📝 Lectio-Socialis-Article-Template-Anonymized.docx 

→ 📝 Lectio-Socialis-Title-Page.docx  (Title Page)

To protect the integrity of the double-blind process, prepare and upload two separate files:

–   Title page — the article title; the full name of every author; each author’s affiliation (department, institution, city, and country); the ORCID iD of every author; and the corresponding author’s e-mail address. Funding and acknowledgements may also be placed here.

–   Anonymized main text — the complete manuscript with no identifying information. Remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, and any self-identifying wording, and refer to your own earlier work in the third person.

An ORCID iD for every author and a full affiliation with country are required for indexing and appear in the published metadata.

Abstract and keywords

Supply a single-paragraph, unstructured abstract of 150–220 words (about 200) in English. It must reflect the article accurately, contain nothing that does not appear in the main text, and remain accessible to a broad scholarly audience. Avoid citations, footnotes, and undefined abbreviations — spell out any abbreviation on first use.

In sequence, the abstract should give the background and objective (brief context, then the research question, hypothesis, or aim), the methods (research design, data, and analytical approach), the main results (key figures, observed patterns, and any statistical significance), and the conclusion (what the findings mean, how they answer the question, and why they matter).

Keep tense consistent: use the present tense for general statements, the paper’s purpose, and implications (“This study investigates…”, “The results suggest…”), and the past tense for the specific methods and results (“Data were collected…”, “Analysis showed…”).

Provide five keywords, in lower case, separated by commas, in order of importance.

Structure of the main text

Empirical articles should normally follow an IMRaD-style structure: Introduction; a theoretical or literature section; Data and methods; Findings; Discussion; and Conclusion. Review and theoretical articles may use thematic sections suited to the argument. The reference list follows the main text, after which the end-of-article statements appear (see below).

Headings, tables, figures, and equations

–   Headings — use sentence case for the title and all headings (capitalize only the first word and any proper nouns, e.g., “Secularization trends in Turkey: A comparative analysis”). Use no more than three heading levels, and do not number headings — the heading styles (section, subsection, sub-subsection) distinguish the levels.

–   Tables and figures — number them consecutively in the order cited. Give each a concise sentence-case caption, and place any source or notes directly beneath it. Refer to every table and figure in the text (e.g., “as Table 1 shows”). Supply figures at high resolution and tables as editable text, not images, and do not duplicate the same data in a table and in the text.

–   Equations — number displayed equations consecutively, with the number in parentheses at the right margin, e.g., (1).

–   Lists — use run-in numbering (1), (2) for a short series that fits within a sentence, and a vertical numbered list (1., 2., 3.) only for longer or standalone items; do not mix the two styles within an article.

–   Footnotes — use sparingly, for substantive comments only, numbered consecutively.

–   Language — write in American English (US spelling and punctuation) throughout, using clear and precise wording, and define each abbreviation at first use.

Inclusive language and reporting

Use inclusive, bias-free language throughout. Where sex or gender is relevant to the design or analysis, report and use these terms accurately and consistently, following the SAGER (Sex and Gender Equity in Research) guidelines.

Citations and references

Use the APA 7th edition author–date system for both in-text citations and the reference list.

In-text citations

–   Narrative: Okonkwo (2019, p. 12) argues that …

–   Parenthetical: … (Mercer, 2021, p. 45).

–   Two authors: Demir and Hale (2024) … or (Demir & Hale, 2024).

–   Three or more authors: (Adcock et al., 2021).

–   Same author and year: (Schmidt, 2020a, 2020b).

–   Use p. for a single page and pp. for a range (e.g., pp. 33–35).

Reference list

–   Title the list References. List entries alphabetically by the first author’s surname, with a hanging indent.

–   Use sentence case for the titles of articles, chapters, and books. Set journal and book titles in italics, capitalize the major words of journal titles, and italicize the volume number.

–   Include the DOI for every source that has one, written as a full link (https://doi.org/…). This is required.

