International Review of Administrative Sciences
Public Policy & Public Administration
International Review of Administrative Sciences (IRAS ) is an international peer-reviewed journal devoted to academic and professional public administration. Founded in 1927 it is the oldest scholarly public administration journal specifically focused on comparative and international topics. IRAS seeks to shape the future agenda of public administration around the world by encouraging reflection on international comparisons, new techniques and approaches, the dialogue between academics and practitioners, and debates about the future of the field itself.
IRAS is the official journal of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS), the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) and the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA). IRAS is published in four different language editions – English, French, Spanish and Chinese.
"As the global village is evolving understanding the diversity of national perspectives on a growing variety of issues is an essential necessity, not a luxury. The careful selection of topics and articles in the International Review of Administrative Sciences provides a wealth of information for developing such understanding and meeting the needs of practitioners and academics." Arie Halachmi, Institute of Government at Tennessee State University, USA and Zhongshan University, China
"I have been doing research and editing in comparative public administration for the last twenty five years. I have always found the International Review of Administrative Sciences indispensable reading. It provides us with articles containing glimpses of new theoretical thinking, but also with accounts of best practices introduced by governments around the world." Ignacio Pichardo, Former President of IIAS, El Colegio Mexiquense
"International Review of Administrative Sciences offers thought-provoking contributions from both scholars and practitioners on a wide variety of topics related to international and comparative administration. Few journals can match IRAS in presenting timely analysis, dialogue, and debate on administrative issues from the industrialized countries of the global North, both in Europe and the Americas, and from the developing and transitioning nations of the global South." Derick W. Brinkerhoff, RTI Senior Fellow in International Public Management Research Triangle Institute
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
All issues of International Review of Administrative Sciences are available to browse online.
International Review of Administrative Sciences is an international peer-reviewed journal devoted to academic and professional public administration. Founded in 1927 it is the oldest scholarly public administration journal specifically focused on comparative and international topics. IRAS seeks to shape the future agenda of public administration around the world by encouraging reflection on international comparisons, new techniques and approaches, the dialogue between academics and practitioners, and debates about the future of the field itself.
IRAS is the official journal of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS), the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) and the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA). IRAS is published in four different language editions – English, French, Spanish and Chinese.
The IIAS exists to advance the study and practice of public administration and public management. It operates at a global level and is funded by states world-wide; but is independent of any of them and, through its links with the United Nations, seeks to develop a voice and vision that is neutral, as objective as possible and grounded in the exigency of the fact. Although it has existed for over seventy years (since 1930), the Institute's focus is on the present and the future. How governance is done and how it could be done better; how the law of administration applies and how it might be applied more correctly; and how the management of public affairs is conducted and how it might be done best - all of these reflect its activities. Accountability is a core value for the institute. Those who exercise authority must account for its use to those on whose behalf they use it. Public Administration is the key activity that connects between the power-holders and the citizen. We believe it should be effective, efficient and economical in its execution of the duties and rights of the state. We support modern governance and proper public administration and believe these should be carried out in a way that actively acknowledges diversity, that is respectful of identity and serious belief and that reflects balance.
| Andrew Massey | International School for Government, Kings College London, UK |
| Gene Brewer | University of Georgia, USA |
| Shamsul Haque | National University of Singapore, Singapore |
| Sabine Kuhlmann | Potsdam University, Germany |
| Martial Pasquier | Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Catherine Humblet | International Institute of Administrative Sciences |
| Christina Andrews | Federal University of Sco Paulo UNIFESP, Brazil |
| Evan Berman | Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand |
| Jörg Bogumil | Chairperson of the IIAS Finance Committee, Belgium |
| Jacques Bourgault | ENAP - National School of Public Administration, Canada |
| Derick W Brinkerhoff | RTI - Research Triangle Institute International,USA |
| Robert Cameron | University of Cape Town, South Africa |
| David Carassus | Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, France |
| Christoph Demmke | Potsdam University, Germany |
| Jean-Michel Eymeri Douzans | University of Toulose, France |
| Gavin Drewry | Royal Holloway University, UK |
| Mauricio Ivan Dussauge-Laguna | Centro de Investigacion y Docencias Economicas (CIDE), Mexico |
| Patrice Dutil | Ryerson University, Canada |
| Alain Eraly | Free University of Brussels, Belgium |
| Isabelle Fortier | ENAP - National School of Public Administration, Canada |
| Francesca Gains | University of Manchester, UK |
| David Giauque | Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Switzerland |
| Sharon Gilad | Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel |
| Marcel Guenoun | Ministry of Economy and Finance, France |
| Gyorgy Hajnal | Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary |
| Gerhard Hammerschmid | Hertie School of Governance, Germany |
| Nikolaos-Komninos Hlepas | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece |
| Yijia Jing | Fudan University, China |
| Paul Joyce | Liverpool John Moores University, UK |
| Masao Kikuchi | Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan |
| Toshiya Kitayama | Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan |
| Kilkon Ko | Seoul National University, Korea |
| Yoshiko Kuni | Tokyo Gabugei University, Japan |
| Wai-Fung Lam | University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Eliza W.Y. Lee | University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Elke Löffler | Governance International, UK |
| Michael Mannin | Liverpool John Moores University, UK |
| Albert J. Meijer | Utrecht School of Governance, The Netherlands |
| M. Jae Moon | Yonsei University, South Korea |
| Gedeon M. Mudacumura | Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, USA |
| Carmen Navarro | University Autonoma of Madrid, Spain |
| Juraj Nemec | Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic |
| Sue Newberry | University of Sydney,Australia |
| Bamidele Olowu | Africa Europe Foundation, Netherlands |
| SoonAe Park | Seoul National University, South Korea |
| François Pichault | University of Liège, Belgium |
| Isabella Proeller | University of Potsdam, Germany |
| Pierre-Charles Pupion | University of Poitiers, France |
| John S. T. Quah | National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore |
| Adrian Ritz | University of Berne, Switzerland |
| Christian Rouillard | University of Ottawa, Canada |
| Seriye Sezen | TODAIE, Turkey |
| Ed Stazyk | Rockefeller College of Public Affairs, New York University, USA |
| Xuhong Su | University of South Carolina, USA |
| Tao Sun | Nankai University, China |
| Ian Seator Thynne | Charles Darwin University, Australia |
| Sandra Van Thiel | Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Netherlands |
| Frédéric Varone | University of Geneva, Switzerland |
| Jean-Patrick Villeneuve | Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Manchuan Wang | China National School of Administration, China |
| Clay G Wescott | Asia Pacific Governance Institute, USA |
| Wilson Wong | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: International Review of Administrative Sciences
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/IRAS 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 International Review of Administrative Sciences 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 the journal 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.
- 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 International Review of Administrative Sciences, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
IRAS publishes original research. Full papers are restricted to a maximum of 7,000 words, including all elements (title page, abstract, notes, references, tables, biographical statement, etc.). The article will be assessed under the following headings: contribution to knowledge; thoroughness of research and/or evidence of special knowledge based on personal experience; organization of material; style; findings and conclusions.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
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
IRAS is an international peer-reviewed journal in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and the author’s name from the reviewer. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is generally reached within ten weeks of submission.
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.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
International Review of Administrative Sciences 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
International Review of Administrative Sciences 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
International Review of Administrative Sciences 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
International Review of Administrative Sciences offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
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
International Review of Administrative Sciences 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.
International Review of Administrative Sciences is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/IRAS 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 and persistent 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 our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account 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.
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.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the International Review of Administrative Sciences editorial office as follows:
Catherine Humblet
Journal Manager
catherine.humblet@gmail.com