Global Governance Systems Review (GGSR) welcomes original, rigorous, and internationally relevant scholarship addressing governance systems, public institutions, public administration, public policy, institutional design, and related areas within the journal's Aims & Scope.

Authors should read these guidelines carefully before submitting a manuscript. Submission to GGSR indicates that the authors have read and agree to comply with the journal's editorial, ethical, peer-review, copyright, licensing, and research-integrity policies.

Manuscripts that do not conform substantially to the journal's scope or basic submission requirements may be returned to the authors before external peer review.

1. Scope and Suitability

Manuscripts submitted to GGSR should make a clear scholarly contribution to the study of governance systems, public institutions, public administration, public policy, comparative governance, global governance, regulatory governance, institutional change, or related fields.

The journal welcomes disciplinary and interdisciplinary research from public administration, public policy, political science, international relations, institutional studies, political economy, public law, development studies, sociology, and related fields where governance institutions, administrative systems, or policy processes constitute a substantive component of the research question.

Single-country, single-jurisdiction, and single-institution studies are welcome when they provide theoretical, comparative, methodological, institutional, or policy insights that extend beyond the immediate empirical case.

Purely descriptive manuscripts, advocacy pieces without sufficient scholarly analysis, manuscripts with only incidental connections to governance, and papers lacking a clearly identifiable scholarly contribution may be considered outside the journal's scope.

2. Article Types

Article Type	Typical Length	Description
Original Research Article	6,000–9,000 words	Original theoretical or empirical research making a substantial contribution to governance, public administration, public policy, or institutional studies.
Review Article	6,000–10,000 words	Critical, systematic, scoping, or integrative reviews that synthesize an identifiable body of scholarship and develop conclusions relevant to future research.
Theoretical or Conceptual Article	5,000–8,000 words	Articles developing, integrating, testing, or reconsidering theories, concepts, institutional frameworks, or analytical approaches.
Comparative Study	6,000–9,000 words	Comparative institutional, administrative, governance, or policy research involving multiple jurisdictions, systems, organizations, periods, or cases.
Policy and Institutional Analysis	4,000–7,000 words	Evidence-based analysis of important institutional, administrative, regulatory, or policy developments with broader scholarly significance.
Research Note	3,000–5,000 words	Concise reports of novel findings, datasets, methodological developments, replications, preliminary evidence, or focused theoretical contributions.
Commentary / Perspective	2,000–4,000 words	Scholarly analysis or perspective concerning significant developments or debates relevant to the journal's scope.

Word limits are intended as general editorial guidance. Authors may provide a brief justification where the nature of the research requires a substantially different length. The editors may request shortening or restructuring where necessary.

3. Language

GGSR publishes scholarly articles in English.

Manuscripts should be written in clear, professional, and academically appropriate English. Authors are responsible for ensuring that language quality is sufficient for scholarly evaluation.

The journal evaluates manuscripts on their scholarly contribution and does not discriminate against authors on the basis of linguistic background. However, manuscripts whose language substantially prevents reliable academic assessment may be returned for language revision before peer review.

Either British or American English may be used, provided usage is consistent throughout the manuscript.

4. Manuscript Format

Manuscripts should be submitted in an editable word-processing format. Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) is preferred unless the journal's submission system specifies otherwise.

The manuscript should use a clear and consistent academic format. Authors should employ consecutively numbered headings where useful, maintain consistent spelling and terminology, and ensure that tables, figures, equations, notes, citations, and references can be clearly identified.

Formatting at initial submission does not need to reproduce the final journal typesetting. Academic clarity and consistency are more important than attempting to imitate the published article layout.

5. Title

The title should be concise, informative, and accurately reflect the principal research question, subject, and contribution of the manuscript.

Authors should avoid unnecessarily long titles, unexplained abbreviations, rhetorical exaggeration, promotional language, and claims that exceed the evidence presented in the manuscript.

6. Abstract

Research manuscripts should normally include an abstract of approximately 150–250 words.

The abstract should provide a concise account of the research problem or objective, methodological or analytical approach, principal findings or arguments, and the main scholarly contribution or implications of the study.

The abstract should be understandable without reference to the main text. Citations, undefined abbreviations, extensive methodological detail, and unsupported claims should generally be avoided.

7. Keywords

Authors should provide approximately 4–8 keywords that accurately represent the principal topics, concepts, methods, geographical settings, or theoretical approaches addressed in the manuscript.

Keywords should support accurate discovery and indexing and should not simply repeat every word already contained in the article title.

8. Recommended Structure for Research Articles

GGSR does not impose a single rigid structure on all disciplines or methodologies. However, empirical research articles should normally provide a clearly identifiable introduction, engagement with relevant literature and theory, description of research design and methods, presentation of findings or results, interpretation and discussion, and conclusion.

