About the Journal

Focus and Scope

«Scienza & Politica, per una storia delle dottrine» is an experiment that has lasted for more than twenty years. Started as a printed journal in 1989, from 2011 it is published only in electronic format. “Scienza & Politica” addresses the consolidated views of the scientific disciplines concerning “the Political”, that are more or less routinely divided into philosophy, history, law, sociology, plus a history specifically concerned with thought. Our choice is not simply to assume an interdisciplinary approach, but to work on the lines of connection and overlapping between the different disciplines. The journal aims to test the research on the complex and diverse belonging of political phenomena, rather than on their specific disciplinary determination. It pretends to put at stake the disciplines themselves knowing that they are a major mode of acquisition and transmission of knowledge.

For this reason, the Journal does not want to deal directly and exclusively with “science”, but with those projections that translate science into formulas socially transmitted, i.e. into doctrines. We are interested in registering and decoding the inevitable “political” impact that all doctrines have within any field of interest and action because of their constitutive “social” function (through the educational, cultural and ideological transmission). The Journal explores the doctrines as material phenomena, whose aim, performance, weight, historicity can be measured. They reveal the existence of a daily and living politics that is not necessarily expressed in political terms.

Section Policy

Theme

This section publishes the monographic section of the journal, in which different authors explore a given theme from different points of view. The section has one or more editors. Each essay in the monographic section is reviewed according to the criteria stated by Scienza & Politica.

Essays

The essays section contains all contributions that the journal considers relevant and pertinent to its scientific profile and editorial line. All essays are subject to double-blind review.

Materials

It is intended for the republication of short essays that are no longer available but that the journal considers important to bring to the attention of scholars, as well as for the translation of essays that are otherwise difficult to access because of their original location or the language in which they are written.

Report

This section contains discussions of recently published relevant texts, reports of conferences, seminars, reviews and study days on topics of interest to the journal.

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 judgment both in case of approval or non-approval of the article, within three months from the date of submission. As part of the initial quality assessment, each article will undergo plagiarism detection through iThenticate.

Reviewers 2013-2018

Gianluca Bonaiuti (Università di Firenze); Matteo Cavalleri (Università di Bologna); Paola Persano (Università di Macerata); Giovanni Ruocco (Università La Sapienza di Roma); Paola Rudan (Università di Bologna); Isabella Consolati (Università di Bologna); Maura Brighenti (IDAES, Buenos Aires); Mario Piccinini (Università di Padova); Antonino Scalone (Università di Padova); Maurizio Merlo (Università di Padova); Ferdinando Fasce (Università di Genova); Fabrizio Tonello (Università di Padova); Arnaldo Testi (Università di Pisa); Tiziano Bonazzi (Università di Bologna); Pietro Bianchi (Duke University); Sandro Chignola (Università di Padova); Fabio Raimondi (Università di Salerno); Luisa Simonutti (Università di Ferrara); Brunella Casalini (Università di Firenze); Paola Persano (Università di Macerata); Isabella Consolati (Università di Bologna); Sabrina Marchetti (Ca’ Foscari di Venezia); Ferruccio Gambino (Università di Padova); Olivia Guaraldo (Università di Verona); Natascia Mattucci (Università di Macerata); Vinicio Busacchi (Università di Catania); Manuel Anselmi (LUISS); Damiano Palano (Università Cattolica); Fortunato Maria Cacciatore (Università della Calabria); Giovanni Borgognone (Università di Torino); Michele Cento (Università di Bologna); Valentina Antoniol (Università di Bologna); Paolo Napoli (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales - Paris); Luca Alici (Università di Perugia); Andrea Marchili (Università di Roma); Sara Lagi (Università di Torino); Enrica Rigo (Università Roma Tre); Nicola Marcucci (EHESS); Luca Basso (Università di Padova); Maria Rosaria Stabili (Università di Roma Tre); Sebastian Torres (Universidad Nacional de Cordoba - Argentina); Alessandro Pandolfi (Università di Urbino); Sabrina Marchetti (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia); Luisa Simonutti (ISPF); Filippo Triola (Freie Universität Berlin); Giovanni Giorgini (Università di Bologna); Maurizio Bergamaschi (Università di Bologna); Luca Scuccimarra (Università La Sapienza Roma); Riccardo Caporali (Università di Bologna); Francesco Cerrato (Università di Bologna); Alberto Clerici (Università Cusano); Gennaro Carillo (Unisob Napoli); Federico Alessandro Goria (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale); Stefano Lucarelli (Università degli studi di Bergamo); Manuela Ceretta (Università di Torino); Silvia Rodeschini (Università degli Studi di Firenze); Giulio De Ligio (EHESS); Giovanni Campailla (Université Paris Nanterre); Roberto Carradore (Università degli Studi Milano-Bicocca); Gabriele Guerra (La Sapienza Roma); Mauro Farnesi Camellone (Università di Padova); Francesco Regalzi (Università di Torino); Francesco Raschi (Università di Bologna); Matteo Bortolini (Università degli Studi di Padova); Federica Sossi (Università degli Studi di Bergamo); Brett Neilson (University of Western Sidney); Stefano Visentin (Università di Urbino).

Publication Frequency

The journal is published twice a year, in June and December.

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 4.0 International License.

This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). 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.

The journal allows the reprinting of postprint on other websites or institutional archives, also in the definitive editorial version.

We consider also the publication of preprint which have been already published or inserted in institutional archives.

Authors who publish on this journal maintain the copyrights.

The authors who want to publish on our journal are required to sign the disclaimer: Author Guidelines

Publication Fees

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

Quality Control, Publication Ethics and Publication malpractice

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 Scienza & Politica. 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://scienzaepolitica.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.

