Small States & Territories Journal

Guide for authors and reviewers

Guide for authors and reviewers

Every effort will be made to provide a quick response by the editor to submitted manuscripts within a few days of the receipt of a manuscript to be considered for publication. Authors can also expect to receive reviewer reports within 4-5 weeks of submission.

Manuscripts to be considered for publication in SST can be submitted by sending a file in MS Word format by email to sst@um.edu.mt. (Submissions in PDF are not acceptable, since they preclude editing.) Kindly ensure that the manuscript consists of original work that:

  1. is not being considered for publication elsewhere
  2. has not been previously published elsewhere
  3. conforms to the SST journal’s house style and its ethical standards.


Check out the Journal’s Style Guidelines.

To be considered for publication in Small States & Territories (SST), submissions should meet the following criteria:

Manuscripts should always be concise and well-written, laid out in the style guide of the journal, and intended to advance the critical study of small (sovereign) states and (non-sovereign) territories, and of issues affecting these. They will normally be sent out for review to [at least] two independent scholars, and would benefit from additional critical comments by the SST editors. Authors submitting manuscripts for possible publication are advised to write clearly and lucidly, since not all SST's diverse readers would necessarily share the authors’ disciplinary background and English may not be their mother tongue. The quality of the English language used must be of the highest standard.

Review Essays would deal with largely descriptive compilations of material related to small states and territories. This material may include historical texts, current small state and/or territory programmes or policy debates. These essays would not normally be peer-reviewed but would be screened by the editor.

Authors submitting any material (and any accompanying illustrations, figures, tables, etc.) for publication in SST will be asked to vest copyright of that material to the Islands and Small States Institute (ISSI) at the University of Malta, Malta, by completing and submitting a 'copyright assignment form' . The ISSI, in turn, pledges to make such material freely available from the SST's website. Any such material can be freely used and re-used, on the understanding that it is properly cited, as is normal academic practice. Authors are responsible for obtaining any permissions necessary to reproduce copyrighted material from the appropriate sources.

SST follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors ). With the exception of book reviews and editorial introductions, all papers published in SST are subject to (at least) double-blind peer review. This standard also applies to papers authored or co-authored by members of the SST editorial board. Peer reviewers are asked to abide by the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers).

Conflicts of interest
Actual, potential, or apparent conflicts of interest must be declared at the time of article submission or as soon as such conflicts arise. Conflicts of interest include professional, business, financial, personal, or legal relationships between an author and an organisation being studied or discussed in a paper, which could influence the manner in which the research has been conducted and/or presented. Conflicts of interest are not in themselves reasons for rejecting a paper, but such conflicts may affect the way in which a paper is assessed. Failure to declare actual, potential, or apparent conflicts of interest may result in the rejection of submitted articles, retraction or a clarification of published articles. For questions involving conflicts of interest and other ethical issues, please contact the SST Executive Editor by email: sst@um.edu.mt.

The work of scholarly journals, and the pursuit of academic excellence generally, fully depend on the good will of academic colleagues to peer-review scholarly work. For those scholars who accept to act as peer reviewers for Small States & Territories (SST), thank you, personally and on behalf of the SST team, for your attention and time in facilitating the review process.

For those who accept to undertake manuscript reviews for SST, a report would be expected within 4-5 weeks of the forwarding of the manuscript to be reviewed. Send your report to the SST Executive Editor by email only: sst@um.edu.mt.

Your report should be concise, critically highlighting both the merits and limitations of the manuscript, with a clear indication of whether the manuscript is considered to be:

  1. fit for publication
  2. fit to be reviewed again after major revisions (in which case, further peer review may be required)
  3. publishable after minor revisions (in which case, these may be reviewed by the editor), OR
  4. unfit for publication and recommended for rejection


In any case, explain your judgement, and keep in mind that the text of your message may be sent – anonymously but without editing – to the manuscript's author(s) – also by email.

Small States & Territories encourages a cross-disciplinarity for the sake of providing more comprehensive and holistic assessments of the conditions and issues impacting on small states and territories. This means that both the authors of manuscript submissions and SST target audiences may not be nested in strict disciplinary confines.

Clarity of expression and effectiveness of communication are essential. As a reviewer, should you wish to submit detailed annotated comments alongside the text of the manuscript, for forwarding to the author(s), these are also welcome. In this case, set your computer identifier to ‘reviewer’ (Choose ‘File’, then ‘Properties’ from your Microsoft Word©® pull-down menu – in order to maintain your own anonymity.)

