Public Administration Quarterly
| Howard Frank | Florida International University, USA |
| Pablo Sanabria-Pulido | Florida Atlantic University, USA |
Policy Analysis | Policy Analysis & Evaluation | Public Policy & Public Administration
Public Administration Quarterly (PAQ) is committed to high-quality scholarship that defines the discipline’s borders while bridging theory with practice. While PAQ recognizes the discipline’s traditional focus on public organizations and their core functions, the journal invites multidisciplinary research that links public management to broader economic, demographic, technological, and political influences, helping to drive public policy and its implementation. Nearly 60% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, making city and regional economic development, management, and policy particularly salient. PAQ encourages quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodology, as well as historical and theoretical contributions from all corners of the globe.
Standalone refereed journal articles are PAQ’s principal focus. Additionally, the journal recognizes the import of special issues, book reviews, and practitioner-academic exchanges that enrich the knowledge base of public administration and policy and expand its audience beyond the academy.
| Howard Frank | Florida International University, USA |
| Pablo Sanabria-Pulido | Florida Atlantic University, USA |
| Christopher Douglas | University of Michigan-Flint, USA |
| Gina Scutelnicu Todoran | Pace University, USA |
| Shaoming Cheng | Florida International University, USA |
| Evelyn Rodriguez-Plesa | North Carolina Central University, USA |
| Serena Hoermann | Florida Atlantic University, USA |
| Mohammad Alkadry | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Susan Appe | University at Albany, USA |
| Itai Beeri | University of Haifa, Israel |
| Ricardo Bello-Gomez | Rutgers University-Newark, USA |
| Sebawit Bishu | University of Washington , USA |
| Paul Carmichael | University of Ulster, Ireland |
| Kaiju Chang | National Chengchi University, Taiwan |
| Wonhyuk Cho | Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand |
| Mariana Chudnovsky | University of Santiago de Chile, Chile |
| Andrew Crosby | University of California-Riverside, USA |
| Aaron Deslatte | Indiana University, USA |
| Kevin Dsouza | Queensland University of Technology, Australia |
| Mauricio Dussauge | FLACSO, Mexico |
| Angela Eikenberry | University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA |
| Michelle Esau | University of the West Cape, South Africa |
| G. David Garson | North Carolina State University, USA |
| Erwin Gaspar Alampay | University of the Philippines, The Philippines |
| Monica Gattinger | University of Ottawa, Canada |
| Davide Giacomini | University of Brescia, Italy |
| David Guo | Wichita State University, USA |
| Lauren Hamilton | University of Maryland Baltimore County, USA |
| Alexander Henderson | Marist College, USA |
| Bartley Hildreth | Georgia State University, USA |
| Marc Holzer | Suffolk University, USA |
| Michael Howell-Moroney | University of Memphis, USA |
| Naim Kapucu | University of Central Florida, USA |
| Santiago Leyva Botero | EAFIT University, Columbia |
| Tom Liou | University of Central Florida, USA |
| Cathy Yang Liu | Georgia State University, USA |
| Gabriela Lotta | Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil |
| Steve Maxwell | Florida Southwestern State College, USA |
| Matthew Mingus | University of Western Michigan, USA |
| Yasutoshi Moteki | Nanzan University, Japan |
| Carmen Navarro | Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain |
| Bhabani Nayak | London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom |
| Ratna Okhai | University of South Florida, USA |
| Raul Pacheco-Vega | FLACSO, Mexico |
| Jacyln Piatak | University of North Carolina--Charlotte, USA |
| Andrea Pierce | University of Delaware, USA |
| Cristian Pliscoff | Pontificate Catholic University, Chile |
| Tiina Randma-Liiv | Tallin University of Technology, Estonia |
| John Renne | Florida Atlantic University, USA |
| Norma Riccucci | Rutgers University-Newark, USA |
| William Rivenbark | University of North Carolina, USA |
| Alasdair Roberts | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Fadi Salem | Mohammad Bin Rashid School of Government, UAE |
| Jeanne Simon | University of Concepcion, Chile |
| Jessica Sowa | University of Delaware, USA |
| Alessandro Spano | University of Cagliari, Italy |
| Kendra Stewart | College of Charleston, USA |
| XiaoHu Wang | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Alan Zarychta | University of Chicago, USA |
| Zhirong (Jerry) Zhao | Shanhai Jiao Tong University, China |
Public Administration Quarterly is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
Please read the guidelines below then visit Public Administration Quarterly’s submission site [https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/paq] to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Sage disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Public Administration Quarterly will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in Public Administration Quarterly.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in Public Administration Quarterly and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Public Administration Quarterly will consider submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper to a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in Public Administration Quarterly. If your paper is accepted, you will need to contact the preprint server to ensure the final published article link is attached to your preprint. Learn more about our preprint policy here.
