Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

On this page: Focus and Scope · Section Policies · Peer Review Process · Publication Frequency · Open Access Policy · Article Processing Charge · Publication Ethics · Plagiarism Check · Artificial Intelligence Policy · Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern · Complaints and Appeals

The Moestopo Journal of International Relations (MJIR) (eISSN 2775-9598) is a peer-reviewed journal published by Pusat Penelitian dan Pengabdian Masyarakat (Puslitdianmas), Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Prof. Dr. Moestopo (Beragama), Jakarta.

MJIR publishes research in international relations with a particular interest in the international politics of the Global South, and especially in Indonesia and Southeast Asia — their foreign policies, their regional institutions, and their position in wider global structures. The journal welcomes work that examines these questions on their own terms rather than as peripheral cases of theory developed elsewhere, and equally welcomes work on other regions and on general questions in the discipline.

Topics addressed within the journal include:

  • International politics — political interaction between international actors, including foreign policy, international organisation, and geopolitics.
  • International political economy — political and economic problems at the international level.
  • World politics — global political issues such as democracy, authoritarianism, and human rights.
  • Area studies — political, economic, and cultural questions within particular regions.
  • Security — defence, war, international crime, cyber threats, energy, climate change, and environmental problems.
  • Diplomacy — soft power as a political instrument, including traditional, conventional, cultural, and sport diplomacy.

 

Section Policies

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

Type of review. All research articles submitted to the Moestopo Journal of International Relations (MJIR) undergo double-anonymised (double-blind) peer review. The identities of the authors are withheld from the reviewers, and the identities of the reviewers are withheld from the authors. Every research article is reviewed by at least two independent reviewers with demonstrated expertise in its subject matter. Reviewers are drawn from outside the authors' institution wherever possible. A reviewer who is employed at an author's institution, or who has co-authored with, supervised, or been supervised by an author within the preceding three years, will not be assigned.

Any editorial or commissioned item the journal may publish is assessed by the Editorial Board rather than sent for external review. The article type is stated on the published version of every item.

Stage 1 — Editorial screening (target: 7 working days from submission). The Editor-in-Chief, assisted by the Managing Editor, screens every submission for fit with the aims and scope of MJIR; compliance with the Author Guidelines, including length, structure, abstracts in both Indonesian and English, and reference style; originality, using Turnitin and general search engines, with manuscripts showing a similarity index above 20% — excluding the bibliography and properly attributed quotations — returned to the author or rejected; and basic scholarly adequacy, meaning a stated research question, an identifiable method, and evidence that supports the claims made. Submissions that fail this stage are desk-rejected, with reasons given in writing. Desk rejection is not a judgement on the value of the author's work; it means the manuscript is not ready for, or not suited to, external review at MJIR.

Stage 2 — Reviewer assignment. The handling editor identifies reviewers on the basis of subject expertise and absence of competing interests, and invites them through the journal's Open Journal Systems platform. Authors may suggest or oppose reviewers in the cover letter, giving reasons; the editor is not bound by such suggestions. Only anonymised manuscripts are released to reviewers.

Stage 3 — Review (target: 30 days per review round). Reviewers complete the MJIR reviewer report form, which asks for a summary of the manuscript, an assessment against the journal's published criteria, major comments, minor comments, confidential comments to the editor, and a recommendation. Reviewers are asked to be specific, constructive, and courteous, and to justify every substantive criticism by reference to the manuscript or to published literature.

Stage 4 — First decision (target: 12 weeks from submission). The handling editor considers the reviews and reaches a decision. Where two reviewers disagree materially, a third reviewer is appointed or the Editor-in-Chief adjudicates. The decision rests with the editor; reviewer recommendations are advisory. The author receives the decision letter together with the anonymised reviewer reports.

Stage 5 — Revision and re-review. Authors submitting a revised manuscript must include a point-by-point response to every comment, indicating where each change was made, and are encouraged to mark changes in the manuscript. Revised manuscripts are normally returned to the original reviewers. MJIR aims to reach a final decision within two rounds of revision; manuscripts still requiring substantive work after the second round are normally rejected, so that authors are not held in an open-ended process.

Stage 6 — Acceptance, copy-editing, and publication. Accepted manuscripts are copy-edited and typeset. Authors approve the proof; only typographical and factual corrections may be made at proof stage. Articles are published in the March or September issue.

Decision categories.

  • Accept — publishable as submitted, subject only to copy-editing.
  • Minor revision — publishable once specified, limited changes are made; normally not re-sent for external review.
  • Major revision — substantive problems of argument, method, evidence, or literature must be resolved, and the revised manuscript will be re-reviewed. A major-revision decision is not a promise of acceptance.
  • Reject — the manuscript will not be published in MJIR, whether because of fatal methodological problems, absence of contribution, or lack of fit with the journal's scope.