–   For web sources without a DOI or other persistent identifier (government pages, NGO and think-tank reports, news items, blogs, social media), archive the page at the time of writing with the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and cite both the original URL and the archived snapshot, with the access date. To archive a page, open https://web.archive.org, paste the page’s address into the “Save Page Now” box, and copy the snapshot link it creates (it begins with https://web.archive.org/web/…); give it after the original URL as “Archived at [snapshot link]” — for example, https://example.org/report (Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20260312/https://example.org/report). Do not archive works that already carry a DOI. Where archiving could expose a participant or source to risk, or the content is paywalled, omit the snapshot and briefly note why.

–   Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of every reference; check each citation against its source.

–   Romanize (transliterate) sources written in non-Latin scripts (Arabic, Persian, Cyrillic, Greek, and so on), and add an English translation of the title in square brackets where helpful. Romanized references are required for international indexing.

Examples:

Adcock, R., & Bevir, M. (2021). Political science and the historical turn: Method and narrative. Journal of Comparative Political Theory, 14(2), 113–139. https://doi.org/10.0000/jcpt.2021.0142

Schmidt, V. A. (2020). Democracy in Europe: The challenge of legitimacy. University Press.

Okonkwo, C. D. (2019). Institutions and contentious politics. In I. J. Editor & K. L. Editor (Eds.), The handbook of comparative governance(pp. 75–102). Publisher. https://doi.org/10.0000/hcg.2019.ch5

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2023). Trust and public institutions: Cross-national evidence. https://www.example.org/report

American Political Science Association. (2022). Guide to professional ethics in political science (3rd ed.). https://www.example.org/ethics

Research and publication ethics

The journal follows the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Code of Conduct. Submission implies that all authors have read and accepted these standards.

Originality and plagiarism

Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable. A similarity report is generated at submission (via intihal.net; iThenticate or Turnitin may also be used). Manuscripts with a similarity rate above 30% are not sent for review. Quote sparingly, always with quotation marks and a page reference, and cite all sources.

Human and animal research

Ethics-committee approval is required for any research that needs it — including studies that collect data from human participants (surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, or experiments), research using humans or animals (including their materials or data), clinical studies, and retrospective studies subject to data-protection law. Report the committee name, decision number, and date in the Methods section and in the end-of-article ethics approval statement, which appears on one of the first or last pages (a TR-Dizin requirement). For case reports, obtain and state written informed consent, and secure permission before using any scale, survey, image, or other copyrighted material owned by others.

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the work, following the ICMJE criteria; use the CRediT taxonomy to describe each author’s role. Acquiring funding or general supervision alone does not justify authorship; other contributors may be named in the acknowledgements. The author list is considered final at submission, and any change (addition, removal, or reordering) must be requested by the corresponding author before acceptance, with the reasons and the written agreement of all authors.

An author who changes their name — for example, after marriage or gender transition — may request that their published work be updated; such requests are handled confidentially, without a public correction notice unless the author asks for one.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial competing interests, including funding sources, any role of sponsors, and any editorial-board membership at the journal. Perceived conflicts matter as much as actual ones. Editors and reviewers with a conflict must recuse themselves. Manuscripts authored by the journal’s editors or editorial-board members are not considered for publication and are returned without review.

Use of generative AI

Generative-AI tools may be used only to assist with language editing and proofreading, not for substantive analysis, interpretation, or the generation of scholarly content. AI tools cannot be listed as authors, and the authors remain fully responsible for the whole manuscript. Any use of such tools must be disclosed in the disclosure statement (see below).

Complaints and appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the Editor-in-Chief with a clear, point-by-point rationale. Complaints about the journal’s processes, its editors, or its staff are handled in line with COPE guidance: the editorial office acknowledges and investigates them and reports the outcome to the complainant.

Required end-of-article statements

Place the following statements after the reference list, in this order, keeping the headings in sentence case:

–   Acknowledgements — non-author assistance.

–   Funding — funder name(s) and grant number(s), or a statement that no funding was received.

–   Conflict of interest — competing interests, or a statement that none exist.

–   Disclosure statement — any use of generative-AI tools.

–   Author contributions — each author’s role, using the CRediT taxonomy.

–   Data availability statement — where the data and materials can be found, or the reason for any restriction.

–   Ethics approval statement — committee, decision number, and date; informed consent for case reports.

