A global journal with Central European roots: a vision for the JIRD
Journal of International Relations and Development (2012) 15
A global journal with Central European roots: a vision for the JIRD
0 Petra Roter University of Ljubljana , Ljubljana , Slovenia
1 David Karp University of Glasgow , Glasgow , UK
2 Nik Hynek Institute of International Relations , Prague
The JIRD is a global journal with Central European roots. We have established a diverse editorial team of scholars from Europe and North America linked first by a commitment to publish highest quality scholarship in international relations (IR) and development, broadly conceived, regardless of substantive or methodological focus; and second by a common awareness of the contribution the Central and East European (CEE) experience can make to the study of international politics. We envision the JIRD as a globally relevant journal with a CEE touch. This does not mean dealing primarily with CEE themes, although the region will naturally remain more strongly in focus than in comparable IR journals. More profoundly, it means nurturing both CEE IR scholarship and also the broader transnational scholarly context in which it develops. In the first three editorial periods, Zlatko Sˇ abicˇ , Stefano Guzzini and Patrick T. Jackson led rigorous and highly professional editorial teams. Thanks to their skilful leadership, the JIRD was established as a forum for innovative and highquality scholarship and began to fulfil its mandate as the official journal of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA). It also achieved an Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) listing. Entrusting the editorship into the hands of excellent scholars with academic backgrounds from Western universities was a good way of providing the journal with ideational resources, experience and academic contacts necessary for ensuring high levels of academic rigour and quality. This was needed in the late 1990s when the scholarly communities in political science and IR in CEE were in a period of transition and/or establishment and there were very few scholars in the region able and willing to take on the complex task of establishing and editing a globally competitive academic journal. Today, however, the research milieu in IR and related fields in CEE countries has matured. This results from at least three factors. First, a new generation of scholars with Ph.D. degrees and research experience from top-ranking Western institutions has taken on positions in CEE universities and research institutes. Second, a significant number of Western scholars who have spent time at CEE universities throughout the last two decades have returned to Western universities and continue to develop
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research programmes related to CEE and IR. Third, research in the CEE
countries has gone through important scholarly debates on the character of IR
scholarship in their country and in the region
(e.g., see the forum debate in
JIRD edited by Petr Drula´ k 2009a)
; on the nature of their specific ‘national’
contributions to global IR scholarship (e.g., the debate initiated by Drula´ k in
the Czech journal Mezina´ rodnı ´ vztahy
(Drula´ k 2009b)
; and on the role of
Central Europe regional and global IR
(e.g., Sˇ abicˇ and Drula´ k 2012)
.
Today, CEE scholarship on international politics is increasingly re-connected
to global academic debates and is more self-aware. The new editorial team
therefore includes scholars with Western, CEE and mixed academic backgrounds
and expertise, with previous editorial experience and with close links throughout
the CEE and global IR scholarly community. This editorial change contributes a
slightly greater degree of regional ‘ownership’ to the journal, while simultaneously
keeping it firmly connected to and competitive within global IR scholarship.
Under our leadership, the JIRD will continue to host social-scientific debates
on international politics with no pre-specified geographic, theoretical or
methodological focus. We continue to subscribe to the editorial philosophy of
the previous editorial team, which is built on a Weberian understanding of the
purpose of social-scientific enquiry as a systematic ‘analytical ordering of
empirical actuality’
(Jackson 2008: 221)
. We value manuscripts that help to
further our understanding of the world around us, but are not restrictive in
any theoretical and methodological sense beyond this basic premise. We do, of
course, seek groundbreaking contributions in terms of methodologies, theories
and substantive issues addressed.
The journal also continues to take special interest in CEE. It is meant to
function as an open space for dialogue and debate of international issues of
relevance in the CEE region and beyond, such as: CEE and its role in global
politics; foreign policy approaches of CEE countries; integration processes in
the European Union and elsewhere; EU foreign policy; change dynamics in the
transatlantic security architecture; democr (...truncated)