Standards applied by reviewers. Reviewers assess the manuscript's fit with MJIR's scope and the clarity of its research question; its contribution to existing scholarship; its theoretical framework and whether concepts are used consistently with the literature from which they are drawn; its engagement with relevant scholarship, including Indonesian and other regional work; its research design and the transparency of its method; the appropriateness and verifiability of its evidence and sources; whether the analysis follows from the evidence and considers alternative explanations; whether claims are proportionate to what the evidence supports; the ethical conduct of research involving human participants; and the manuscript's structure, its title, both abstracts, its referencing, and its tables and figures.

Obligations of reviewers. By accepting an invitation to review, a reviewer undertakes to decline promptly if they lack the relevant expertise, cannot meet the deadline, or hold a competing interest; to treat the manuscript as a confidential document, neither sharing it, discussing it with third parties without the editor's permission, nor using any part of its content for personal or institutional advantage before publication; not to upload the manuscript, or any part of it, to any generative artificial intelligence tool; to review objectively, avoiding personal criticism and supporting criticisms with reasons; to alert the editor confidentially to any suspicion of plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication or falsification, fabricated references, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or ethical problems, rather than raising an accusation in the comments to the author; and not to contact the authors directly about the manuscript at any stage. Reviewers who breach confidentiality or these obligations are removed from the reviewer database.

Appeals. An author who believes a decision rests on a factual error or a material misunderstanding may appeal in writing to the Editor-in-Chief at mjir@jrl.moestopo.ac.id within 30 days of the decision, stating the grounds specifically and responding to the reviewers' points. The Editor-in-Chief may uphold the decision, seek an additional review, or reopen the file. Appeals receive one decision, which is final. Dissatisfaction with a decision is not by itself grounds for appeal.

Timeliness and transparency. MJIR publishes its target timelines above and reports actual performance in the editorial of each issue. Where a target cannot be met, the corresponding author is informed of the delay and the expected revised date.

 

Publication Frequency

MJIR: Moestopo Journal International Relations published twice a year, on March and September

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

 

Article Processing Charge (APC)

Based on the publication policy of Moestopo Journal of International Relations (MJIR), there are no publication fees charged to authors.

Submission, peer review, and publication processes are completely free of charge (No APC – Article Processing Charge).

 

Publication Ethics

This is the statement of ethics for Moestopo Journal of International Relations (MJIR) published by PUSLIT FISIP Univ. Prof. Dr. Moestopo (Beragama) Jakarta. This statement was adapted from the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and covers the code of ethics for editorial board members, reviewers and authors.

Duties of Authors

  1. Reporting Standards: Authors should present an accurate account of the original research performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Researchers should present their results honestly and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. A manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Manuscripts should follow the submission guidelines of the journal.
  2. Originality and Plagiarism: Authors must ensure that they have written entirely original work. The manuscript should not be submitted concurrently to more than one publication unless the editors have agreed to co-publication. Relevant previous work and publications, both by other researchers and the authors’ own, should be properly acknowledged and referenced. The primary literature should be cited where possible. Original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations.
  3. Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publications: Author should not in general submit the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently. It is also expected that the author will not publish redundant manuscripts or manuscripts describing same research in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. Multiple publications arising from a single research project should be clearly identified as such and the primary publication should be referenced
  4. Acknowledgement of Sources: Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given.
  5. Authorship of the Paper: The authorship of research publications should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions to the work and its reporting. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to conception, design, execution or interpretation of the reported study. Others who have made significant contribution must be listed as co-authors. In cases where major contributors are listed as authors while those who made less substantial, or purely technical, contributions to the research or to the publication are listed in an acknowledgement section. Authors also ensure that all the authors have seen and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript and their inclusion of names as co-authors.
  6. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should clearly disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
  7. Fundamental Errors in Published Works: If the author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the submitted manuscript, then the author should promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.
  8. Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects: The author should clearly identify in the manuscript if the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use.

Duties of Editor

  1. Publication Decisions: Based on the review report of the editorial board, the editor can accept, reject, or request modifications to the manuscript. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision. Editors have to take responsibility for everything they publish and should have procedures and policies in place to ensure the quality of the material they publish and maintain the integrity of the published record.
  2. Review of Manuscripts: Editor must ensure that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor for originality. The editor should organize and use peer review fairly and wisely. Editors should explain their peer review processes in the information for authors and also indicate which parts of the journal are peer reviewed. Editor should use appropriate peer reviewers for papers that are considered for publication by selecting people with sufficient expertise and avoiding those with conflicts of interest.
  3. Fair Play: The editor must ensure that each manuscript received by the journal is reviewed for its intellectual content without regard to sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc. of the authors. An important part of the responsibility to make fair and unbiased decisions is the upholding of the principle of editorial independence and integrity. Editors are in a powerful position by making decisions on publications, which makes it very important that this process is as fair and unbiased as possible.
  4. Confidentiality: The editor must ensure that information regarding manuscripts submitted by the authors is kept confidential. Editors should critically assess any potential breaches of data protection and patient confidentiality. This includes requiring properly informed consent for the actual research presented, consent for publication where applicable.
  5. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: The editor of the Journal will not use unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript for his own research without written consent of the author. Editors should not be involved in decisions about papers in which they have a conflict of interest