Sample statements:

Author contributions: Conceptualization, E.Y.D.; methodology, E.Y.D. and M.L.H.; formal analysis, M.L.H.; writing—original draft, E.Y.D.; writing—review and editing, E.Y.D. and M.L.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement: During the preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [name and version of the AI tool] in the language-editing and proofreading stages. The author(s) reviewed and edited the output and assume(s) full responsibility for all scientific interpretations, the content, and the ethical integrity of the work.

Ethics approval statement: This study was approved by the [name] Ethics Committee of [institution] (decision no. 0000/00, dated 00.00.2026). All procedures involving human participants complied with the relevant ethical standards, and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Data availability statement: The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the Lectio Socialis community on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.0000000. (Alternatively: available from the corresponding author on reasonable request; under controlled access owing to participant confidentiality; or included in the article and its supplementary materials.)

Data availability

Every research and review article must include a data availability statement, placed with the other end-of-article statements after the reference list. It states what data underlie the article, where they can be accessed, and on what terms, for both original and reused data. Where data cannot be shared, say so and explain why. The full requirements and a set of template statements are given in the journal’s Data availability policy.

Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their data, materials, and analysis code in a trustworthy repository and to cite the dataset — with its DOI — in the statement. The simplest route is the journal’s Zenodo community, Lectio Socialis (https://zenodo.org/communities/lectio); qualitative or sensitive data can be placed in QDR or ICPSR under controlled access. Sensitive or personal data must be anonymized or deposited under restricted access. Authors are also encouraged to preregister study designs where appropriate.

Peer review process

Lectio Socialis uses double-blind peer review, with each manuscript assessed by at least two independent reviewers. The main stages are:

–   Initial editorial check — the editorial team confirms that the manuscript fits the journal’s scope and meets these guidelines (normally within two weeks). Submissions by editors or editorial-board members are returned without review.

–   Anonymization and similarity check — identifying details are removed and a similarity report is produced; manuscripts above 30% similarity are not reviewed, and the editor may also assess language quality.

–   Review — suitable manuscripts are sent to at least two independent reviewers, who may accept, reject, or request minor or major revisions.

–   Decisions and a third reviewer — if two reviewers reject the manuscript, it is declined; where reviewers disagree, the editor may invite a third reviewer.

–   Revisions — authors normally have about two weeks for minor and four weeks for major revisions, and submit a separate point-by-point “Response to reviewers” file; manuscripts with major revisions are returned to the relevant reviewers.

–   Final decision — the handling editor makes the final decision. The process takes about three months on average.

Production and publication

Accepted manuscripts undergo copy-editing, layout, and proofreading, and authors check the final proof before publication. The publisher registers a DOI (via Crossref), and the article is published immediately under open access. Under the continuous-publication model, each article carries the annual volume number (10 for 2026, incrementing each year) and a unique article number; no issue number or page range is used. Published articles are preserved through the journal’s hosting platform (DergiPark) to ensure continued access. Cite a published article as:

Demir, E. Y., & Hale, M. L. (2026). Institutional trust and civic participation: A cross-national analysis. Lectio Socialis, 10, Article 000000. https://doi.org/10.47478/lectio.000000

Corrections, withdrawal, and retraction

To withdraw a submission, the corresponding author must send a formal request stating the reasons, with the agreement of all co-authors; withdrawal after review has begun requires a compelling scientific reason, and the final decision rests with the editors. Retractions follow COPE guidance and are reserved for serious problems such as misconduct or major error; a panel reviews the matter, and appeals may be submitted within two weeks of the decision. Readers may report suspected misconduct to the editorial office, which will investigate.

Contact

Submit manuscripts through the journal’s page on DergiPark (dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/lectio); e-mail submissions are not accepted. For questions about these guidelines, contact the editorial office through the journal’s contact page. Please also consult the journal’s Ethical Principles and Publication Policy, Peer Review Process, Reviewer Guidelines, Copyright Information, Open Access Policy, and Repository Policy.

Lectio Socialis upholds the highest standards of publication ethics and expects every party in the publication process — editors, reviewers, authors, and the publisher — to abide by them. These policies follow the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and COPE’s Ethical Oversight guidance, the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by COPE, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

All personal data of authors and reviewers are treated as confidential and are not disclosed to third parties except as required by law or for essential steps in the publication process. The journal oversees the whole workflow to ensure that everyone involved acts impartially and free of conflicts of interest. These principles should be read together with the journal’s Author Guidelines, Peer Review Process, Reviewer Guidelines, Copyright Information, Open Access Policy, Repository Policy, and Data availability policy.

