University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA
June 18-21, 2026
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How to submit an article
What do we want to see in submissions to Journal of Resistance Studies?
JRS has so far had a low acceptance rate. The reasons is that, although many good articles have high academic standards, that is not enough for the editorial board to accept them for publication. As a journal for a relatively new academic field it is important for us to publish texts that contribute to developing this specific field with theoretical ideas, high quality empirical material, interesting analysis, and/or cases from a wide spectra of societal contexts.
Crucial for inclusion in JRS is a clear focus on resistance and how acts of resistance influence power relations. That means that what constitute “resistance” and “power” (or “domination”) and how they relate need to be analyzed. It is important to understand that JRS is not simply one more journal on “social movements”. See our Policy Statement for more details.
All questions regarding the journal should be directed to: craig@resistance-journal.org.
Peer Review Process
JRS operates a double-blind peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and the author’s name is withheld from the reviewer. Reviewers may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review, but our standard policy is for both identities to remain concealed.
Open Access Policy
All articles become open access after two years from publication. If you opt to make one single article open access from day one, the fee is $2,000.
Copyright Policy
The responsibility for not violating copyright in the quotations of a published article rests with the author(s). It is not necessary to obtain permission for a brief quote from an academic article or book. Copyright for the articles published in JRS belongs to the JRS and the author(s) together.
Types of article
Research articles
Maximum 12 000 words, including all elements (title page, abstract, notes, references, tables, biographical statement, etc.).
Book reviews
Up to 12 000 words, including all elements. We also encourage historical book reviews.
Comments
Column with research-based policy articles and comments to articles published in earlier issues of JRS. Up to 5 000 words.
Short Reviews
Reviews of books, movies, games, websites and other media. Up to 400 words.
The Submission Process
Get Your Manuscript Ready
You can submit your manuscript through the form below.
In addition to research articles, we also look for book reviews, discussions, and other types of content. The double peer review process will only apply to research articles.
What to expect next
Addressing the review comments
Preparing the Final Manuscript
Manuscript Checklist
The final version of the manuscript should contain, in this order:
- title page with name(s) of the author(s), affiliation and a word count
- abstract
- main text
- list of references
- biographical statement(s)
- tables and figures in separate documents
- notes (either footnotes or endnotes are acceptable)
Authors must check the final version of their manuscript against these notes before sending it to us.
The text should be left justified, with an ample left margin. Avoid hyphenation. Throughout the manuscript, set line spacing to 1.5 or double.
The final manuscript should be submitted in MS Word for Windows, RTF-format, or ODT-format.
Language
The main objective of an academic journal is to communicate clearly with an international audience. Elegance in style is a secondary aim: the basic criterion should be clarity of expression.
We allow UK as well as US spelling.
Since JRS is an international journal, authors should avoid ‘nationalistic’ language. We encourage gender- neutral language wherever possible.
Numbers higher than ten should be expressed as figures (e.g. five, eight, ten, but 21, 99, 100); the % sign is used rather than the word ‘percent’ (0.3%, 3%, 30%).
The abstract
The abstract should be in the range of 200-300 words. For very short articles, a shorter abstract may suffice.
The abstract is an important part of the article. It should summarize the actual content of the article, rather than merely relate what subject the article deals with. It is more important to state an interesting finding than to detail the kind of data used: instead of ‘the hypothesis was tested’, the outcome of the test should be stated. Abstracts should be written in the present tense and in the third person (This article deals with …) or passive (… is discussed and rejected). Please consider carefully what terms to include in order to increase the visibility of the abstract in electronic searches.
Title and headings
The main title of the article should appear at the top of p. 1, followed by the author’s name and institutional affiliation. The title should be short, but informative.
All sections of the article (including the introduction) should have principal subheads.
The sections are not numbered. This makes it all the more important to distinguish between levels of
subheads in the ms. – preferably by typographical means.
Notes
Notes should be used only where substantive information is conveyed to the reader. Mere literature references should normally not necessitate separate notes; see the section on references below.
Notes are numbered with Arabic numerals. Authors should insert notes by using the footnote/endnote function in MS Word.
Notes will appear as footnotes in the journal. In the manuscript. they may be either footnotes or endnotes. Acknowledgements and credits to funding agencies should not be given in a note but rather appear in separate paragraphs at the end of the main text. This information should be included in the final version of the manuscript only.
Tables
Each Table should be self-explanatory as far as possible. The heading should be fairly brief, but additional explanatory material may be added in notes which will appear immediately below the Table. Such notes should be clearly set off from the rest of the text.
The table should be numbered with a Roman numeral, and printed on a separate page. A text indicator should be inserted after the paragraph where the table is first mentioned, in the following manner:
Table I in here
Figures
The same comments apply, except that Figures are numbered with Arabic numerals. Figure headings are also placed below the Figure.
Example: Figure 1. Number of armed conflicts by type, 1946-2006
Figures should ideally be jpg or tif files, if possible in high-resolution format (at least 350 dpi).
Quotations
For quoted words, phrases and sentences run into the text, JRS style is to use ‘single’ quotation marks. “Double” quotation marks should be used only for ‘quotations “within” quotations’. Longer quotations (40 words or more) should be indented without quotation marks and double-spaced in the manuscript. Ample space should be left before and after such quotations. They will be indented and appear in smaller type in the printed article. Responsibility for the accuracy of quotations, as well as for permission to quote extensively, rests with the author.
References
The Journal will review manuscripts in any standard academic style. For publication, however, JRS uses the author/date style of references, but it also allows notes for substantive commentary (see below). Papers without a reference list cannot be sent to readers for peer review.
Please be sure that your reference list is arranged in alphabetical order and that a comma precedes “and” in three-author works.
Every citation in the text or substantive notes must have a corresponding reference entry, and every publication listed in the reference list must be mentioned in the text or notes.
JRS prefers that web pages be referred to in notes rather than in the reference list. This allows authors to explain their use of the source, including date accessed.
For citations of works with three authors, JRS prints all the names at first appearance in text, but uses first author’s last name plus “et al.” thereafter. Citations of works by more than three authors will appear as first author’s last name plus “et al.” at all occurrences.
JRS requests that authors supply inclusive page numbers for book chapters.
Please use headline style capitalization (capitalize all words except articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions) and enclose article titles and book chapter titles in quotation marks. Please note that JRS uses the comma following the first, reversed name in a pair of authors:
Chabot, Sean, and Stellan Vinthagen. 2007. “Rethinking Nonviolent Action and Contentious Politics: Political Cultures of Nonviolent Opposition in the Indian Independence Movement and Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement.” Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 27:91-122.
Appendices
You may use Appendices to include important information which would unduly break up the information in the main text. However, keep the number of Appendices and the information contained in them to an absolute minimum. Appendices that are to be included in the printed article must be included in the word count.
Biographical statement
The biosketch in JRS appears immediately after the references. It should be brief and include year of birth, highest academic degree, year achieved, where obtained, position and current institutional affiliation. In addition authors may indicate their present main research interest or recent (co-)authored or edited books as well as other institutional affiliations which have occupied a major portion of their professional lives.
Separate biographies should be prepared for all co-authors.
The e-mail address of the ‘corresponding author’ should be included separately on the title page rather than in the biographical statement.