Call for Papers: Journal of Liberty and International Affairs (Scopus Indexed, ISSN 1857-9760), Article Collection on 'Laibach: Re-contextualizing Liberty'

The Journal of Liberty and International Affairs (JLIA) is a triannual, international, open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Institute for Research and European Studies, Bitola, North Macedonia. It has been publishing since April 2015 and is indexed in Scopus. Scimago records the journal under ISSN 18579760 with Law among its Scopus subject areas, an SJR of 0.200 for 2025 and a Q3 placement in Law; the journal itself reports a CiteScore of 1.9 for the 2025 cycle at the 65th percentile. It also holds the DOAJ Seal and Italian ANVUR Class A status in Area 14, Section 14/C2.

On 13 July 2026 the journal announced a thematic article collection, 'Laibach: Re-contextualizing Liberty', inviting scholarship on the Slovenian industrial and avant-garde band Laibach, which the journal describes as having challenged political symbols, ideological narratives and conventional understandings of liberty for more than four decades. The framing is that Laibach has, through music, performance and visual expression, turned questions of authority, resistance, identity and freedom into a space for critical reflection. Submissions close on 1 September 2026.

• Liberty beyond traditional political boundaries
• Art as a critique of power and ideology
• Totalitarian aesthetics and democratic resilience
• Freedom of expression, identity, memory, and political symbolism
• The role of culture in shaping contemporary political imagination

The journal's wider scope covers liberty (political, civil and economic freedoms, social justice, globalisation, surveillance and the philosophical foundations of freedom), international affairs (global governance, international law, security, human rights, migration, conflict resolution and environmental diplomacy), and the intersections between the two.

The announcement states that the journal welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from political science, law, international relations, security studies, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. The journal's standing call adds that it welcomes contributions from scholars, researchers and practitioners worldwide, and no nationality, degree or institutional restriction is stated anywhere in the call. Registration and submission are free of charge; authors submitting through the online portal must register in the 'Author' role.

A maximum of three authors is permitted per article, and any one author may have at most two articles with the journal, one as first author and one as co-author.

• Length: minimum 6,000 and maximum 8,000 words, including references
• File and formatting: Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx); Times New Roman 12 pt, justified, 1.5 line spacing; title in ALL CAPS, bold, centred, maximum 100 characters including spaces
• Abstract: 125 to 135 words, stating the research problem and objectives, the methodology, the key findings or arguments, and the main conclusion; 5 to 7 keywords
• Structure: Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion
• Citations: Chicago Style, Author-Date system, for in-text referencing (for example, Dahl, 1989, 45); footnotes kept to a minimum
• Tables and figures: maximum 6 of each; tables created natively in Word; figures supplied as TIFF, JPG or PNG
• Language: English, with a preference for US English, at a publishable standard on receipt
• Author details: ORCID iD and a biography of up to 100 words for each author
• Declarations: a signed Declaration of Originality, and written signed permission from every co-author confirming awareness, consent and contribution
• Optional: authors may suggest up to two potential reviewers, and are encouraged to map the manuscript to the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals below the keywords

Manuscripts are first screened by the Editor-in-Chief or designated editorial team members for fit with the journal's aims and scope and compliance with formal requirements, then sent for double-blind peer review. Authors must remove names, affiliations, acknowledgments and document metadata from the file and anonymise self-references before submitting. Reviewers hold a doctoral degree as a minimum and are barred from using generative AI tools to evaluate manuscripts.

Since Volume 10, Issue 2 (2024) the journal has run a rolling Continuous Article Publishing model: an accepted manuscript is published immediately within its issue rather than waiting for the issue to close. Articles receive Crossref DOIs under the prefix 10.47305/JLIA and are published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

There is no submission fee and manuscripts are peer reviewed at no cost. A publication fee of EUR 500, or the equivalent in USD, becomes payable only after a manuscript has been accepted following peer review. It covers editorial management, peer-review administration, copyediting, plagiarism detection, DOI registration, digital archiving, indexing maintenance, platform hosting and dissemination, for manuscripts up to 8,000 words. Articles exceeding that limit are charged EUR 100 for each additional 1,000 words or part thereof. Book reviews are published free of charge.

Three concessions are published on the fee page: a 60% discount where all co-authors are affiliated with economies the World Bank classifies as low-income (a category that does not include India); a full waiver for corresponding authors ranked among the world's top 2% most highly cited scientists; and a 20% discount for articles arising from Horizon Europe, COST Actions, Erasmus+ and comparable EU-funded programmes. Once paid and once publication has begun, the fee is non-refundable; overpayments are refunded within 30 business days.

Register on the journal's OJS portal in the 'Author' role and submit through the online submission system, which the journal states is its preferred route. Submissions by email to contact@e-jlia.com are also accepted. Registration and submission are free of charge. Editors reserve the right to return improperly formatted articles without peer review, so authors should check the Article Guidelines, Review Policy and Publication Ethics pages before preparing a manuscript.

Separately from this collection, JLIA accepts submissions throughout the year and organises them into three cycles: 1 January to 30 April, 1 May to 31 August, and 1 September to 31 December. Manuscripts submitted within a cycle are considered for the corresponding issue of the journal, and early submission is encouraged. Papers intended for the Laibach collection must still reach the journal by 1 September 2026.