Conflict of Interest

Conflict of Interest Policy

1. General Policy

Jurnal Pemerintahan dan Politik requires all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher, to disclose any financial or non-financial interests that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, their research, peer review, editorial decisions, or publication process.

A conflict of interest does not necessarily indicate misconduct or improper conduct. However, failure to disclose a relevant conflict may undermine the credibility, impartiality, and transparency of scholarly publishing.

This policy follows the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and relevant international recommendations on research integrity and publication ethics.

The journal adopts the principle: When in doubt, disclose. All potential conflicts must be assessed fairly and managed appropriately to safeguard the integrity and independence of the publication process.

2. Types of Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest may arise from financial or non-financial relationships, including but not limited to the following:

2.1. Financial Conflicts of Interest

Financial conflicts may include research funding, grants, salaries, consultancy fees, honoraria, paid expert testimony, shareholdings, financial interests, or payments from organisations that may benefit or suffer from the publication of an article.

2.2. Institutional Conflicts of Interest

Institutional conflicts may arise when an author, reviewer, or editor is affiliated with, employed by, or has a close professional relationship with an institution whose programmes, policies, performance, or interests are examined in a manuscript. Examples include ministries, local governments, government agencies, universities, political parties, non-governmental organisations, and community organisations.

2.3. Political and Ideological Conflicts of Interest

Political or ideological conflicts may arise from membership of, leadership in, employment by, or active involvement with a political party, campaign, advocacy group, or movement directly related to the subject of a manuscript.

Such affiliations do not automatically constitute a conflict that prevents publication. However, relevant interests must be disclosed when they could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, the research or its evaluation.

2.4. Personal and Professional Conflicts of Interest

These may include family relationships, close friendships, personal rivalries, employment relationships, supervisory or mentoring relationships, and other professional associations that could compromise impartial judgement.

2.5. Academic and Intellectual Conflicts of Interest

These may arise when individuals have a strong professional or intellectual commitment to a theory, policy model, analytical framework, programme, or instrument that is being evaluated in a manuscript, particularly when they have developed or have a direct interest in its use.

2.6. Researcher–Participant Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts may arise when researchers study their own students, employees, colleagues, institutions, communities, or organisations with which they have a direct relationship.

Authors must explain how such relationships were managed to protect voluntary participation, confidentiality, research integrity, and the objectivity of data collection and analysis.

3. Authors' Responsibilities

3.1. Disclosure Requirements

All authors must disclose financial and non-financial interests relevant to their submitted manuscript. Disclosures should cover interests arising during the preceding three years and relevant interests that are expected to continue or arise in the future.

Authors must disclose:

  1. All funding sources supporting the research, including grant numbers where applicable.

  2. The role of funders or sponsors in the research design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and decision to submit or publish.

  3. Employment, consultancy, financial interests, or institutional affiliations that may be relevant to the research.

  4. Political, professional, personal, or academic relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the work.

  5. Relevant relationships between researchers and research participants, including research conducted within the authors' own institutions or organisations.

If a funder had no involvement in the research design, data collection, analysis, writing, or publication decision, this should be stated where applicable.

3.2. Disclosure Statement

Authors must include a Conflict of Interest Statement in the submitted manuscript and provide the relevant information through the journal's Open Journal Systems (OJS) submission process.

If no relevant conflict exists, authors should use the following statement:

“The authors declare no potential conflict of interest related to the research, authorship, or publication of this article.”

If a conflict exists, authors must describe the relevant interest and explain its relationship to the research.

For double-anonymous peer review, identifying information must be omitted from the anonymised manuscript where necessary to preserve reviewer anonymity. Full disclosure information should be provided through the designated submission fields or a separate title page, as instructed by the journal.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all co-authors have provided accurate and complete declarations.

3.3. Changes in Circumstances

Authors must promptly inform the editor if a relevant conflict arises or is identified during peer review, production, or after publication.

4. Reviewers' Responsibilities

Reviewers must disclose any actual, potential, or perceived conflict of interest before accepting a review invitation.

Reviewers should decline the invitation, or immediately inform the editor, when:

  1. They are employed by the same institution as an author or have a close professional relationship with an author.

  2. They have co-authored publications, collaborated on research, shared research funding, or maintained a supervisory or mentoring relationship with an author within the preceding three years.

  3. They have a family relationship, close friendship, personal rivalry, or other relationship that could compromise impartiality.

  4. They have financial or institutional interests that may be affected by the publication.

  5. The manuscript directly competes with their own unpublished research or creates another significant intellectual conflict.

  6. They recognise an author in a double-anonymous review process and believe this could affect the objectivity of their assessment.

  7. They otherwise consider themselves unable to provide an impartial and independent evaluation.

Reviewers must not use unpublished information, data, arguments, or findings obtained through peer review for personal, professional, political, or financial advantage.

