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Editorial Policies and Submissions Guidelines

Editorial Board

Diana Brydon (University of Western Ontario)
Nancy Cook (Brock University)
Daniel Gorman (York University)
Heike Härting (University of Montreal)
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Adrian Jones (McMaster University)
Louis W. Pauly (University of Toronto)
Samir Saul (University of Montreal)
Jessica Schagerl (University of Western Ontario)
Adam Sneyd (McMaster University)
Imre Szeman (McMaster University)
John Weaver (McMaster University)

Editorial Office

William D. Coleman (Academic Editor)
Nancy Johnson (Academic Editor)
Geoffrey Rockwell (Compendium Lead Designer)
Lian Yan (Programmer)
Kate MacKeracher (Editorial Assistant)

Focus and Scope

Over the past several decades, processes now termed globalization have been restructuring the way many people live and how they relate to others. They are reducing many limits on social interaction once imposed by physical location. These processes are also destabilizing existing centers of authority and security such as nation-states, with new centers emerging at various scales of social life, from global down to local levels.

Many individuals and communities have begun to resent the changes involved and have moved to oppose and resist the dynamics of globalization. Others are seeking to exploit the new opportunities that come with globalization in the hope of changing the cultural and social situations in which they live. In both cases, human beings are seeking to control and harness these new forces in order to secure their autonomy, that is, the opportunities for individuals to shape the conditions under which they live and the capacities of communities to shape the laws and norms, which order their ways of living.

The Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium focuses on the relationships between globalization and autonomy. In particular, the Compendium covers the impact of globalization on autonomy in relation to communities and identity, democracy, global governance, Indigenous peoples, property rights, technology, and trade and finance. It is also interested in the historical dimensions and debates concerning the relationship between autonomy and globalization.

The Compendium's distinctive contributions will be:

  1. By virtue of being an electronic and open access publication, it will reach a much wider audience than is possible with traditional academic publications.
  2. With a considerable proportion of its content (Research Summaries, Position Papers, and Glossary Articles) written for non-specialists, it will reach a diverse readership.
  3. It will advance academic scholarship and debate in the area of globalization and autonomy.
  4. It will provide specialist and non-specialists with one of the largest searchable bibliographic databases on the topic.

Learn more About the Compendium.

Peer Review Process


Position Papers and Research Summaries will not be peer reviewed. Rather, they will be read carefully by the Compendium Editors for matters of style, clarity, and appropriateness for the intended audience. Suggestions for improvements will come from the Editors.

All Glossary Articles undergo peer review. Typically, reviews are solicited from within the membership of the project team and from an individual with a different disciplinary perspective than the author. Reviewers are asked to consider the usual questions of peer review, but with an idea to improving the definition through concrete suggestions for revision, not simply accepting or rejecting it. These questions can be found in the Instructions for Reviewers of Glossary Articles below.

The review process is double-blind. All identifying information about the author that may be found in citations and the document's file properties, as well as the name of the author(s), is removed by the Compendium's Editors prior to the submission being sent out for review.

The Editors strive to provide authors with timely feedback on their submissions and request that reviewers return their comments within three weeks of agreeing to do the review.

A reviewer may make a recommendation to: accept without revision; accept after revision; or reject, citing compelling reason. The Editors, however, reserve final judgment with respect to acceptance or rejection of a Glossary Article.

All research articles will be peer reviewed. Usually, one of the reviewers will be selected from the discipline of the author and the other from outside the author's discipline. Again, reviewers are asked to consider the usual questions of peer review, but with an idea to improving the paper, not simply accepting or rejecting it. These questions include:

  1. Is the argument clearly stated and is it addressed consistently in the paper?
  2. Is the evidence or the thinking provided to support the argument convincing? Are there parts of this presentation of evidence or thinking that might be improved?
  3. Does the paper address important issues in the Globalization and Autonomy project?
  4. Is the writing style clear and effective? Is the paper's organization helpful in presenting the author's argument?
  5. Is the length of the paper appropriate? Should some parts be shortened? Should others be elaborated?
The review process is single blind: the reviewers are not made known to the author unless a reviewer suggests contact to facilitate discussion and improvement of the paper.


