Journal’s Topics
Rowaq Arabi is a blind peer reviewed journal issued by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS). It is a platform for researchers and rights advocates that offers in-depth discussions and analyses of human rights policies and developments in the Middle East and North Africa, utilizing approaches drawn from the social sciences, humanities, and law. The journal publishes contributions on themes including but not limited to:
- Analysis of the role, effectiveness, and status of human rights organizations in the context of the historical development of societies in Arab countries, their struggle to keep pace with progressiveness and overcome stagnation, and the repercussions of this on the social and political role of the rights movement.
- Understanding and analysis of strategies of human rights movements, their historical development, and their diverse responses to political crises and communal conflicts.
- Critical engagement with religious and cultural heritage, understanding of its various currents and their contribution to indigenising human rights values, and study of the impact of religious discourses on their application.
- Developments in the stances of political forces, including political Islam, on human rights values, as evidenced by their programs and practices.
- Comparative legal studies and the analysis of developments in constitutional law and jurisprudence with respect to human rights.
- Analysis of the evolving status of human rights in negotiations for conflict resolution in the Arab region.
- Analysis of obstacles in the process of democratic transition, and the protection of human rights in the framework of democratization.
- Analysis and understandings of the roots of bigotry and political and religious violence.
- Understanding of the political, social, and cultural backgrounds for the recognition and protection of human rights on the national level, including the struggle for economic, social, and cultural rights, women’s rights, and minority rights.
- Obstacles to the management of religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity in the Arab region.
- Analysis of the evolving status of human rights in strategies and discourses of social and protest movements.
- Analysis of the scope and evolving interest of literature, film, and arts in human rights values and issues in the Arab region.
- Analysis of developments in the status of human rights in international relations and the international order.
Published Content
- Rowaq Arabi publishes studies, views and book reviews. All articles comply to specified writing rules, which authors must follow, while studies (research articles) go through a peer review process as will be explained later in this page.
- The journal publishes original research papers that follow scientific approaches and methodologies, and add to the specific domain of human rights in the Arab World.
- Articles cannot be previously published in another journal or in another language, and cannot be copied or reproduced from existing articles or books. Once published with Rowaq Arabi, articles cannot be republished in other journals or platforms without a written permission from the editor.
- Rowaq Arabi publishes contents in the form of ‘Articles’ (5000-7000 words), ‘Views’ (3000-4000), ‘Book Reviews’ (1200-1500), all compliant with the writing and referencing rules detailed in this page.
- Research articles should begin with a maximum 150-word abstract. Articles for the ‘Views’ and ‘Book Reviews’ sections don’t need abstracts.
Publishing Process
- Complete manuscripts to be emailed to rowaq.editors@cihrs.org. In the case of a new contributor to Rowaq Arabi, she/he should attach a CV in addition to the manuscript.
- All submitted manuscripts, regardless of their format, undergo a quick initial evaluation by the editorial board to decide on their suitability for the journal. Rowaq Arabi maintains the right to reject any manuscript submission from the beginning, without necessarily providing an explanation.
- Research articles should be submitted in two separate documents: one anonymized complete manuscript including the abstract and key words, and another is a cover page with the author’s name and details also including the abstract and key words.
- In the case of initial acceptance, views articles and book reviews undergo a detailed review and editorial process, while additionally research articles must go through a blind peer review process. Once finished, an author may be requested to address comments or make changes. The manuscript then undergoes the final copyediting and proofreading phase before publishing.
Peer Review Process
The journal of Rowaq Arabi is committed to the peer-review integrity of the submitted research articles and the highest possible editorial practices of research publishing. Rowaq Arabi is also committed to a double-blind peer reviewing policy in which the identity of both the reviewer and the author(s) are always concealed from both parties. Initially, when a study has been assessed for suitability by the editorial team, it will then be peer-reviewed by two anonymous referees, who will produce two separate reports. These reports will be passed to the author(s) through the editor, as they will include one of the following decisions:
- Approved without changes
- Approved with minor changes
- Approved with major changes
- Rejected
Once a study is approved by the peer reviewers for publishing, the author should be able to address comments in the received report in a period of 1-4 weeks in coordination with the editor.
Writing and Formatting
All authors submitting manuscripts, regardless of format, must comply with the following writing and formatting rules. A submitted manuscript that doesn’t follow these rules won’t be considered for the initial editorial phase, regardless of the high quality of the content or the status of the author:
- Authors should limit their manuscripts to the word count of each article category, as previously specified (Published Content).
- Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order: title, author(s), abstract, keywords, main text, acknowledgements, funding, author bio(s), and endnotes.
- Each manuscript should have 5 keywords.
- Submitted files should be in MS Word format, 12 font, Times New Roman, double spaces between lines, and one inch for the four margins of each page.
- The title and sub headings should be clear and concise and the latter aligned to the left hand margin.
- Apply Title and Sub Heading Capitalisation Rules.
- Authors should use British English spelling throughout manuscripts.
- All references, notes, comments or explanations should be provided as serially numbered endnotes. In-text referencing in brackets and footnotes are not allowed.
- Use single quotation marks except for quotations within quotes when double marks are to be used.
- Quotes over 60 words in length should be set out from the body of the text by being indented 1 cm from the left margin; quotation marks should not be used for indented quotes.
- All tables, figures and images must be placed within the text when relevant, numbered, labeled and have their sources mentioned.
- Self-referencing is not allowed, unless unavoidable and only in case of the lack of other alternative sources.
- Authors should check their manuscripts for typos before submission. A manuscript with excessive linguistic mistakes will not be considered for the initial editorial phase.
- Numbers from zero to one hundred should be written in letters, the rest in digits.
- Dates should be presented in the following style: 1 January 1996.
- Titles of references in languages other than English should be transliterated (if the original language is not Latin), followed by a translation into English [between brackets], as shown in one of the examples below.
- References of online sources should include the website’s link, date of publishing, if existing, and date of access by the author. If the link is longer than one line, it should be shortened using Google URL Shortener or similar tools.
- Authors should follow the types of referencing examples as shown below:
Book by one author
Abdelrahman, Maha (2015) Egypt’s Long Revolution: Protest Movements and Uprisings (New York: Routledge).
Book by more than one author
Ratta, Donatella Della, Naomi Sakr, and Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen (2015) Arab Media Moguls (London: I.B. Tauris).
Book by institution without author name
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1991) Future of Egyptians in the Diaspora (Cairo: al-Amiriyah).
Chapter in edited book
Richter, Carola, and Bettina Gräf (2015) ‘The Political Economy of Media: An Introduction’, in Nadja-Christina Schneider and Carola Richter (eds.) New Media Configurations and Socio-Cultural Dynamics in Asia and the Arab World (London: Bloomsbury).
Article in Academic Journal
Zemni, Sami, Brecht De Smet, and Koenraad Bogaert (2013) ‘Luxemburg on Tahrir Square: Reading the Arab Revolutions with Rosa Luxemburg’s The Mass Strike’, Antipode 45 (4), pp. 888-907.
Online Source
Al-Gallad, Magdy (2009) ‘Al-Ḥayāh ʿalā Aktāf Gamāl Mubārak’ [Life on the Shoulders of Gamal Mubarak], Al-Masry Al-Youm, 8 July, accessed 23 November 2018, http://today.almasryalyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=218199.
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