Bulletin of Italian Politics

Instructions for Authors

Authors should send their contributions as e-mail attachments to one of the two editors, Maurizio Carbone (M.Carbone@glasgow.ac.uk) or Jim Newell (j.l.newell@salford.ac.uk). Files should be in Word or rich text format. Authors should inform the editors if their article is under consideration for publication elsewhere. Each piece submitted to the Bulletin of Italian Politics (BIP) should be in English, typed in double spacing (including all notes and references), with pages numbered consecutively. Research articles should not exceed 10,000 words. Shorter articles for the section “Debates and Controversies” should not exceed 7,000 words. Book reviews should normally be between 800 and 1,500 words.

The first page of the typescript should bear the title of the paper together with the name and institutional affiliation of all authors. Give authors’ full postal and e-mail addresses as well as telephone and fax numbers. A short biography outlining institutional affiliation, principal publications and research interests, should be provided for each author and should follow the references.

The second page of the typescript should repeat the title, followed by an abstract, a list of up to 4 keywords suitable for indexing and web searching (not required for book reviews).

Review articles and book reviews should also contain the bibliographic details of the book(s) being reviewed to include: title and subtitle; name(s) and surname(s) of authors; publisher; year of publication; no. of pages; ISBN no.

The journal uses the Harvard system of referencing.

In the text, refer to the author’s name (without initials, unless there are two authors with the same name), the year of publication and, where appropriate, the page number(s) of the text from which the quotation or idea in question is taken. Publications which have not yet appeared are given a probable year of publication, followed by forthcoming. Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be identified using a, b, c (e.g. 2009a, 2009b) closed up to the year. If there are two authors for a publication, give both names separated by ‘and’ (not &). If there are more than two authors, give the name of the first author followed by et al. Newspaper articles should be cited within the text: for example (Il Sole 24 Ore, 5 March 2009).

For the references at the end of the text, examples of correct forms are:

Paper in journal
Quaglia, L. and Radaelli, C. M. (2007), “Italian politics and the European Union: A tale of two research designs”, West European Politics, 30 (4), 924-943.
Pasquino, G. (2002), “The Italian Senate”, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 8 (3), 67-78.

Book
Cotta, M. Della Porta, D. and Morlino, L. (2008), Scienza politica, Bologna: Il Mulino.
Fabbrini, S. (2000), Tra pressioni e veti: il cambiamento politico in Italia, Roma: Laterza

Chapter in book
Sbragia, A. (2001), “Italy Pays for Europe: Political Leadership, Political Choice, and Institutional Adaptation” in M. G. Cowles, J. Caporaso, and T. Risse (eds.), Transforming Europe: Europeanisation and Domestic Change, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Conference paper
Kreppel, A. (2008), “Legislative-Executive Relations in Italy: From Leggine to Decreti and Deleghe”, paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Boston, 28 August.

Thesis
Stolfi, F. (2006), ”Reforming Italy’s Budget Process, 1960-1999: Europeanization in Context”, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh.

Website
Ignazi, Piero (2005), “Italian foreign policy since 2001: a preliminary assessment”, Italian Foreign Policy, 1, www.foreignpolicy.it, accessed 5 March 2009.

Quotations
When quoting directly, double quotation marks should be used. Any quotations exceeding 50 words in length should remove the quotation marks and be indented both left and right.

Illustrations and tables
Supply tables and figures as separate files to the main body of text in either Tiff or Jpeg format. Their position within the text should be clearly indicated on the page where they are introduced. Provide typed captions for figures and plates (including sources and acknowledgements) on a separate sheet.

Other style notes

  • Only main headings and sub-headings should be used in the main body of the text.
  • Spelling: use UK spelling and punctuation. Use ~ise/~isation/~ising throughout.
  • Punctuation/spacing: single space only after all punctuation (full stops, commas, colons, semi-colons, closing parenthesis etc.)
  • Initials should be spaced: A. J. Smith not A.J. Smith.
  • Use full points after abbreviations (e.g., i.e., etc.) but not after units of measurement or contractions (kg vols eds)
  • Numbers: spell out numbers (whether ordinal or cardinal) below 100. Exceptions: a series of numbers appearing close together; numbers giving exact measurements or with abbreviated units of measurement such as 7 kg, 15.8 mm; in usual cases like 5.00 p.m. (but five o’clock); phrases involving hundreds, thousands, millions etc. where round numbers are given (e.g. two hundred, fifteen thousand); per cent (not percent); use % only in tables
  • Dates: use the style, 31 January 1984; use 1930s, not thirties, 30s or ‘30s.

Editing
The editors retain the right to make minor stylistic changes to the finally accepted typescript. Any substantial changes will, of course, be referred back to the author.