Editorial independence, ownership, and funding

Lectio Socialis is published by Emrah Konuralp and hosted on the DergiPark platform of ULAKBİM (TÜBİTAK). The journal maintains complete editorial independence from all authorities, institutions, and commercial interests, and editorial decisions are based solely on scholarly merit and fit with the journal’s aim and scope.

The journal is fully open access and charges no submission or publication fees (no article-processing charges). It does not depend on advertising or sponsorship for its operation and does not accept advertisements. No third party may influence editorial decisions.

Editors’ responsibilities

–   Editors evaluate manuscripts solely on academic value, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal’s scope, without discrimination of any kind.

–   The Editor-in-Chief oversees an unbiased, double-blind peer-review process and makes the final decision on each manuscript based on the reviewers’ recommendations.

–   Editors avoid conflicts of interest. A manuscript in which an editor has a conflict (for example, from the same institution or a collaborator) is reassigned to another editor.

–   Where research requires ethics approval, editors ensure that the authors provide documented evidence and that it is stated in the manuscript.

–   The Editor-in-Chief handles complaints, grants criticized authors a right of reply, manages appeals, and issues corrections, clarifications, retractions, or apologies when necessary.

–   Editors keep submitted manuscripts confidential and disclose information only to the corresponding author, reviewers, and potential reviewers; they do not use unpublished material from a submission for their own research without the author’s written consent.

Reviewers’ responsibilities

–   Reviewers must be independent of the editorial board and of the authors’ affiliations, and must provide timely, objective, and constructive feedback. (See the Reviewer Guidelines.)

–   Reviewers should decline if they feel unqualified or have a conflict of interest, including competitive or collaborative relationships with the authors or their institutions.

–   Manuscripts under review are confidential and must not be shared or discussed with others without the Editor-in-Chief’s permission.

–   Reviewers should identify relevant published work not cited by the authors and alert the editor to any substantial similarity with other works.

–   Reviewers must not use information obtained through peer review for personal gain and must treat privileged information or ideas as confidential.

Authors’ responsibilities

–   The work must be original, not previously published, and not under consideration elsewhere. (See the Author Guidelines.)

–   The corresponding author ensures that all co-authors meet the ICMJE authorship criteria, have contributed substantially, and have approved the final manuscript before submission.

–   Authors give accurate accounts of the research, make raw data available on request, and share data publicly wherever possible.

–   Research involving human participants or animals must be addressed in the manuscript, with documented evidence of ethics-committee approval (committee name, decision number, and date).

–   Authors disclose all sources of financial support and any potential conflicts of interest.

–   If a significant error is found in a published work, authors promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief and cooperate in a correction or retraction.

–   Authors include an author-contributions statement using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy). For example:

Conceptualization: A. Author and B. Author (equal); Formal analysis: A. Author; Funding acquisition: B. Author; Writing – original draft: B. Author; Writing – review & editing: A. Author. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

–   The author list is final at submission; any change (addition, removal, or reordering) must be requested by the corresponding author before acceptance, with the reasons and the written agreement of all authors. An author who changes their name may request a discreet update to their published work.

–   Authors retain copyright and publish under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

Publisher’s responsibilities

The publisher supports the editorial independence of Lectio Socialis and does not interfere with editorial decisions. The publisher maintains the journal’s records, ensures that accepted articles receive a registered Crossref DOI and are preserved for continued access, and acts on well-founded concerns about research or publication misconduct. Where misconduct is confirmed, the publisher supports the publication of corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern, regardless of who raised the concern or when.

Conflicts of interest

All parties — authors, reviewers, and editors — must disclose any financial, personal, or professional interest that could bias the review or publication of a manuscript. Perceived conflicts matter as much as actual ones. Editors and reviewers with a conflict recuse themselves. As stated in the Author Guidelines, manuscripts authored by the journal’s editors or editorial-board members are not considered for publication and are returned without review.

