Qubahan Political Journal (QPJ) is committed to independent, fair, confidential, transparent, and academically rigorous editorial decision-making.

Editor-in-Chief

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for:

• safeguarding the academic quality and integrity of QPJ;
• maintaining editorial independence;
• ensuring appropriate peer review;
• overseeing conflicts of interest;
• ensuring fair and evidence-based editorial decisions;
• overseeing publication-ethics matters;
• addressing complaints and appeals;
• overseeing corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions; and
• protecting the integrity of the scholarly record.

Editors and Section Editors

Editors must:

• evaluate manuscripts according to scholarly merit and relevance;
• maintain confidentiality;
• disclose relevant conflicts of interest;
• recuse themselves where impartiality may reasonably be questioned;
• select appropriately qualified reviewers;
• avoid reviewers with relevant conflicts;
• evaluate reviewer reports critically rather than relying only on recommendations;
• provide fair and reasoned editorial decisions; and
• ensure independent handling of submissions involving editors, board members, or publisher representatives.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers must:

• accept assignments only within their areas of expertise;
• provide objective, constructive, evidence-based assessment;
• maintain manuscript confidentiality;
• disclose competing interests;
• complete reviews within a reasonable agreed period;
• avoid personal criticism;
• identify relevant scholarly or ethical concerns;
• avoid coercive or inappropriate citation requests; and
• not use confidential manuscript information for personal, academic, commercial, or competitive advantage.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit, originality, relevance, methodological or theoretical quality, ethical compliance, and contribution to knowledge.

Editorial decisions must not be influenced by:

• publisher commercial interests;
• financial considerations;
• author nationality or institutional affiliation;
• political affiliation or viewpoint;
• religious belief;
• gender;
• personal relationships; or
• other characteristics unrelated to scholarly quality.

The publisher respects the editorial independence of QPJ.