About this Journal

African Journal of Political Science ISSN 1027-0353 is a peer-reviewed, open access journal that accepts high quality articles in all areas of political science such as development studies, comparative politics, political economy, international relations, political theory, public administration, public policy, and political methodology. AJP also considers articles from such fields like economics, law, sociology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology/psychiatry, and anthropology. The aims of the journal include the following:

• To publish articles which deal with the systems of governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts, associated constitutions and political behavior.
• To publish articles concerning the allocation and transfer of power in decision making, the roles and systems of governance including governments and international organizations, political behavior and public policies.
• To address some of the most contemporary political and administrative issues in African at the local, national, and global levels.
• To publish articles that would be of significance to academic experts, researchers, and students in different areas of political science as well as to policy makers, state institutions, and international agencies.
• Manuscripts dealing with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining the distribution of power and resources are particularly welcome.   

Open Access 

• All articles published by this journal are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers.  
• All works published by this journal are under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). 
• Authors of articles published in this journal are the copyright holders of their articles and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate articles.

Article-processing charges

African Journal of Political Science levies an article-processing charge of $500 (USD) for each article accepted for publication. The journal does not charge a submission fee. Authors are required to pay the manuscript handling fee only after their manuscripts have been reviewed and accepted for publication by an editor. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process as the journal routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries.

ISJ offsets publication expenses – including the cost of peer review management, journal production, and online hosting and archiving – by charging an Article Processing Charge (APC), to authors, institutions or funders for each article published. This publication fees vary by journal and are payable upon article acceptance. 

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used by African Journal of Political Science to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Qualified researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published or not. 

African Journal of Political Science operates a double-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers of the paper won't get to know the identity of the author(s), and the author(s) won't get to know the identity of the reviewer. The advantage of double-blind peer review is that it eliminates bias.

Manuscripts submitted to this journal will generally be reviewed by two or more experts who will be required to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board. 

Plagiarism

The editors of ISJ take a very serious stance against any evidence of plagiarism including self-plagiarism in manuscripts submitted to them. Every reasonable effort will be made to investigate any allegations of plagiarism brought to their attention, as well as instances that come up during the peer review process. 

Publication Ethics

International Scholars Journals (ISJ) is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and abides by its Code of Conduct and aims to adhere to its Best Practice Guidelines.

All journals published by ISJ are committed to publishing only innovative and original material i.e., material that has neither been published elsewhere, nor is it under consideration for publication by another publisher.

ISJ Self-Archiving Policy

Authors of articles published in any of our journals are permitted to self-archive the submitted (preprint) and accepted (peer-reviewed) version of the article at any time. There is no embargo period. At ISJ, we strongly believe that self-archiving makes research to be widely “visible, accessible, harvestable, searchable, and useable,” thus increasing its reach and impact, and possibly the number of citations it receives.

The submitted version may be placed on:

The author's personal website

The author's company/institutional repository or archive

Not for profit subject-based preprint servers or repositories

Benefits of publishing in this journal

At ISJ, we continue to work hard to support our authors who trust us with their works. Here are just some of the benefits we provide:

• Open Access: Our research is freely available to all, from the time of publication. Readers do not need a subscription or to register before they can access our articles.
• ‎High visibility: ISJ allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to the widest possible scientific outreach, including to the general public.
• Rapid publication: The timeframe between acceptance and publication is about 3 weeks. All ISJ journals offer a fast publication schedule.
• Rigorous peer-review: ISJ is operated by a team of experienced professional editors. We work closely with academic editors and reviewers to provide authors with an efficient, fair, and constructive reviews.
• Post-publication comments: ISJ allows readers and authors to exchange ideas that are directly accessible from the full-text article.
• International readership: All articles are being accessed from over 200 countries worldwide.
• Promotion and press coverage: Articles published in this journal are included in article alerts and regular email updates.
• Access and reach: We continue to submit our journals to all known abstracting and indexing services.
• Flexibility: ISJ journals gives you the opportunity to publish at your convenience.
• Copyright: Authors retain the copyright to their works. Authors are allowed unlimited use and/or distribution of their work without any form of restriction. As an author of an article published in any ISJ journal, you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work.

Subscription Information

To subscribe for an article published by any of our journals, kindly contact editor@internationalscholarsjournals.com. The subscription rate is $350 and it is the same for all countries. The subscription charges are inclusive of delivery charges. All journals are open access and subscribers shall receive the print edition.