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
2.7 Research data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Identifiable information
4.4 Supplemental material
4.5 Reference style
4.6 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 SAGE Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Before submitting your manuscript to Public Administration Quarterly, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
- Research articles: Public Administration Quarterly (PAQ) invites the submission of academically rigorous articles from various methodological approaches, grounded in evidence, and aimed at generating both theoretical and practical contributions to our discipline. Given the broad nature of our journal, we welcome submissions from public administration and public policy, but also especially perspectives from other disciplines that seek to develop theoretical connections with central issues in the functioning of governments, public organizations, public officials, intergovernmental relations, urban and regional development, economic development, among others.Furthermore, we also invite deliberative and essay works focused on conceptual aspects, theoretical approaches, and normative discussions of public administration, as well as scholarly reviews that employ rigorous methods to explain issues in public organizations. Critical reviews of literature and academic production in public affairs, as well as philosophical aspects and values inherent in public functioning, are also encouraged.We particularly welcome comparative works and international research employing non-traditional approaches (such as North-South and South-South comparative analyses) that facilitate genuine global and interdisciplinary dialogue around the major themes and issues of public administration, public policy, and public affairs. We also encourage submissions from early career scholars who wish to explore innovative topics and novel methodologies.In general, the articles published in the journal aim to broaden the scope of discussion on the main research questions in public management and public policy, across disciplines, countries, political systems, government levels, types of organizations, and different forms of collaborative governance with other sectors of society and their involvement in public policies. We invite submissions following all the methodological and editorial guidelines below. The length of the manuscript should fall within the range of 9,000 to 12,000 words, encompassing the abstract, endnotes, and references. Tables, figures, charts, and appendices are excluded from the word count. All content must be presented in 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced. Authors are reminded that our review process operates on a double-blind basis. Thus, manuscripts should be prepared without any identifying information. The title of the manuscript and an abstract, limited to 200 words, should appear on the first page of the manuscript. In order to maintain anonymity, authors are advised to refrain from indicating authorship within the body of the manuscript whenever possible.
- Book Reviews: In our Book Reviews section, we invite colleagues and practitioners to provide critical readings of recent books in the fields of public administration and public policy, urbanism, regional development, economic development, and various substantive areas of public policy. We welcome submissions of books published anywhere in the world and in other languages, so that our reviews contribute to the dissemination of knowledge and the creation of strong bonds within the global community of public affairs. Reviews can range from 750 to 1,500 words, and for submission please contact our editors in chief.
- Viewpoint articles: PAQ invites submissions from academics and practitioners interested in contributing with viewpoint articles that expose practical problems, cases, and situations encountered by public managers, policy makers, and practitioners from public, private, and non-governmental organizations in the fields of public administration and public policy. The Journal will engage the practitioner community through its section for Viewpoint articles. Viewpoint articles will generally range from 3,000-5,000 words (without abstract/references) and have a strong emphasis on evidence for practice and other implications for public sector practitioners. If interested in submitting a viewpoint article, please contact our Pracademic Associate Editor: Dr. Serena Hoermann shoermann@fau.edu
Please visit our Sage Author Gateway for guidance on producing visual and/or video abstracts.
Visit the Sage Author Gateway for general advice on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance your article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication.
Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
- The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors.
- The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper.
- The author has recommended the reviewer.
- The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. Public Administration Quarterly utilizes a double-anonymized peer review process in which the reviewer and authors’ names and information are withheld from the other. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor who then makes the final decision.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in Public Administration Quarterly. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
Special issue manuscripts are sent to Guest Editors upon submission to ensure they meet the scope of the special issue. The rest of the peer review process will be handled by Public Administration Quarterly's internal editorial team. Reviewers make comments to the author and recommendations to the Editor who then makes the final decision.
Public Administration Quarterly is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Web of Science (previously Publons). Web of Science is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for Public Administration Quarterly can opt in to Web of Science in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Web of Science website.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your paper.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Public Administration Quarterly requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of Public Administration Quarterly to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. Public Administration Quarterly requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file. Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.
All papers reporting human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant ethics committee or institutional review board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number. Manuscripts of this type should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.
Public Administration Quarterly is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- Share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- Include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
- Cite this data in your research
If you need to anonymize your research data for peer review, please refer to our Research Data Sharing FAQs for guidance.
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Public Administration Quarterly and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of Public Administration Quarterly against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive license agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information, please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Public Administration Quarterly offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice program. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Where a journal uses double-anonymized peer review, authors are required to submit:
- A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymized. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
- A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymized material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
Visit the Sage Author Gateway for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
Public Administration Quarterly is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.
Public Administration Quarterly adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
4.6 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit Public Administration Quarterly’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Public Administration Quarterly (PAQ) is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit [https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/paq] to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for PAQ in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
PAQ strives to return a decision on submitted work within 5 weeks from acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript. Multiple rounds of revision and review may be necessary before a final decision can be returned.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of Public Administration Quarterly. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Public Administration Quarterly editorial office as follows:
Co-Editors-in-Chief
Dr. Howard Frank, Florida International University, USA
Dr. Pablo Sanabria-Pulido, Florida Atlantic University, USA
Managing Editor
Dr. Shaoming Cheng, Florida International University, USA
Associate Editors:
Dr. Gina Scutelnicu Todoran, Pace University, USA
Dr. Evelyn Rodriguez-Plesa, North Carolina Central University, USA
Dr. Serena Hoermann, Florida Atlantic University, USA
Dr. Chris Douglas, University of Michigan- Flint, USA
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com