To obtain samples of SST peer review reports, contact the SST Executive Editor by email: sst@um.edu.mt

The work of scholarly journals, along with the general pursuit of academic excellence, depends so much on the good will of individuals to contribute scholarly work. For those scholars who agree, or offer, to submit a book review for Small States & Territories (SST), thank you, personally and on behalf of the SST team, for your care, interest and dedication in doing so.

Your book review should be concise – around 1,000 words – critically highlighting both the merits and limitations of the text. It should focus on a text that has been published recently. The review’s main objective is to provide readers with a concise, critical and fair commentary that focuses on the book’s distinctiveness and originality, and especially on its value and contribution to the study of small states and/or territories. While some indication should be made as to the overall structure and content of the book, the review should mainly engage with its key ideas. Do not insert citations; do not provide a list of references or a bibliography. Solicited reviews should be submitted within three months of the date that the book to be reviewed is received by the author.

SST is published twice yearly: in May and November. Reviews would need to be received by not later than 15 April and 15 October respectively to be considered for the forthcoming issue. Note also that SST encourages a cross-disciplinarity for the sake of providing more comprehensive and holistic assessments of the conditions and issues impacting on small states and territories, possibly to the exclusion of other jurisdictions. This means that SST’s target audiences may not be nested in strict disciplinary confines. Clarity of expression and effectiveness of communication are essential.

Include the following information in the title of your book review:

  • all author/s or editor/s 
  • date of publication
  • full book title
  • publisher
  • number of pages
  • ISBN number
  • price for hardback and/or paperback and/or ebook version, preferably in euros or US dollars.

Here is a sample of how such a title should read:
Ingebritsen, C., Neumann, I.B. & Gstöhl, S (Eds.). (2006). Small states in international relations. University of Washington Press in association with University of Iceland Press. 352pp, pbk, ISBN: 978-0-2959-8524-4. US$35.00.

Send your review to Dr Hillary Briffa, the SST Book Reviews Editor at hillary.briffa@kcl.ac.uk and copied to the SST's Executive Editor at sst@um.edu.mt. Expect to be contacted for revisions. Once their review is published in SST, each reviewer is encouraged to contact the author and/or publisher of the book reviewed, alerting them to the published review.

Samples of published book reviews are readily available from past issues of SST.

Before submitting a manuscript, those who intend to publish in SST are required to read the Journal’s author instructions and ethical policies carefully, and to adhere to their terms.

SST promotes good quality scholarship. Nevertheless, errors may sometimes appear in the published version of the journal. In such cases, the SST editor is to be notified immediately and, if the error is verified, a correct version of the published material will replace the former one online at the earliest opportunity.

Situations may also arise where it is alleged that ethical standards have been breached in relation to academic material related to SST. Allegations of research misconduct – such as plagiarism, ghost authorship, gift authorship, guest authorship, and abuse of intellectual property and copyright infringement – may be related either to a published article (or book review) in SST or to a manuscript under peer review for SST. Such allegations are taken most seriously by the Journal. Any such allegations are handled with sensitivity, tact, in confidence, and as follows:

  1. The SST Editor would receive a complaint that a published article or a submitted manuscript is suspected of being associated with research misconduct.
  2. The complainant needs to indicate the specific manner and detail of the alleged misconduct clearly. For example, in a case of plagiarism, the plagiarized text should be clearly highlighted and the original and suspected articles should be referred to clearly.
  3. The SST Editor, or designate, will investigate the allegations.
  4. If grounds for research misconduct result from the investigation, the SST Editor will be in contact with the corresponding author(s) of the suspected article or manuscript. The corresponding author(s) will be asked to provide an explanation, with factual statements and any available evidence, and given a deadline for such a submission.
  5. If the author(s) of the suspected article accepts the misconduct complaint, and the article has already been published, the SST Editor will publish an erratum and retract the article in question.
  6. If the author(s) of the suspected manuscript accepts the misconduct complaint, and the misconduct is reported during the review process, the review process may resume, once the author(s) makes the relevant changes.
  7. In the case of non-response by the corresponding author(s) within the stipulated time, or of an unsatisfactory explanation from the said author(s), the article or manuscript may be permanently retracted or rejected. Before making a decision, confirmation will be sought by the SST Editor from the SST International Editorial Board, from relevant institutions and/or other authorities, as may be required.
  8. The complainant will be informed of the outcome, once the issue is resolved. The case will thereupon be considered closed.
  9. Should the SST Editor be accused of research misconduct, then the SST Deputy Editor for Institutional Affairs would receive the complaint from the complainant, and would initiate and follow the protocol explained above.

https://www.um.edu.mt/sst/guidelines/