Global Social Policy
Global Social Policy is a fully peer-reviewed journal that advances understandings of social policy, social development, social and health governance, gender and poverty, social welfare, education, employment, and food, and the advantages and disadvantages of globalisation, from transnational and global perspectives. The journal publishes scholarly and policy-oriented articles that address global social policy discourse, and practice as well as transnational flows of capital, people, and policies including the diffusion of ideas. The editors welcome articles addressing the subject of global social policy, discourse, and practice, through a focus on transnational flows of capital, people, ideas and policies; transnational social movements and non-governmental organisations; international intergovernmental organisations and world-regional and transregional intergovernmental institutions and groupings.
"In an era of global communications, Global Social Policy has significantly enhanced international communication among social policy makers, researchers and scholars. It has also enhanced the interpretation and analysis of global social welfare policies and programmes. The journal is a vital scholarly resource which is widely read around the world today and which will, in the future, be even more widely consulted. It is a leading international publication in the field." James Midgley, Harry and Riva Specht Professor of Public Social Services, University of California, Berkeley
"Global Social Policy has managed, in a relatively short time, to establish itself as the premier international journal in the area it has carved out for itself, namely where globalisation meets national social policy. It was prescient when established and it continues to be cutting edge. It has managed to avoid the usual pitfall of Northern journals that claim the 'global' mantle while making no effort to move beyond the world they are familiar with. It also, seemingly effortlessly, manages to bridge the divide between academic and policy ways of thinking and writing. I am sure Global Social Policy will continue to develop under new editorial leadership and become the obligatory point of reference for scholars and policy-makers alike concerned about how to develop social policies adequate to the challenges posed by globalisation." Ronaldo Munck, Strategic Director, Internationalisation and Social Development, President’s Office, Dublin City University
"Global Social Policy covers work in a rapidly expanding and increasingly important field. As a consequence of economic globalization, the social welfare policies of most states are now deeply affected by international institutions and by the policies adopted by other states. International organizations, such as the IMF and the World Bank, both enable and constrain social policy and international cooperation is often essential to prevent a competition-driven "race to the bottom". Global Social Policy is the only journal that focuses squarely on these issues. Its editors and those it relies on to review work are among the very best scholars in the field and every issue contains articles that are illuminating and often pathbreaking." Craig N. Murphy, M. Margaret Ball Professor of International Relations, Department of Political Science, Wellesley College
Global Social Policy is available on SAGE Journals Online.
Global Social Policy is a fully peer-reviewed journal that advances understandings of social policy, social development, social and health governance, gender and poverty, social welfare, education, employment, and food, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of globalisation from transnational and global perspectives. The journal publishes scholarly and policy-oriented articles that address global social policy discourse and practice, as well as transnational flows of capital, people, and policies, including the diffusion of ideas.
The editors of Global Social Policy seek to publish articles that address the intersections of social issues, governance, politics and policies at various levels or scales — transnational social movements and nongovernmental organisations; international intergovernmental organisations, and world-regional and transregional intergovernmental institutions and groupings — using a global or transnational analytical framework.
Focusing on aspects of social policy and social governance and factors of globalization and policy diffusion, broadly defined, in both contemporary and historical contexts, the journal serves academic and policy-making or advocacy audiences across the global North and South. Contributions from across all disciplines and fields of study from a wide range of theoretical and political perspectives are strongly encouraged.
| Alexandra Kaasch | Bielefeld University, Germany |
| Tuba Agartan | Providence College, USA |
| Sarah Cook | University of Nottingham, UK |
| Marianne S. Ulriksen | DaWS, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark |
| Bob Deacon | University of Sheffield, UK |
| Madelaine Moore | University of Bielefeld, Germany |
| M Ramesh | National University of Singapore, Singapore |
| Jeremy Seekings | University of Cape Town Centre for Social Science Research, South Africa |
| Juliana Martinez-Franzoni | University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica |
| Siri Hettige | University of Colombo, Sri Lanka |
| Rana Jawad | University of Bath, UK |
| John Berten | Bielefeld University, Germany |
| Olivia Jane Whelan | University of Bielefeld, Germany |
| Jimi Adesina | University of South Africa, South Africa |
| Daniel Béland | McGill University, Canada |
| Ayse Bugra | Bogaziçi University, Turkey |
| Michael Cichon | Maastricht University, Netherlands |
| Anis Dani | World Bank, United States, USA |
| Michelle Dion | McMaster University, Canada |
| Tracy Fenwick | Australian National University, Australia |
| Chris Holden | University of York, UK |
| Katja Hujo | UNRISD, Switzerland |
| William Hynes | OECD, France |
| Gabriele Köhler | UNRISD, Independent Development Economist, Germany |
| Huck-ju Kwon | Seoul National University, South Korea |
| Lutz Leisering | Bielefeld University, Germany |
| Rianne Mahon | Balsillie School of International Affairs, Canada |
| Kerstin Martens | Bremen University, Germany |
| Craig Murphy | Wellesley College, United States, USA |
| Mitchell Orenstein | University of Pennsylvania, United States, USA |
| Isabel Ortiz | International Labour Organization, Switzerland |
| Ito Peng | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Thomas Pogge | Yale University, USA |
| Shahra Razavi | UN Women, United States, USA |
| Asunción Lera St Clair | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Paul Stubbs | Institute of Economics, Croatia |
| Rebecca Surender | University of Oxford, UK |
| Timo Voipio | National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland |
| Udaya Wagle | Western Michigan University, USA |
| Nicola Yeates | Open University, UK |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Global Social Policy
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gsp to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Global Social Policy will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Global Social Policy may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Global Social Policy, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
In addition to full length articles, which should be up to 8,500 words in length (including notes and references, a brief abstract and 5-7 keywords), the journal is also interested in Forums. Authors interested in submitting Forum ideas to Global Social Policy may contact the journal's editors for further details.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Global Social Policy adheres to a rigorous double-anonymize reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and author are always concealed from both parties.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
Global Social Policy requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Global Social Policy encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Global Social Policy and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Global Social Policy offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. For more information please visit the Sage Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files
Global Social Policy adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Global Social Policy is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gsp to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique andpersistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in ouronline peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCIDaccount and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, Sage is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos
Authors wishing to submit Special Issue Proposals, Review Essays, Forum contributions or seeking any additional information on submissions may contact the Global Social Policy Managing Editor for guidelines, as follows:
Madelaine Moore, at gsp@uni-bielefeld.de