Stability:

International Journal of Security & Development

Overview

Stability: International Journal of Security & Development is a leading open-access journal focusing on security and development challenges in fragile, failed and conflict-affected states. It is the flagship publication of the Centre for Security Governance.

Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Mark Sedra
Managing Editor: Antoine Vandemoortele

Visit Journal Website
Call for Papers & Submissions
Contact Us
A New Kind of Journal
Stability is a fundamentally new kind of journal. Open-access, it publishes research quickly and free of charge in order to have a maximal impact upon policy and practice communities. Stability helps to connect policymakers, practitioners, academics and others with timely, peer-reviewed research on a wide range of issues related to stabilization, peacekeeping, state building, crime and violence prevention, development cooperation and humanitarian action. Stability is dedicated to providing a vehicle for academics and researchers based in fragile, failed and conflict-affected states to publish their work.
Focus & Scope
Stability fills a crucial niche. Despite the allocation of significant policy attention and financial resources to a perceived relationship between development assistance, security and stability, a solid evidence base is still lacking. Research in this area, while growing rapidly, is scattered across journals focused upon broader topics such as international development, international relations and security studies. Accordingly, Stability‘s objective is to:

Foster an accessible and rigorous evidence base, clearly communicated and widely disseminated, to guide future thinking, policymaking and practice concerning communities and states experiencing widespread violence and conflict.

The journal will accept submissions from a wide variety of disciplines, including development studies, international relations, politics, economics, anthropology, sociology, psychology and history, among others. In addition to focusing upon large-scale armed conflict and insurgencies, Stability will address the challenge posed by local and regional violence within ostensibly stable settings such as Mexico, Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and elsewhere. Stability is well-known for its special collections, including on DDR, the future of stabilisation, ICTs & peacebuilding, and more.

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. Authors of articles published in Stability remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce and share the article according to the Creative Commons license agreement.
Advertisement Policy
Stability welcomes advertisements on its site. However, the journal only displays advertisements that are of relevance to its scope and will be of interest to the readership (e.g. academic programs and services; conferences/events; scholarships/fellowships; websites/blogs; journals/publications; institutional outreach etc.). The editor and publisher have the right to decline or withdraw adverts at any point. For more information about advertising with Stability, including the fee structure, write to advertising@stabilityjournal.org.
Publication Frequency
The journal publishes on a continual basis, with new articles coming online as soon as they have passed peer review and forming no fewer than three issues – including special, themed issues – per year. There are no formal submission deadlines for regular issues.
Archiving Policy
The journal’s publisher, Ubiquity Press, focuses on making content discoverable and accessible through indexing services. Content is also archived around the world to ensure long-term availability. The specific services that index Ubiquity Press journals explained on the Stability journal website (http://www.stabilityjournal.org/about/)
History

Stability was launched in 2012 to provide a medium for innovative research related to security, development and the security-development nexus. Founding editors Robert Muggah, Steven A. Zyck and Mark Downes not only hoped to present timely and relevant research and policy guidance, but also to introduce a journal model that featured a rapid peer-review and publishing process, material that was accessible and insightful for both academic and practitioner audiences and, most importantly, was open access. In its early years, Stability rapidly developed a strong following and drew in a wide readership thanks to its editorial board and collaborations with UN communities of practice, government institutions, universities and think tanks around the world. Since its inception, Stability and its editors and editorial board have prioritized contributions from southern scholars and practitioners, and have developed an outreach strategy to encourage submissions and readers from countries affected by conflict and violence.

In 2016, the Centre of Security Governance acquired Stability. Dr. Mark Sedra, the CSG’s executive director, assumed the role of Stability’s editor-in-chief and leads its dynamic team into the next stage of the journal’s development.

Today Stability is routinely singled out for its excellence by diplomatic, defense, and development specialists, bringing innovative issues to the policy world in a high-quality, open-success format. The reach and impact of Stability is impressive by any standard. By the end of 2015, 174 articles, 13 special collections, and several data visualizations have been published. In 2015, it topped half a million article views and downloads. Stability‘s publications have been well received by the international media, having been republished in magazines such as Foreign Policy. Its online platform has also evolved considerably. With the support of Ubiquity Press it is now considered a model for open access publishing in the humanities and social sciences.

Featured Photo Credit: UN Photo