Special issues

Special issue information

Special Issue and Symposia 

Calls for Proposals

Twice per year, Environmental Politics will announce an open call for Special Issues or shorter Symposia, with deadlines normally advertised as the last working day in February and the last working day in June. The open call will be posted on the journal’s websites, circulated to the main discussion lists in the field, and tweeted via the journal’s social media account around four to six weeks prior to these deadlines.

Proposal Guidelines

Environmental Politics is committed to publishing high quality Special Issues and Symposia that make a significant and innovative contribution to the field of environmental politics, broadly defined. These guidelines provide information on the proposal and publishing process.

Environmental Politics is committed to the publication of scholarship from diverse voices and epistemologies. To this end, successful proposals must take seriously the diversity of their contributors, including as related to gender, geography, and race/ethnicity. Proposers are also encouraged to include contributions from experienced and early career scholars, including those from the global South.

Proposing a Special Issue or Symposium to Environmental Politics

Proposals must be on a well-focused topic of particular interest to the journal’s readership. A Special Issue will normally contain 8-10 papers; a Symposium will normally contain 3-5 papers. The journal’s normal word limits for articles (8000 words) apply to all contributions; proposals may include shorter journal formats for papers (“Brief Report,” “Discussion”), when there is a clear rationale for them.

Proposals must provide the following information. Please note that this will be used as a guide to evaluate proposals; where it is not included, or the guidelines are not closely followed, this will likely influence our decision.

• SI or Symposium title;
• The name, affiliation, contact details, and a short bio for proposed Guest Editor or Editors (one paragraph each);
• A Table of Contents;
• A description of, and rationale for, the proposed SI or Symposium (500 - 1000 words). This should address its importance, contribution to scholarship in the field, and main methodological approaches. A clear analytical thread and sustained dialogue between papers is integral. To that end, it is valuable to describe any workshops or collaborations that have contributed to the proposal. Interdisciplinary dialogue and approaches are also encouraged.
• An explanation of the diversity of the proposed contributions. How would the SI or Symposium promote diversity, equity, and meaningful inclusion? In what ways would it address a diversity of approaches to understanding the environment or environmental politics? If the SI or Symposium focuses on a particular region, how does it engage with scholars and scholarship from that region?
• An outline of the editing experience of the proposed SI or Symposium editors. Given the importance of timely delivery, proposing SI or Symposium editors should be able to satisfy the journal that they have the requisite ability to manage manuscripts at each stage of the submission and decision process (as set out below).

 For each individual contribution, please provide:

• The name, affiliation, contact details, and a short bio for each author (one paragraph each);
• A summary of the proposed contribution (250-350 words), clearly setting out the paper’s conceptual framework, central argument, methodological approach, and contribution to the state of knowledge in the field;
• A description of the current state of the manuscript, and a realistic estimate of the date when it will be ready for peer review.

Peer review

All contributions will be evaluated through double-blind peer review, using the journal’s submission platform, and must meet the journal’s normal, high standards. The Guest Editor(s) will be primarily responsible for organizing and managing the peer review process, and carefully reading and editing final versions of any accepted ms.

One of the journal’s Editors will act as liaison with the Guest Editor(s) and provide editorial consultation and oversight of the peer review process. Decisions to accept, revise, or reject will be made by the Guest Editor(s) after consultation with the Overseeing Editor. Final acceptance is by the Editor-in-Chief, upon recommendation of Guest Editor(s) and the Overseeing Editor. More detailed instructions will be provided upon acceptance of a proposal.

It is unlikely that all papers will survive peer review. Guest Editors should not raise expectations that acceptance of a proposal means that any given paper will be published; proposals should also take the likelihood that some papers will be rejected into account when deciding on the number of contributions to include.

Publication and Style

Shortly after acceptance for publication, individual papers will be published online. However, due to the volume of standard submissions we receive, there is frequently a delay of six to nine months after the acceptance of all papers before the Special Issue or Symposium is published as a collection.

Following publication, Special Issues may be published in book form by Routledge; the final decision rests with Routledge book editors. To accommodate this, Guest Editor(s) and authors should avoid referring to contributions as ‘articles / chapters / papers.’

Authors should use first person and the active voice wherever possible. Authors may use either British English or US English spelling as long as one form is used consistently throughout the contribution; see “ Instructions for Authors” for further style requirements.

Submission

Proposals will be evaluated by a special committee of the Editorial Advisory Board, chaired by one of the journal Editors.

Details on how to submit proposals will be included in each specific open call.