Duties of Reviewers

  1. Confidentiality: Information regarding manuscripts submitted by authors should be kept confidential and be treated as privileged information. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.
  2. Acknowledgement of Sources: Reviewers must ensure that authors have acknowledged all sources of data used in the research. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. The reviewers should notify the journal immediately if they come across any irregularities, have concerns about ethical aspects of the work, are aware of substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article, or suspect that misconduct may have occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript; reviewers should, however, keep their concerns confidential and not personally investigate further unless the journal asks for further information or advice.
  3. Standards of Objectivity: Review of submitted manuscripts must be done objectively and the reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments. The reviewers should follow journals’ instructions on the specific feedback that is required of them and, unless there are good reasons not to. The reviewers should be constructive in their reviews and provide feedback that will help the authors to improve their manuscript. The reviewer should make clear which suggested additional investigations are essential to support claims made in the manuscript under consideration and which will just strengthen or extend the work
  4. Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. In the case of double-blind review, if they suspect the identity of the author(s) notify the journal if this knowledge raises any potential conflict of interest.
Promptness

The reviewers should respond in a reasonable time-frame. The reviewers only agree to review a manuscript if they are fairly confident they can return a review within the proposed or mutually agreed time-frame, informing the journal promptly if they require an extension. In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for him/her to complete review of manuscript within stipulated time then this information must be communicated to the editor, so that the manuscript could be sent to another reviewer.

Duties of the Publisher

Pusat Penelitian dan Pengabdian Masyarakat (Puslitdianmas), Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik, Universitas Prof. Dr. Moestopo (Beragama), supports the editorial independence of MJIR and takes no part in decisions on individual manuscripts. The publisher provides the infrastructure required to maintain the journal's records, correspondence, and archives, and preserves the review record for every published article. In cases of alleged or proven misconduct, the publisher works with the editors to clarify the matter and to correct the published record, and supports the editors in applying the journal's policies on correction, retraction, and expressions of concern regardless of the seniority or affiliation of the persons involved.

Related policies

This statement is read together with the journal's policies on the Peer Review Process, Competing Interests, the Use of Artificial Intelligence, Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern, and Complaints and Appeals, each published separately in this section.

 

Plagiarism Check

Every manuscript submitted to the Moestopo Journal of International Relations (MJIR) is screened for originality before it is considered for peer review, using Turnitin together with general search engines.

MJIR applies a similarity threshold of 20%, calculated excluding the bibliography and excluding quotations that are properly marked and attributed. A manuscript whose similarity index exceeds this threshold is returned to the author for revision or rejected, depending on the nature of the overlap. The editors assess what the similarity consists of rather than the percentage alone: a high index arising from correctly attributed quotation and standard terminology is treated differently from a moderate index arising from unattributed reproduction of another author's sentences.

Text taken from another source without attribution, whether reproduced verbatim or paraphrased, is plagiarism regardless of the percentage it represents, and is grounds for rejection. Where a manuscript has already been published, the same finding is grounds for retraction under the journal's policy on Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern. Authors who reuse their own previously published work must cite it as they would cite any other source; undisclosed reuse of one's own text is treated as duplicate publication.

Screening is a tool, not a judgement. The decision on any manuscript rests with the editors, who examine the flagged material itself before drawing any conclusion, and who give the corresponding author an opportunity to respond before a finding of misconduct is recorded.

 

Artificial Intelligence Policy

MJIR recognises that generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted tools are now widely available. The journal's position is that these tools may support scholarly work but cannot substitute for the judgement, accountability, and originality that authorship requires.

AI cannot be an author. An AI tool cannot be listed as an author or co-author of a manuscript submitted to MJIR, and cannot be cited as an author. Authorship entails accountability for the work, agreement to its submission, and the capacity to manage questions of conflict of interest and copyright — none of which an AI tool can hold. The human authors are fully responsible for the entire content of the manuscript, including any part produced with AI assistance, and are liable for any breach of publication ethics arising from it.