Qualitative, historical, comparative, theoretical, legal-institutional, and interdisciplinary manuscripts may adopt alternative structures appropriate to their scholarly traditions, provided that the research question, evidence, analytical method, argument, and contribution remain clear.

9. Introduction and Scholarly Contribution

The introduction should identify the research problem, explain its scholarly significance, establish the relevant context, and state the manuscript's research question, objective, or central argument.

Authors should make clear what the manuscript contributes beyond existing research. Contributions may be theoretical, empirical, methodological, comparative, institutional, conceptual, or policy-relevant, but should be supported by the analysis presented in the article.

GGSR particularly values manuscripts that explain why findings derived from a particular jurisdiction, institution, or policy case matter for broader governance scholarship.

10. Literature and Theoretical Framework

Manuscripts should engage critically with relevant international and field-specific scholarship.

The literature review should not function merely as a catalogue of previous studies. Authors should identify the relevant debate, theoretical problem, research gap, unresolved question, or body of evidence to which the manuscript contributes.

References should be selected on the basis of scholarly relevance rather than nationality, publisher, journal, author identity, or perceived citation advantage.

11. Research Methods

Empirical manuscripts should describe their methods in sufficient detail to permit readers and reviewers to understand how the research was designed, conducted, and analysed.

Where relevant, authors should explain case selection, sampling, data sources, measurement, operationalization, analytical procedures, statistical models, coding strategies, experimental procedures, computational methods, limitations, and applicable ethical approvals.

Authors should distinguish clearly between exploratory, descriptive, correlational, causal, and confirmatory claims and should ensure that conclusions remain proportionate to the research design and evidence.

12. Quantitative and Computational Research

Authors submitting quantitative or computational research should provide sufficient information concerning data sources, variable definitions, model specifications, analytical procedures, software or computational environments, and robustness or sensitivity analyses where appropriate.

Where ethical, legal, contractual, and technical conditions permit, authors are encouraged to make analysis code and supporting data available through an appropriate repository.

Statistical significance should not be treated as a substitute for substantive interpretation. Authors are encouraged to report effect sizes, uncertainty measures, confidence intervals, model diagnostics, or other information appropriate to the analytical approach.

13. Qualitative Research

Qualitative manuscripts should describe the research design, case or participant selection, sources of evidence, data collection, analytical approach, and procedures used to support the credibility and transparency of interpretation.

Where interviews, focus groups, observations, archival records, documentary materials, or other qualitative sources are used, authors should explain their relevance to the research question and address applicable ethical and confidentiality considerations.

14. Comparative and Case-Based Research

Comparative research should explain the rationale for selecting countries, institutions, organizations, policies, periods, or cases and clarify the basis on which comparisons are made.

Single-case studies should explain the broader theoretical or institutional significance of the case. A manuscript should not rely solely on the importance of the location or policy topic to establish its scholarly contribution.

15. Systematic Reviews and Evidence Syntheses

Systematic, scoping, bibliometric, meta-analytic, and other structured reviews should explain their research question, information sources, search strategy, eligibility criteria, screening procedures, analytical approach, and limitations with sufficient transparency to allow readers to understand how the evidence base was constructed.

Where an established reporting framework is applicable to the particular review methodology, authors are encouraged to follow it and identify the framework used.

16. Tables and Figures

Tables and figures should contribute directly to the analysis and should not unnecessarily duplicate information already presented in the text.

Each table and figure should have a clear number, title, and explanatory note where required. Sources should be acknowledged where material is reproduced or adapted from another work.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they possess the necessary rights or permissions for third-party figures, tables, maps, photographs, instruments, or other copyrighted material.

Figures should be of sufficient resolution and quality for scholarly publication. The editorial or production team may request separate high-resolution files following acceptance.

17. References and Citation Style

GGSR uses the APA Style, 7th edition as its standard reference and citation system.

Authors should ensure that every source cited in the text appears in the reference list and that every entry in the reference list is cited in the manuscript.

Where available, Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) should be included in references in their standard URL format.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of references. References should accurately represent the sources consulted and should not be added solely for the purpose of increasing citations to particular authors, journals, institutions, editors, or publishers.

Excessive self-citation, coercive citation, irrelevant citation, citation cartels, and citation manipulation are inconsistent with the journal's publication-integrity standards.

18. Author Names and Affiliations

Author information supplied through the submission system should be complete and accurate.

Each author should provide their full name, institutional affiliation, city, and country or region. Where appropriate, department, school, faculty, research institute, or other organizational unit may also be provided.

One author should be identified as the corresponding author and should provide a reliable email address for editorial and publication correspondence.