Handling of errors and misconducts

Editors will promptly act in case of errors and misconducts, both proven and alleged. In case such as errors in articles or in the publication process, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, appropriate steps will be taken, following the recommendations, guidelines and checklists from COPE. These includes the publication of an erratum (errors from the publication process), corrigendum (errors from the author(s)) or, in the most severe cases, the retraction of the affected work.

The Journal policies will be reviewed periodically, particularly with respect to new recommendations from the COPE (last update: March 2018).

Indexing and Abstracting

  • DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals
  • ACNP - Italian Catalogue of Serials
  • BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
  • ERIH PLUS - European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences
  • Google Scholar - Academic Search Engine
  • JournalTOCs - Index of Scientific Journal TOCs
  • JURN - Academic Search Engine
  • PLEIADI - Electronic Literature Portal
  • Ulrichsweb - Global Serials Directory
  • ESCI - Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science)

The journal is also present in:

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/

Journal History

1989: birth of the biannual Journal, Scienza & Politica. Per una storia delle dottrine, founded by Pierangelo Schiera and Aldo Mazzacane. The first director was Giovanni Faustini.

1999: Scienza & Politica changes publisher (Clueb Bologna) and is coordinated by Pierangelo Schiera. The new series is connected with the Association of Roberto Ruffilli.

2011: Scienza & Politica becomes an online open access publication and is scientifically accredited, with double blind peer review.

2012: Scienza & Politica joins the Alma Digital Library services at the University of Bologna.

2013: Scienza & Politica is classified class-A for the scientific-disciplinary sector SPS 02 for the Area 14 valid for ASN. The Journal published a new series, Scienza & Politica Supplement with double blind peer review. Between 2013 and 2018 the Journal has published 7 Supplements.

2015: Scienza & Politica is co-directed by Maurizio Ricciardi e Pierangelo Schiera.

Presentazione — V.1, N.1 (1989)

What we are inaugurating is not a journal, with the ambition of completeness or representativeness, of either disciplining or systematic nature. This brief introduction, as well, is neither a political-academic nor a scientific manifesto. This journal is just an – hopefully periodical - opportunity to illustrate and, if possible, to explain – to ourselves also – the work that a group of friends has done for some years and that hopes keeping on doing for the next ones. The group, which is heterogeneous and very varied, has met for some years at the Italian-German Historical Institute in Trento, thanks to the contribution of the National Research Council (CNR). So far it has mainly concerned a research on “Costituzioni sociali, teorie dello Stato, ideologie in Germania” (Social constitutions, theories of the State and ideologies in Germany) directed by Pierangelo Schiera, which lasted from 1982 to 1988, and an ongoing research on “Cultura giuridica e scienze sociali in Italia e in Germania nel secolo XIX” (Legal culture and social science in Italy and Germany during the 19th Century), directed by Aldo Mazzacane. It is now being developed a project for a third research (concerning issues on social and constitutional history of higher education and scientific organization in Italy after the unification) the request for which is going to be forwarded within the deadline. It is pointless to detail here all the scientific results achieved by the members of the group over these years: the CNR Bulletin is in charge of giving this kind of information in the future (however, these results have already appeared in several series of books of the Italian-German Historical Institute published by Il Mulino). Nevertheless, it is necessary to highlight that these results have mainly been achieved individually, as the coaction force of the group is – alas – very weak. Over the years, this has resulted in defections and new acquisitions, according to the change of the general and particular conditions of the research. My impression, however, is that this way of working in group left both a quantitative and a qualitative mark. That means which, as a sort of communis opinio has been developing among us, we gradually started to share it, both on the methodological level and on that concerning research subjects and procedures. Thus, the purpose of these pages is that of being a container of this opinio: firstly, to make ourselves believe that our work will come out in a more programmatic way as opposed to how has been so far; secondly, to give the others our contribution, in the tacit hope that we will receive falsification or validation in return, useful to go on all the same. The cover of the little book “Scienza & Politica. Per una storia delle dottrine” shows helmeted Athena (the symbol of Science) sitting in a definitively melancholic position. In my opinion, this icon represents the justification for our research: the questioning about the reasons for the “melancholy of the science”, that is, why and how the science oscillates, in its results and in its own procedures, between the triumphalism of omnipotence and the removal of compromise. In other words, our theme of research is about the complicated and multiple-meaning relationship between science and power, particularly, taking into account the double function of the latter: that of leadership and that of obedience (in the sense that science serves to make the leadership more cogent and the obedience stronger). For this reason, we declare our option for a “history of doctrines”. By this, we mean that our intention is not to deal solely with “science”, but with those views of the science that are translated into principles to convey socially: precisely, into “doctrines”. However, we do not intend to study only those doctrines related to the political issues (on the philosophical and ideological level or on the technical and constitutional one). Instead, we are interested in trying to detect and decode the inevitable “political” impact doctrines have within any field of interest or action they are, due to their constitutive “social” function (through the school, cultural and ideological transmission). It goes without saying that we will pay greater attention to those doctrines concerning the field of the so called “social science”: in this case it is straightforward to identify the paths that we have just mentioned. In addition to this, we do not have any methodological or programmatic purpose. Our main concern is to succeed in giving evidence of the possibility for collaboration and mutual comprehension among researchers with different background and education. Should that lead to a common, even plausible, discourse, then we will have spent well our time.

Pierangelo Schiera

Publisher

Dipartimento delle Arti – DAR
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Piazzetta G. Morandi, 2
40125 - Bologna (Italy)