Publication Frequency

Research Articles, Summaries, and Position Papers are added individually to the Compendium on an ongoing basis. Glossary Articles are added in batches every two months.

Open Access Policy

The Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium provides open access to all of its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global knowledge exchange. Such access is associated with increased readership and citation levels. The Compendium uses open source software, adapted and extended by the TAPoR project (www.tapor.ca) , to help make open access economically viable, as well as to improve the scholarly and public quality of research.

On-line Submissions

At present, the Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium does not accept unsolicited Research Articles, Position Papers, Research Summaries or Glossary Articles from individuals outside the MCRI-funded project team. All MCRI team members and affiliated students may submit a query regarding publication of any of the above types of content to the Compendium's Editors at: [email protected].

A list of glossary terms for which we are currently seeking authors is available here. We also entertain suggestions for glossary entries not on our list.

Author Guidelines

The Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium adheres to the bibliographic and formatting requirements set out in the following guidelines for:
Research Articles
Position Papers
Research Summaries
Glossary Articles

Authors of Glossary Articles are advised to also note the Instructions to Reviewers of Glossary Articles below. These will provide you with information on how your article will be assessed.

All Compendium authors should consult the Guidelines for Citations and References.

Submissions Preparation Checklist

  1. The submission file is in Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
  2. The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or a written explanation has been provided to the Editors).
    There are no third party claims on the rights of submission.
  3. You warrant that the submission is original with you. Where more than one author has contributed to the article, all authors consent to its submission to, and publication by, the Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium.
  4. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in Author Guidelines.
  5. All URL addresses in the text are activated and ready to click.
  6. All figures are submitted as a separate .jpg file. The position of figures should be clearly indicated in the text.
  7. All tables should be placed within the text at the appropriate points rather than at the end.
  8. For Research Articles, Position Papers, and Research Summaries only, authors must identify five keywords that describe the paper's content. Keywords should not be words that appear in the title of the paper.

Instructions to Reviewers of Glossary Articles

Reviewers are reminded that glossary entries should be written in accessible language, geared toward a high school or first-year university level audience. They should be based on the assumption that the reader is unfamiliar with the term as well as other globalization-related concepts.

As a reviewer, we would like you to consider the usual questions of peer review, but with an idea to improving the definition through concrete suggestions for revision, not simply accepting or rejecting it. These questions include:

  1. Does the definition provide an introduction to the subject that:
    • Is concise, yet presents a reasonable survey of the topic given the word limit.
    • Is fair and balanced — that is, does the article stick to presentation of information and avoid persuasion or argument? Does the article present all relevant perspectives and not privilege a particular perspective over others?
    • Contains information that is accurate and up-to-date.
    • Considers what the intended audience is likely to find interesting about the topic and attempts to "grab" that interest.
  2. Does the definition touch on the most important or salient points to be made about the subject in terms of what is likely to be relevant to the intended audience? Does the definition avoid digression on finer points of academic debate that are unlikely to be of interest or relevance to an outreach audience?
  3. Is the definition written in a language and tone that is appropriate to the intended audience?
  4. Does the definition describe the subject's relevance to globalization and autonomy?

Copyright Notice

The copyright for articles in the Globalization and Autonomy Online Compendium is owned by the authors and licensed to the Compendium for reproduction, publication and distribution. By virtue of their appearance in this open access publication, articles may be reproduced and distributed with proper attribution in educational and other non-commercial settings.

Privacy Statement

Names and email addresses provided to the Compendium will be used exclusively for communication between authors and the Editors. They will not be used for any other purpose or made available to any other party.

The Compendium uses Apache as its HTTP (web) server which keeps standard logs of all requests processed. (See documentation at http://httpd.apache.org.) Apache log entries are deleted within 40 days. The logs are only available to system administrators and to the TAPoR project directors. The logs are analyzed currently by the Webalizer package (See http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/) and the abstracted (and anonymized data) is kept for at least a year. It is protected and available only to Compendium programmers, server system administrators, and Compendium administrators. The webalizer package keeps the pages it generates for 12 months but contains no actual log files. We reserve the right to change the analysis package, but are committed to running an analysis package locally so that data is not shared with a commercial web statistics service. If we change the package we run it will be noted in this privacy statement.

































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