About the Journal

Journal's Publisher

Balkan Social Science Review (BSSR) is established on behalf of the Faculty of Law in the Goce Delcev University in Stip, Republic of North Macedonia. It is part of the Open Journal System, a system with open access policy that is operated by the Goce Delchev University, Republic of North Macedonia (link to the UGD Publishing platform UGD Publishing System) . The University is the publisher of the journal (link to the publisher's homepage Универзитет „Гоце Делчев“ - Штип (ugd.edu.mk).

Scope of the Journal

The journal is designed to encourage interest in all matters relating to law, political sciences and international relations, sociology ( political sociology, sociology in law and demography) and media and communications. BSSR welcomes research and review articles on aspects of these social sciences seen within the Balkan context and/or international context, including all interdisciplinary studies within the scope of the Journal. There is no fee or any other cost for the authors for processing or publishing papers in our journal.

Please note that the journal had a section Economy from its establishment until 2018 and consequently articles from this section are part of the BSSR's archive. In 2018 the editors of the journal made significant policy changes. They decided to narrow the journal's scope by removing the economy section. This adjustment was made to enhance the quality of other sections, specifically focusing on law, politics, society, and media and communications.

The journal does not favor one over another approach, but rather encourages the use of appropriate social science approaches for the given topic or paper. The BSSR urges potential authors to consider a wide range of important policy discussions, arguments, practices, methodologies, and theories, in areas including the main scope of this Journal which is on several areas of Social Sciences.

Journal's Peer Review Policy

All papers submitted and suggested for publication in the Balkan Social Science Review are subject to peer-review. This journal operates a double-blind review process, which means the identities of the authors are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa. Papers deemed suitable are sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers and a native speaker English language reviewer to assess the scientific quality and the English language of the paper. A peer review template is filled by the reviewers and it consists of rating scales the editor deems most useful for determining scientific merit, originality, and scope of the work, indicating ways to improve it and recommending acceptance or rejection. The editors are responsible for the decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles.  

The reviewing process is presented in chronological order:

All submissions based on the active call for papers are subject to the following reviewing process that is presented in chronological order:

1. Initial screening of the paper is conducted by the editors of the Journal. Please be advised that paper may be rejected by the editors before sending the paper for full peer review due to one or several of the following reasons:

  • It fails the technical screening which includes elements that are suspected to be plagiarized, the manuscript is not complete, the figures are not complete or clear enough, the article does not conform to the Author’s Guideline of the Journal
  • the paper does not fall within the aims and scope of the Journal
  • the procedure and / or the analysis of the data is seen to be defective
  • it is incomprehensive in terms of language, structure, figures
  • the paper is not of interest to the readers of the Journal
  • the paper lacks usage of relevant literature
  • the submission is not consistent with the journal's policy
  • in the case of  coauthorship there are more than 3 authors
  • priority is given to authors that are new and haven't published in the previous issue or issues of the journal  (two-year pause in publication).                                                           

2. Proofreading review of the paper which is provided by a native English speaker who also has the competencies to evaluate the paper from a methodological aspect and suggest improvements for our authors. Based on the opinions of the proofreading reviewer, the editors may decide to reject the paper in this phase of the reviewing process, due to the following reason: the English language does not meet the criteria of the journal.

3. A full peer review process that involves two independent reviewers who have expertise in the field of the subject of the paper. The Journal uses a double-blind reviewing process. The evaluation of the paper provided by the reviewers is given in a form available in our published PEMS. Based on the two reviews, the editors are responsible for the decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The editors’ decision is final and it is based on the reviews from all three reviewers and the journal's policy at the given time.

The time frame for the peer review process for manuscripts submitted for the issue published in June:

  • Deadline for paper submission May 1.
  • Notification on acceptance/no acceptance and peer reviews by June 1.
  • Final version submission June 15.
  • Online publication of the issue June 25
  • Printed publication of the issue in September.

The time frame for the peer review process for manuscripts submitted for the issue published in December:

  • Deadline for paper submission November 1.
  • Notification on acceptance/no acceptance and peer reviews by December 1.
  • Final version submission December 15.
  • Online publication of the issue December 25
  • Printed publication of the issue in February.

Editors' Aims

The editors of the journal are committed to:

- making fair and unbiased decisions independent from commercial consideration and ensuring  a fair and appropriate peer review process

- adopting editorial policies that encourage maximum transparency and complete, honest reporting

- guarding the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct

- pursuing reviewer and editorial misconduct

- having appropriate policies in place for handling editorial conflict of interest.

Publications ethics and malpractice statement (PEMS)

Please find the journal's Publications ethics and malpractice statement (PEMS) at    http://js.ugd.edu.mk/public/dokumenti/bssr

Call for Papers

For Call for Papers, you can get additional information at http://js.ugd.edu.mk/index.php/BSSR/announcement

Author Guidelines

For Author guidelines propositions you can find additional information on http://js.ugd.edu.mk/index.php/BSSR/about/submissions#authorGuide

 

Archiving

Open Journal Systems supports the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system to ensure a secure and permanent archive for the journal. LOCKSS is open-source software developed at Stanford University Library that enables libraries to preserve selected web journals by regularly polling registered journal websites for newly published content and archiving it. Each archive is continually validated against other library caches, and if the content is found to be corrupted or lost, the other caches or the journal is used to restore it.