Reviewers must not pressure authors to cite their own work or the work of others unless the suggested citations are genuinely relevant to the manuscript's scholarly argument.

If a conflict becomes apparent after the review has begun, the reviewer must notify the editor immediately. The editor will determine whether the review can be retained or whether an independent replacement reviewer is required.

5. Editors and Editorial Board Members

Editors and editorial board members must disclose relevant conflicts of interest and must not handle manuscripts where their impartiality could reasonably be questioned.

When a conflict exists, the Editor-in-Chief must assign the manuscript to another qualified and independent editor. The conflicted editor must not participate in editorial discussions, influence the decision, or access confidential review records beyond what is strictly necessary for legitimate administrative purposes.

Editors must not use unpublished information obtained through the editorial process for their own research or personal advantage without the authors' appropriate permission.

Editorial board members must promptly disclose relevant interests to the Editor-in-Chief. The journal may request periodic declarations of interests to support transparent editorial management.

If the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict of interest, the manuscript or case must be handled independently by an uninvolved senior editorial board member or the publisher.

5.1. Submissions by Editors and Editorial Board Members

Editors and editorial board members may submit manuscripts to Jurnal Pemerintahan dan Politik, provided that their submissions are handled independently and meet the same editorial and peer-review standards as other manuscripts.

The submitting editor must not select reviewers, participate in editorial decisions, access confidential review discussions, or otherwise influence the assessment of their own manuscript.

The journal must ensure that the independent handling editor has the authority to make editorial decisions without interference from the submitting editor.

Where appropriate, the published article should disclose that the author is a member of the editorial team and that the manuscript was handled independently.

6. Publisher's Responsibilities and Editorial Independence

The publisher must safeguard the editorial independence of Jurnal Pemerintahan dan Politik.

Financial, commercial, institutional, political, or personal interests must not determine editorial decisions. Decisions to accept, revise, or reject manuscripts must be based on scholarly merit, relevance, research integrity, and the journal's editorial policies.

Publication fees, sponsorships, advertising, institutional affiliations, and other financial arrangements, where applicable, must be managed separately from editorial assessment.

The publisher must not pressure editors or reviewers to favour or disadvantage manuscripts because of the authors' affiliations, political positions, funding sources, or institutional relationships.

7. Handling Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest

If a potential undisclosed conflict of interest is identified before or after publication, the journal will assess the matter fairly and confidentially.

The following procedures will normally apply:

  1. Identification and acknowledgement: The Editor-in-Chief or an independent editor records the concern and acknowledges receipt of a report within seven working days.

  2. Request for explanation: The person concerned is invited to explain the circumstances, normally within 14 calendar days for manuscripts under review or 30 calendar days for published articles.

  3. Assessment: The editor evaluates the available evidence, the relevance of the undisclosed interest, and its potential effect on the research, peer review, or editorial decision.

  4. Editorial action: The journal determines an appropriate response based on the seriousness of the case and the evidence available.

Possible actions include:

  • Adding or correcting a disclosure statement.

  • Reassessing a manuscript or arranging an independent peer review.

  • Rejecting a manuscript when the conflict compromises the integrity of the submission or cannot be appropriately managed.

  • Publishing a correction or corrigendum for a published article.

  • Publishing an expression of concern or retracting an article when warranted by the evidence and the journal's correction and retraction policy.

  • Replacing a reviewer or editor, disregarding a compromised review, or removing an individual from the journal's reviewer database or editorial role in serious or repeated cases.

  • Referring serious cases involving suspected deliberate concealment or other unethical conduct to the journal's Research Misconduct Policy.

The journal will distinguish between an inadvertent omission, a manageable conflict, and deliberate concealment. Actions will be proportionate and documented.

8. Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, editors, and other affected parties may submit concerns or complaints regarding the handling of conflicts of interest to the Editor-in-Chief through the journal's official contact channel.

Where a complaint concerns the Editor-in-Chief, it should be referred to an uninvolved senior editorial board member or the publisher for independent consideration.

Appeals must provide a clear explanation of the grounds for reconsideration and, where possible, supporting evidence. The journal will review the matter impartially and communicate the outcome to the relevant parties.

9. Confidentiality and Record Keeping

All declarations, supporting documents, correspondence, and decisions concerning conflicts of interest must be handled confidentially and retained in accordance with the journal's record-management practices and applicable legal requirements.

Information may be shared with relevant parties when necessary to assess or resolve a conflict, investigate suspected misconduct, or comply with applicable legal obligations.

Relevant disclosures will be published with the article where appropriate, allowing readers to evaluate the research and its findings transparently.

10. References and Ethical Framework

This policy is informed by the following publication ethics resources:

Jurnal Pemerintahan dan Politik may revise this policy to reflect developments in publication ethics and applicable standards of research integrity.