Permitted use, with disclosure. Authors may use generative AI and AI-assisted tools to improve the readability and language of their manuscript, and to assist with tasks such as formatting or translation. Such use must be applied under human supervision, with the authors reviewing and correcting the output carefully, and must be disclosed in a statement placed before the reference list, headed Declaration of Generative AI Use, naming the tool and version and describing what it was used for. A suggested form of words: “During the preparation of this manuscript the author(s) used [tool name and version] in order to [purpose]. After using this tool, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the publication.” Basic spelling and grammar checking of the kind built into word processors does not require disclosure.

Where AI has been used as part of the research method itself — for example in coding qualitative data, in text classification, or in corpus analysis — this is not language assistance and must be described fully in the methods section, in sufficient detail for the procedure to be evaluated and repeated.

Uses that are not permitted.

  • Generating substantive scholarly content — argument, analysis, findings, or interpretation — and presenting it as the authors' own work.
  • Generating, altering, or enhancing research data, images, or figures in ways that misrepresent what was observed or collected. AI-assisted visualisation is acceptable only where the visual output is derived directly from underlying data supplied by the authors.
  • Generating references. Authors are warned that generative AI tools routinely produce citations that appear plausible but do not exist, or that misattribute claims to real sources. Every reference in a manuscript submitted to MJIR must have been consulted by at least one author. The editorial office verifies references at screening, and a manuscript containing fabricated or systematically misattributed references will be rejected and may be reported to the authors' institution.

Reviewers and editors. Reviewers and editors must not upload a manuscript, or any part of it, or their review report, into any generative AI tool. Submitted manuscripts are confidential documents, and uploading them to an external service breaches the confidentiality and proprietary rights of the authors. Peer review is an act of expert human judgement and may not be delegated to an AI system. Where a reviewer or editor has used an AI tool in a manner that does not involve uploading confidential material, the use and its purpose are disclosed to the editorial office; routine spelling and grammar checking need not be disclosed.

Screening and the limits of detection. MJIR screens submissions for similarity using Turnitin and may use additional tools that report the likelihood of AI-generated text. The journal states plainly that no available tool can prove that a text was machine-generated, and MJIR will not reject a manuscript on the output of such a tool alone. Where screening raises a concern, the editor examines the manuscript itself — the verifiability of its sources, the coherence of its evidence, and the authors' ability to explain the work — and may ask the corresponding author for clarification. Any decision rests on that examination, and the author is informed of the concern and given an opportunity to respond.

 

Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

The scholarly record is permanent. MJIR does not remove published articles from its site; it corrects the record openly, so that readers can see what was published and what has changed.

Correction (erratum / corrigendum). Where a published article contains an error that affects a portion of the work but not its central findings or conclusions, MJIR publishes a correction notice, linked to the article, identifying the error and stating the correct information. An erratum records an error introduced by the journal; a corrigendum records an error introduced by the authors.

Retraction. MJIR retracts an article where there is clear evidence that its findings are unreliable — whether because of major error, data irregularity, or misconduct such as fabrication, falsification, image manipulation, or fictitious authorship; where the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution, permission, or justification; where the article contains material or data used without authorisation; where it constitutes plagiarism; where the research was unethical; or where the peer review process was compromised or a conflict of interest was concealed in a way that could have affected the reviewers' or editors' judgement.

The purpose of a retraction is to correct the literature and preserve its integrity, not to punish the authors. Retraction notices are published promptly, are freely accessible, are linked to the retracted article and identify it by title and authors, state clearly who is retracting the article, and give the reason for retraction so that readers can distinguish honest error from misconduct. The article itself remains available, watermarked “RETRACTED” on every page. Where an author disagrees with the retraction, that is recorded in the notice.

Expression of concern. Where the editors have a well-founded concern about the reliability or conduct of a published article but the evidence is inconclusive — for example while an institutional investigation is pending — MJIR publishes an expression of concern linked to the article, and replaces it with a correction, a retraction, or a notice of resolution once the matter is settled.

Process. Concerns are addressed to the Editor-in-Chief at mjir@jrl.moestopo.ac.id. The editors establish the facts, invite the authors to respond, consult the authors' institution where appropriate, and decide. Decisions on retraction are taken by the Editor-in-Chief together with the Editorial Board, and are not delegated to a single handling editor.

 

Complaints and Appeals

MJIR welcomes complaints, since they identify where the journal can improve.

Complaints about process or conduct. Complaints about the conduct of an editor, a reviewer, or a member of editorial staff, or about the journal's processes, are addressed in writing to the Editor-in-Chief at mjir@jrl.moestopo.ac.id. Complaints are acknowledged within 10 working days and answered within 30 working days. Where the complaint concerns the Editor-in-Chief, it is addressed to the Head of Pusat Penelitian dan Pengabdian Masyarakat (Puslitdianmas), Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Prof. Dr. Moestopo (Beragama). The complainant is informed of the outcome and of any action taken.