Research ethics and ethical oversight

In line with COPE’s Ethical Oversight guidance, research that requires ethics-committee approval — including studies with human participants (surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, or experiments), research using humans or animals (or their materials or data), clinical studies, and retrospective studies subject to data-protection law — must obtain that approval before the research begins. The committee name, decision number, and date must appear in the Methods section and in the end-of-article ethics approval statement. For case reports, written informed consent must be obtained and stated, and permission must be secured before using any scale, survey, image, or other material owned by others.

Plagiarism, originality, and screening

All submitted manuscripts must be original. Every submission is screened with intihal.net; iThenticate or Turnitin may also be used. Manuscripts with a similarity rate above 30% are not sent for review. Plagiarism (including paraphrasing or using others’ ideas without acknowledgement), self-plagiarism, redundant or duplicate publication, data fabrication or falsification, and citation manipulation are strictly prohibited. Quotations must be marked and cited, and all sources acknowledged.

Research data and reproducibility

Lectio Socialis is committed to transparency and reproducibility. Every research and review article must include a data availability statement in its end matter, describing what data underlie the article, where they can be accessed, and on what terms (for example, privacy or biosecurity restrictions). Authors should follow discipline-specific standards for data sharing and reproducibility, make datasets FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) with a persistent identifier, and cite datasets in the references with author(s), year, repository name, and DOI. Compliance with COPE’s guidance on published and unpublished data is required, and corresponding authors are expected to respond to inquiries about their datasets. Data should be shared only where it is ethical and lawful to do so — sensitive or personal data must be anonymized or deposited under restricted access.

Authors are encouraged to deposit the data, materials, and code supporting their findings in a trustworthy repository — the journal’s Zenodo community or a subject repository such as ICPSR or QDR for sensitive or qualitative data — releasing data under CC BY 4.0 or CC0 where possible and citing the dataset DOI in the data availability statement. Full deposit instructions and template statements are provided in the journal’s Data availability policy.

For questions about this process, contact info@lectiosocialis.org.

Use of generative AI

Authors and editors may use generative-AI tools only to assist with language editing and proofreading, not to generate substantive content or to replace the human contributions expected in the design, analysis, and writing of an article. AI tools cannot be listed as authors, and the authors are fully responsible for the accuracy and integrity of the text. Any use of such tools must be disclosed — with the tool’s name and version and the content concerned — in the Methods or Acknowledgements section. The tool used must be stable and publicly accessible.

Allegations of misconduct

Lectio Socialis adopts a zero-tolerance policy towards academic misconduct, regardless of severity. Anyone may report concerns about research or publication misconduct to the editorial office through the Contact page. Allegations are handled promptly and fairly following COPE’s flowcharts. A panel investigates the claim; if it is substantiated, the manuscript is rejected or, if already published, retracted, and the decision is disclosed. The authors’ affiliated institutions may be notified of confirmed breaches. Authors are informed of the panel’s decision and may appeal within two weeks.

Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern

Minor errors are addressed through a correction or erratum. Serious problems — such as confirmed misconduct or major error — lead to a retraction issued in accordance with COPE’s retraction guidelines. Retraction notices are freely available, clearly identify the article, and link to it; the original article is retained for transparency. Where evidence is inconclusive, the journal may publish an expression of concern.

Complaints and appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by writing to the Editor-in-Chief with a clear, point-by-point rationale, and criticized authors are granted a right of reply. Complaints about the journal’s processes, its editors, or its staff are handled in line with COPE guidance: the editorial office acknowledges and investigates them and reports the outcome to the complainant. Appeals must be submitted within two weeks of the decision.

Open access, copyright, and licensing

Articles are published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, which allows others to copy, distribute, and adapt the work, including commercially, provided proper credit is given. Authors retain copyright. Because the licence is CC BY 4.0, authors may self-archive the published version of record in repositories and on personal pages with a link to the published article. See the journal’s Copyright Information, Open Access Policy, and Repository Policy.

Archiving and preservation

Accepted articles receive a registered Crossref DOI and are published and preserved on the DergiPark platform, ensuring continued access to the version of record. Under the journal’s continuous-publication model, each article carries the annual volume number (10 for 2026, incrementing each year) and a unique article number.

Contact

Concerns about ethics or this policy may be sent to the editorial office at info@lectiosocialis.org, or through the journal’s Contact page.