About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Founded at the University of Bologna in 2009, «Montesquieu.it» is an international peer-review journal in History of Philosophy and History of Political Philosophy. It is published in an electronic format and printed in a limited amount of paper copies. Its main focuses revolve around anthropological, ethical, political, socio-economic and legal-constitutional themes and concepts spanning from ancient to contemporary age. It pays particular attention to the study of Montesquieu, whom more than anyone else has revitalized, in the modern age, ancient Greek and Roman political thought and at the same time contributed to the foundation of the Modern State based on division of powers, rule of law and the autonomy and independence of the judiciary. The journal publishes articles and critical notes in Italian, English, French and Spanish.

Peer Review Process

Acceptance of articles for publication is subject to a double blind peer review. The two anonymous referees are chosen on the basis of their specific competences and research fields. Papers are evaluated according to several criteria as listed in an "evaluation card", which meets international scientific standards for journals. By submitting an article, the author implicitly accepts the double blind peer review process. The Editorial Board will give a judgement both in case of approval or non-approval of the article, within three months from the date of submission.

Publication Frequency

The journal is published once a year.

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.

It releases its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions, without commercial purposes.The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). Any modified copy of the contributions and any work derived by the contributions cannot be distributed. It is not necessary to ask further permissions both to author(s) or journal board, although you are kindly requested to inform the journal for every reuse of the papers.

Authors who publish on this journal maintain the copyrights.

Authors are welcome to post pre-submission versions, the original submitted version of the manuscript (preprint) and the final draft post-refereeing (postprint) on a personal website, a collaborative wiki, departmental website, social media websites, institutional repository or non-commercial subject-based repositories.

The journal has neither article processing charges nor submission processing fees.

Code of Conduct

The following statement is inspired by COPE Code of Conduct:

http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors.pdf.



Duties for the Editorial Team


Editorial team takes all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material published in «Montesquieu.it».


Editorial team have a duty to act if they suspect misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to them. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers.


The decision of Editorial team and of the International Editorial Board as to accept or reject a paper for publication in the journal is based on subject relevance and originality and is guided by the review of suitably qualified reviewers.


Editorial team will ensure that appropriate reviewers are selected for submissions. Editorial team strives to ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased and timely.

A description of peer review process is published, and Editorial team is ready to justify any important deviation from the described process.


Editorial team and International Editorial Board evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.


Editorial team’s decision may be constrained by such legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. Editorial team provides guidance to authors that encourage accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting, including technical editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists.


Editorial team has a system to ensure that material submitted to the Journal remains confidential while under review. Confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions is guaranteed.



Duties for Authors


Authors are responsible for the articles they submit: they must assure the originality of their works, being aware of the consequences of misconduct.

Authors should always acknowledge their sources and provide relevant citation details for all publications that have influenced their work.


Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication in order to provide access to such data.


Authors are asked to follow the Author’s Guidelines published by the Journal

http://montesquieu.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

therefore ensuring accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting, including technical editing.



Duties for Reviewers


Reviewers are provided guidance on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence.


Reviewers are required to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.


Reviewers are encouraged to comment on the originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publications and plagiarism. They will alert Editorial team regarding intellectual property issues and plagiarism and work to handle potential breaches of intellectual property laws and conventions.


Reviewers should help identifying relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.



The Journal policies will be reviewed periodically, particularly with respect to new recommendations from the COPE.

Archiving Policy

The University of Bologna has an archival arrangement with the National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome within the national project Magazzini Digitali.

http://www.depositolegale.it/editori-aderenti/

Publication Fees

The Journal has neither submission charges nor article processing fees.

Journal History

The journal was founded in 2009 at the University of Bologna as «Montesquieu.it : Biblioteca elettronica su Montesquieu e dintorni», printed by CLUEB (ISSN 2037-5115), and accessible online in Open Access at www.montesquieu.it.
Starting from 2015 the journal became online-only with the title Montesquieu.it, by the AlmaDL platform.