Peer Review Policy

Annals of Politics and Communication in Africa (APCA) employs a rigorous double-blind peer-review system to ensure all published research meets the highest standards of academic excellence and methodological integrity.

Stage 1:

Initial Editorial Triage:  The process begins with an Initial Editorial Triage, where the Editor-in-Chief assesses submissions for alignment with the journal’s scope, language quality, and original contribution. Manuscripts failing this stage, or those flagged by Turnitin for plagiarism, are "Desk Rejected". To eliminate bias, both author and reviewer identities remain strictly concealed throughout the evaluation.

Stage 2:

External Review and Decision: Manuscripts passing the internal triage are assigned to at least two independent external experts. These experts evaluate the work based on its originality, depth, and relevance within a four-to-eight-week review cycle. Following this, the Editor-in-Chief issues a final decision, ranging from:

· Accept Unchanged

· Accept with Minor Revisions

· Accept with Major Revisions

· Reject

Stage 3:

Production and Metadata Lock: Once a manuscript has successfully cleared the revision stage and is formally accepted, it enters the production phase. At this stage, authors are sent a galley proof for final review. During this stage, only minor administrative corrections to existing affiliations such as correcting a misspelling or a department name are permitted; requests for a complete change of institution will be rejected. Any such correction requires the corresponding author to secure explicit written confirmation from all co-authors.

Stage 4:

Post-Proof Approval / Archived Version Lock: Once the galley proofs are approved and the final PDF is assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), the scholarly record is considered immutable. At this stage, all article metadata is strictly locked, and no further requests for changes to affiliations or metadata will be entertained.