In Evliya Çelebi Journal of Political Sciences, referees are selected among the experts of the subjects covered in the articles. All selected referees are informed about the responsibilities of the referees and the ethical principles of Evliya Çelebi Journal of Political Sciences, article evaluation criteria and procedure.
- After the referee accepts to be a referee, he/she should take into account the ‘Responsibilities of the referees and ethical principles to be followed’ and ‘Evaluation Processes’ on the system.
- Reviewers should only agree to review manuscripts for which they have the necessary expertise to conduct an appropriate review, can respect the confidentiality of blind peer review, and can keep the details of the manuscript confidential at all times.
- Reviewers invited to review a manuscript are expected to submit their decision to accept or reject the review within 5 days. A referee who has not made a decision by the end of this period is deemed to have rejected the review and a new referee is appointed by the editor. Reviewers who accept the review are expected to submit their opinions within 7 days from the date of acceptance of the invitation. Referees who do not complete the evaluation process within this period are given an additional period of up to 7 days upon the request of the referee. If the arbitrator does not request additional time, a new arbitrator may be appointed.
- Each referee who accepts the referee invitation is asked to fill out an evaluation form and to express his/her acceptance or rejection opinion on the article with concrete reasons.
- In this review form, reviewers are expected to express their opinions on the following issues:
1. Title and Content Consistency
2. Language and Expression of the Article
3. Systematic Compliance with Scientific Criteria
4. Defining the Scope and Conceptual Framework
5. Subject Integrity
6. Defining the Problem
7. Review of Previous Studies (Literature Review)
8. Research Method
9. Presentation, organisation and consistency of information
10. Critical Perspective
11. Access to Primary Sources
12. Access to New Scientific Studies
13. Knowledge of the terminology of the field
14. Originality of the Study
15. Getting Results
16. Coherence of the Arguments Presented and Rational Relevance to Conclusions
17. Contribution to the Field
The referees give an opinion on all these issues by marking one of the options Sufficient, Not Sufficient, Partially Sufficient, Mostly Sufficient. The referees do not need to approve all of these issues for the article to be published. However, suggestions regarding the parts stated as Unsatisfactory and Partially Satisfactory in the evaluation form and other suggestions to the author should be stated in the ‘Note to the Author’ section.
- After completing this form, reviewers can make the following decisions:
 Review Article (Major Correction)
 Revise Article (Minor Correction)
 Deny
 Accept
- If one of the referee evaluation reports is positive and the other is negative, the manuscript is sent to a third referee.
- A single referee report is sufficient to reject an article, but at least two referee reports are required for acceptance.
- If one of the referee evaluations reports ‘Acceptance’ or ‘Minor Revision’ and the other reports ‘Major Revision’ and the editor's opinion is in favour of acceptance of the article, the article is sent to the same referee after the author makes the corrections. The article is rejected or sent to a third referee according to the opinion of the referee who issued the report with the condition of ‘Major Revision’.
- The referee requesting revision may request a re-evaluation of the article after the revision. The referee is given an additional 7 days for this evaluation.
- Data for articles based on field research or data analysis may be requested from the editor by the referee for a proper analysis of the analyses in the article. The journal editor communicates with the author and forwards the data to the referee.
- Reviewers should not have any conflict of interest related to the research, the authors and/or the funders of the research. If a conflict of interest is foreseen, the reviewer should contact the editorial board and indicate a possible conflict of interest. The Conflict of Interest Framework published by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/case/conflict- Interest) will be taken into account in any conflicts of interest that may arise.
- Reviewers cannot use the data of the articles they evaluate before publication and cannot share these data with others.
- The names of the referees who evaluate in the journal are not disclosed to the authors. The information of all referees is published as a list in each issue.