Focus and Scope
The Journal of Regional Security is an open-access peer-reviewed journal specializing in the field of regional security studies published by the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy and the University of Belgrade/Faculty of Political Science. Subject areas include: security communities, regional security complexes, regional security sector reform and governance, security regimes, security integration, region-building and comparative regional security research. Topics concerning areas of peace and conflict studies such as regional conflict complexes, regional approaches to peacebuilding, hybrid forms of peace and regional infrastructures for peace are also welcomed.
The Journal of Regional Security is intended for international security scholars and policy makers from South East Europe but also from other established or emerging regions of the world. It aims to bring academic security studies communities from the Western Balkans not only closer to each other but also closer to security studies and security policy communities from other regions of the world thus enabling smarter and more sustainable regional policy solutions.
Peer Review Process
Journal of Regional Security uses double-blind review system for all papers. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers. The reviewers act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. The reviewers are selected solely according to whether they have the relevant expertise for evaluating a manuscript. They must not be from the same institution as the author(s) of the manuscript, nor be their co-authors in the recent past. No suggestions of individual reviewers by the author(s) of the manuscript will be accepted.
The purpose of peer review is to assists the Editorial Board in making decision of whether to accept or reject a paper. The purpose is also to assist the author in improving papers.
Manuscripts are sent for review only if they pass the initial evaluation regarding their form and thematic scope. A special care is taken that the initial evaluation does not last more than necessary.
Under normal circumstances, the review process takes up to four weeks, and only exceptionally up to three months. The total period from the submission of a manuscript until its publication takes an average of 90 days.
During the review process, the Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for any other purposes.
In the case that the authors have serious and reasonable objections to the reviews, the Editorial Board makes an assessment of whether a review is objective and whether it meets academic standards. If there is a doubt about the objectivity or quality of review, the Editor-in-Chief will assign additional reviewer(s).
Additional reviewers may also be assigned when reviewers’ decisions (accept or reject) are contrary to each other or otherwise substantially incompatible.
The final decision on the acceptance of the manuscript for publication rests solely with the Editor-in-Chief / Editorial board.
Open Access Policy
Journal Journal of Regional Security is published under an Open Access licence. All its content is available free of charge. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search the full text of articles, as well as to establish HTML links to them, without having to seek the consent of the author or publisher.
The right to use content without consent does not release the users from the obligation to give the credit to the journal and its content in a manner described under Licensing.
Sources of Support
Journal History
The Journal of Regional Security was founded in 2006 under the title Western Balkans Security Observer and obtained its current name in 2012. It is an open access peer-reviewed journal specializing in the field of regional security studies published by Belgrade Centre for Security Policy and University of Belgrade/Faculty of Political Science. Subject areas include: security communities, regional security complexes, regional security sector reform and governance, security regimes, security integration, region-building and comparative regional security research.Topics concerning area of peace and conflict studies such as regional conflict complexes, regional approaches to peacebuilding, hybrid forms of peace and regional infrastructures for peace are also welcomed.
The Journal of Regional Security is intended for international security scholars and policymakers from South East Europe but also from other established or emerging regions of the world. It aims to bring academic security studies communities from the Western Balkans not only closer to each other but also closer to security studies and security policy communities from other regions of the world thus enabling smarter and more sustainable regional policy solutions.