Esfera Pública. Journal on Governance and Society is a venue for disseminating knowledge in the disciplinary field concerned with the public realm – that is, topics on government, management, and public policy – with an emphasis on territorial studies and the local level.

We are a digital, open-access periodical published by El Colegio de Jalisco. Our aim is to disseminate research and analysis on government, management, and public policy. We subscribe to the open-science paradigm: the journal positions itself as a flexible platform dedicated to communicating newly generated knowledge so that it is openly available, accessible, and potentially reusable in future research.

We are proud to count, on our scientific and editorial boards, the support of highly distinguished scholars who lead research on these subjects across Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula.

 

Open access

Esfera Pública. Journal on Governance and Society provides immediate open access to all its contents, without embargo periods and without requiring prior registration to consult its articles. Its contents may be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, printed, searched, linked to and reused under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0), unless expressly stated otherwise.

 

Licence and copyright

Authors retain copyright over their works and grant the journal the right of first publication.

The journal’s contents are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0), unless expressly stated otherwise. This licence allows users to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon the material in any medium or format, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the authors, the original source of publication is cited and any changes made are indicated.

 

Fees for authors and readers

The journal does not charge submission, editorial processing, peer review, correction, layout, publication, download or reading fees.

It does not apply article processing charges (APCs), submission fees, page charges, colour charges, withdrawal charges or publication fees.

 

Editorial process and peer review

Research articles and academic essays are evaluated through double-blind peer review. Each manuscript is first reviewed by the editorial team to verify its thematic relevance, originality, compliance with editorial guidelines and correspondence with the journal’s focus and scope.

Manuscripts approved in this preliminary review are sent to external specialists. In the case of conflicting reviews, the editorial team may request a third evaluation. The final publication decision rests with the journal’s editorial team, based on the reviews received, the academic quality of the text, compliance with editorial guidelines and the relevance of the contribution.

 

Editorial good practices and anti-plagiarism policy

The journal promotes good editorial and academic practices. It rejects plagiarism, self-plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, citation manipulation, redundant publication, simultaneous submission and any practice contrary to academic integrity.

All submitted manuscripts may be reviewed through Turnitin, anti-plagiarism software used to identify textual matches, undeclared similarities and possible misuse of sources. The similarity report will not be considered, by itself, automatic proof of plagiarism, but rather an editorial review tool. The editorial team will analyse the detected matches by considering proper citation, references, paraphrasing, common phrases, bibliography, institutional names and other elements that may generate legitimate similarities.

When evidence of plagiarism, self-plagiarism, redundant publication, improper use of sources or any other practice contrary to academic integrity is identified, the editorial team may request clarifications from the authors, suspend the editorial process, reject the manuscript, notify the parties involved or, if the issue is detected after publication, publish corrections, issue expressions of concern or retract the article, depending on the seriousness of the case.

Authors must declare possible conflicts of interest, sources of funding, use of artificial intelligence tools and, where applicable, availability of data, materials or code. Full responsibility for the originality, accuracy, proper citation and academic integrity of the manuscript rests with the authors.

 

Open science

Esfera Pública. Journal on Governance and Society reaffirms its adherence to the international principles of open access and open science established in the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, and the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing.

In accordance with these declarations, the journal promotes free, immediate and economically unrestricted availability of peer-reviewed scientific literature; responsible reuse of contents with proper attribution of authorship; preservation, interoperability and broad circulation of academic knowledge; and the strengthening of open, transparent and publicly oriented scholarly communication.

This commitment is expressed through a diamond open access model, also known as platinum open access: the journal does not charge readers for consulting, downloading or reusing its contents, nor does it charge authors for submission, editorial processing, peer review, correction, layout or publication. Contents are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0), unless expressly stated otherwise.

 

Digital preservation

The journal has digital preservation mechanisms aimed at ensuring the long-term conservation, integrity, availability and recovery of its published contents.

LOCKSS and CLOCKSS are enabled in its OJS platform, and the journal preserves final files, editorial metadata, DOIs, persistent identifiers and published materials through institutional backup procedures.

 

Editorial ownership and academic independence

Esfera Pública. Journal on Governance and Society is published by El Colegio de Jalisco A. C., an academic institution devoted to research, teaching, dissemination and engagement in the social sciences and humanities.

The journal is non-profit, does not publish commercial advertising and its editorial decisions are made with academic independence.