Updated on 21 October 2020.
Submissions
Technical Politics is happy to consider for publication articles on public policy, public policy-related events, current legislation, parliamentary or select committee debates, or legislative drafting.
Articles may focus on public policy as it relates to any country, subnational unit, government or international organisation. Preference is given to balanced or neutral articles describing the fullest range of opinions on the topic, and including substantial quotations from representatives of both or all sides of the debate. We are happy to accept work from independent journalists and scholars, academics, public policy experts,
As of October 2020, with rare exceptions, we will be publishing only original work.
Our preference is to publish signed work. Please indicate if you require your work to be published anonymously.
The content of Technical Politics reflects a range of political perspectives. Please note that the views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of Technical Politics. Likewise, republication on this website should not be taken as endorsement by the original authors or publishers of this site, or of any contributor or viewpoint found on this site.
Publication Guidelines
Read these guidelines first before sending us submissions.
Technical Politics does not pay.
Publication of any material you submit to us will be at our sole discretion, including the publication of material discussed with us in advance.
By submitting material to Technical Politics:
(i) You grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to publish and communicate any material you submit to us in any format, including without limitation print and electronic format. You also agree that we may permit other parties to publish and communicate to the public any material you submit to us in any format.
(ii) You warrant that any articles you submit to us are your own original work, and that you own the copyright and any other relevant rights. Please indicate whether the work is original or has been published elsewhere: we give preference to the former. If the work has been published elsewhere, please provide full particulars.
(iii) You grant us permission to copyedit and/or abridge your article.
(iv) You acknowledge that any breach of these conditions may cause us damage or loss. You agree to indemnify us in full and permanently against any third-party liabilities, claims, costs, loss or damage we incur as a result of your breach of these Publication Guidelines. You must act honestly and in good faith in your dealings with us and, if requested, you must provide us with reasonable assistance to settle, defend or investigate any third-party claims arising as a result of our publication of material you submit to us.
Register and Style
Articles should be written with a knowledgeable reader, interested in politics, public policy, economics and international relations in mind.
It reasonable to expect the reader to understand subject-specific terminology, such as ‘Thucydides Trap’ or ‘deflationary spiral’. Don’t patronise the patrons!
We recommend that you follow either MHRA (free online) or Chicago Style.
Language
We are happy to accept articles for publication in any dialect of English (including American, Australian or British English), Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Scots, Ulster Scots, or Welsh.
Article Titles
If there exists the potential for ambiguity, please indicate in the title of the article the country or jurisdiction to which the content relates. Our readership will be familiar with many prominent public figures, so ‘Rodrigo Duterte Condemns…’ or ‘Jair Bolsonaro Announces…’ would be fine. ‘The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte…’ is unnecessary. On the other hand, ‘The President Announces …’ would be ambiguous; better to write, ‘President Trump Announces…’
Article titles should be written in title case, e.g. ‘The Prime Minister of Kenya Is Planning to Introduce Controversial New Land Reform Legislation’.
Headings
We recommend using headers to split longer articles.
Headings should be written in title case.
Text
Please proofread your submission, or have it proofread, before sending it to us.
Avoid using bold or underlining in the text of the article.
Use italics sparingly.
We may choose to highlight key clauses, sentences or paragraphs in bold when editing the article.
Punctuation
Please use a single space after a punctuation mark.
References
Technical Politics uses footnotes rather than inline citations. Footnotes are clickable, allowing readers easy access to the contents thereof.
This is not essential, but it will buy you a little goodwill to enclose the text of your footnotes within the following code – 1 – in position throughout the text.
For example:
The sentence in your article being referenced.2 The next sentence in the paragraph.
Bio
Please include a short bio in italics at the foot of the article. The following is a representative example:
Jane Doe is the Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at Anywhere University, California, United States. She is the author of ‘A Guide to Public Policy’ and ‘Public Policy: A Retrospective’.
Length
Articles should be at least 500 words in length. Within reason, there is no upper word limit.
File Formats
Your submission should be sent in an attached document in .txt, .odt, .doc or .docx format, or better still, in the body of the email. We do not accept PDFs.
Pictures
If you have a high-quality picture that you would like us to consider publishing as the ‘featured image’ for the article, please feel free to include it with your submission.
If you would like us to incorporate pictures, charts or tables in the body of the article, please send these to us as separate files, and indicate where in the text they should appear.
Please indicate the copyright status of any submitted pictures.
Conflicts of Interest
You must declare any pertinent conflicts of interest in a paragraph at the foot of the article.
Book Sales
If you would like us to sell any book you have published via our online store, feel free to send us details of stock and discounts.
Good to go?!
The email address for submissions is at the foot of this page.