Authors should ensure that their names and affiliations are presented consistently with their scholarly identity and institutional status at the time the research was conducted or submitted, as appropriate.

19. ORCID

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide an ORCID iD during submission.

ORCID identifiers should belong to the individual author concerned and should not be entered on behalf of another person without authorization.

The journal may display authenticated ORCID identifiers in article metadata and published articles where supported by the publishing platform.

20. Double-Anonymous Peer Review and Manuscript Anonymization

GGSR operates a double-anonymous peer-review model for research manuscripts subject to external peer review. The identities of authors are normally withheld from reviewers, and the identities of reviewers are normally withheld from authors.

Authors should therefore prepare the manuscript file so that it does not unnecessarily disclose their identity.

Names, affiliations, acknowledgements, author biographies, email addresses, ORCID identifiers, and other identifying information should be entered through the journal submission system rather than included in the anonymized manuscript file where the system provides separate metadata fields.

Self-citations should not normally be removed where doing so would distort the scholarly record. They should instead be written in the third person and cited in the same manner as other scholarship. Authors should avoid statements that unnecessarily reveal authorship, such as “in our previous study”.

Information that must be temporarily removed to preserve anonymity may be restored following acceptance.

21. Authorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial scholarly contributions to the work and who accept responsibility for the published article.

All listed authors should approve the submitted manuscript and its authorship order before submission. Individuals who do not meet the journal's criteria for authorship should not be included as authors solely because of professional seniority, administrative authority, funding relationships, personal relationships, or honorary considerations.

Ghost authorship, guest authorship, and honorary authorship are inconsistent with the journal's authorship standards.

22. Contributor Roles

GGSR encourages authors to describe individual contributions using the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy where applicable.

Contributor statements may identify roles such as conceptualization, methodology, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, software, visualization, writing, supervision, project administration, or funding acquisition.

Contributor statements supplement rather than replace the journal's authorship requirements.

23. Changes to Authorship

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after initial submission must be explained and agreed to by all affected authors.

Changes requested after acceptance require particularly careful editorial consideration and may require documentary confirmation.

The journal may decline an authorship change where the reason provided is insufficient or raises concerns regarding the integrity of the scholarly record.

24. Competing Interests

Authors must disclose financial, professional, institutional, personal, academic, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation.

A declaration should be provided even where the authors have no competing interests. In such cases, an appropriate statement such as “The authors declare no competing interests.” may be used.

Detailed requirements are provided in the journal's Competing Interests policy.

25. Funding

Authors should identify all funding sources relevant to the research and, where available, provide funder names and grant or project numbers.

The role of the funder in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit should be disclosed where relevant.

If the research received no external funding, authors may state this explicitly.

26. Research Ethics

Research involving human participants, personal or sensitive data, interviews, surveys, experiments, or other activities requiring ethical oversight should comply with applicable institutional, national, disciplinary, and legal requirements.

Where ethical approval was required, authors should identify the approving institution or committee and provide the relevant approval information where appropriate.

Where informed consent was required, the manuscript should state that appropriate consent was obtained.

If authors consider ethical approval unnecessary or exempt, they should be prepared to explain the basis for that determination if requested by the editors.

27. Research Data and Transparency

Authors should provide sufficient information concerning the sources and availability of data underlying the findings of their manuscript.

Research articles should normally include a Data Availability Statement indicating whether supporting data are publicly available, available upon reasonable request, subject to restricted access, confidential, proprietary, ethically protected, or otherwise unavailable.

Authors should not publicly deposit information where doing so would violate participant confidentiality, data-protection requirements, legal restrictions, contractual obligations, national-security requirements, or legitimate third-party rights.

The journal's Research Data policy provides further guidance concerning data availability, repositories, reproducibility, and appropriate exceptions.

28. Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Technologies

Artificial intelligence systems, large language models, chatbots, and other automated tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot accept responsibility for authorship, approve the final version of a manuscript, manage conflicts of interest, or be held accountable for the integrity of published work.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, validity, citations, analysis, conclusions, and integrity of all material submitted to GGSR, regardless of whether automated or AI-assisted technologies were used.

Use of generative AI that materially contributes to drafting, translation beyond routine language correction, coding, analysis, image generation, data processing, literature synthesis, or other substantive aspects of manuscript preparation should be disclosed transparently in accordance with the journal's AI & AI-Assisted Technologies Policy.

Routine spelling, grammar, formatting, and conventional language-editing tools generally do not require the same level of disclosure unless their use materially affects scholarly content.

Generative AI output should not be treated as an authoritative scholarly source. Authors are responsible for verifying references and factual claims and should cite the original scholarly or primary sources underlying substantive claims.