The World Orders Forum is an online venue for academic exchange about issues relating to regional and global integration. Articles on all subjects relating to these topics are potentially acceptable for submission. This includes articles based in the various sub-fields of international studies and in political science more generally, as well as in other academic disciplines.
Authors who wish to submit articles to the WOF must have a PhD. Authors enrolled in a PhD program will also be given consideration. In certain instances the administrators of the World Government Research Network will ask individuals who are not academics but who have an expertise in areas relevant to topics of global governance to submit articles to the WOF.
The rationale for requiring a PhD is that 1) scholars with that credential typically have an expertise in a particular area of scholarship, which can presumably be brought to bear within the context of their article, 2) these scholars have also been trained to make effective arguments, and 3) these scholars have been familiarized with the professional etiquette of academic discourse. This is by no means to suggest that such attributes are not shared by non-PhDs; indeed, many of the most important contributions to the conceptualization of world government will no doubt be made by non-PhDs. Nonetheless, insofar as the WGRN seeks to facilitate a fluid and relatively unfiltered, unmediated discussion which is also of a high caliber -- in other words, insofar as it seeks to combine the best attributes of social media with the best attributes of an academic journal -- this stipulation about requiring a PhD is maintained.
Submissions should be sent in Word format to James Thompson at james.thompson@wgrnadmin.org. Articles must be at least 1000 words long. There is no maximum word limit, and citations are optional. For a template of a WOF essay -- including appropriate font styles and sizes -- please click here.
The maximum number of submissions allowed is one article per month per author.
There is not a “formal” review process for submitted articles. Website administrators will ensure that submissions accord with proper professional etiquette, and they will check to ensure that authors do indeed have PhD standing, but aside from these restrictions, any submission that accords with the guidelines will be posted to the site. As such, the time from submission to posting should typically not be longer than one week.
Most articles posted to the WOF are not covered by copyright. This is in keeping with the “open source” ethos of discussion which the WGRN seeks to foster. However, in those cases where an article has previously been published in another forum, and then reprinted -- with the permission of the author and original publisher -- on the WOF, that article may be covered by copyright associated with its original publisher, in which case it is the responsibility of anyone who wishes to republish that article elsewhere to first receive permission to do so from the author and original publisher. Furthermore, when authors request to have their previously published article republished by the WOF, it is their responsibility to ensure that the original publisher is amenable to this republication. When any WOF article has been previously published elsewhere, that fact is clearly indicated at the beginning of the article.