Cooperation and Conflict
Published for over 50 years, Cooperation and Conflict is a peer reviewed journal committed to publishing high quality articles that examines a broad set of research questions. It believes in academic pluralism and thus does not represent any specific methodology, approach, tradition or school. The mission of the journal is to publish work that is theoretically informed, empirically rich, and methodologically rigorous, and which advances the state of the art of the discipline through theoretical, conceptual and methodological innovation. Cooperation and Conflict has a tradition to publish on Nordic and European Affairs. The journal strictly adheres to a double-blind review policy.
"Always strong, always distinctive, Cooperation and Conflict is now positioning itself to be 'the' journal of interdisciplinary international relations in Europe." Christine Sylvester, University of Connecticut, USA
"Cooperation and Conflict is one of the leading international relations journals in Europe. The diversity of intellectual approaches included in Cooperation and Conflict is an ideal way for political scientists, critical theorists and sociologists to engage each other, and discuss the most pressing developments in Europe" Christine Ingebritsen University of Washington, USA
"Cooperation and Conflict has most recently been one of the main platforms for a range of debates surrounding what has become know as 'critical peace and conflict studies', part of a broader 'local', 'practice' or 'micro' turn in IR more generally. Over many decades the journal has hosted many such cutting edge debates in the discipline whilst foregrounding its commitment to the exploration of peace, cooperation, and security. It has a long and proud history of innovation and creativity, and its volumes are studded with milestone contributions." Professor Oliver Richmond, University of Manchester, UK
"Cooperation and Conflict has a long and proud history of featuring cutting-edge work. Combining theoretical innovation with empirical sophistication adding a Nordic touch, it fills a unique place on the terrain of IR." Professor Lene Hansen, University, Denmark
"Cooperation and Conflict has become one of the prime outlets for innovative work that explores new avenues of research in international relations. It provides an indispensible forum for dialogue across theoretical and methodogical divides as well as diverse empirical interests." Professor Thomas Diez, Eberhard Karls, University of Tubingen, Germany
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and supports the JETS (Journal Editors Transparency Statement), (formerly Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT) statement).
All issues of Cooperation and Conflict are available to browse online.
Published for over 50 years, Cooperation and Conflict is a peer reviewed International Relations (IR) journal committed to publishing high-quality articles that examine a broad set of research questions. Cooperation and Conflict aims be a platform for IR scholarship that is theoretically innovative, methodologically pluralist, empirically and historically rigorous, critical in outlook yet grounded in and with implications for key mainstream debates. Articles published in Cooperation and Conflict advance the state of the art of the discipline through theoretical, conceptual and methodological innovation. While being global in scope, Cooperation and Conflict also has a long-standing tradition for publishing on Nordic and European Affairs. The journal strictly adheres to a double-blind review policy.
| Benjamin de Carvalho | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway |
| Kristin Haugevik | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway |
| Paul Beaumont | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway |
| Øyvind Svendsen | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway |
| Tora Berge Naterstad | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Rebecca Adler-Nissen | Copenhagen University, Denmark |
| Mathias Albert | Bielefeld University, Germany |
| Audrey Alejandro | London School of Economics, UK |
| Morten S. Andersen | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Norway |
| Jens Bartelson | Lund University, Sweden |
| Felix Berenskoetter | SOAS, University of London, UK |
| Annika Björkdahl | Lund University, Sweden |
| Isabel Bramsen | Lund University, Sweden |
| Niklas Bremberg | Stockholm University, Sweden |
| Christopher Browning | Warwick University, United Kingdom |
| Julia Costa Lopez | University of Groningen, Netherlands |
| Mai’a K. Davis Cross | Northeastern University, USA |
| Thomas Diez | University of Tuebingen |
| Ondrej Ditrych | European Union Institute for Security Studies, Paris, France |
| Kristin Eggeling | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Tuomas Forsberg | University of Helsinki, Finland |
| Ulrik Pram Gad | Danish Institute of International Studies, Denmark |
| Katharina Glaab | Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway |
| Kristian Skrede Gleditsch | University of Essex, UK |
| Nina Græger | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Stefano Guzzini | European University Institute, Italy |
| Linus Hagström | Swedish Defence University, Stockholm |
| Shahar Hameiri | University of Queensland , Australia |
| Lene Hansen | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Målfrid Braut Hegghammer | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Patrick Thaddeus Jackson | American University, USA |
| Oliver Kessler | University of Erfurt, Germany |
| Catarina Kinnvall | Lund University, Sweden |
| Halvard Leira | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Norway |
| Thomas Long | University of Warwick, UK |
| Jan Melissen | Leiden University, the Netherlands and University of Antwerp, Belgium |
| Jennifer Mitzen | Ohio State University, USA |
| Paul Musgrave | University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA |
| Deepak Nair | Australian National University, Australia |
| João Pontes Nogueira | Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Hanna Ojanen | Tampere University, Finland |
| Silja Bára R. Ómarsdóttir | University of Iceland, Iceland |
| Lucas de Oliveira Paes | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Norway |
| Pål Røren | University of Oslo, Norway |
| Elke Schwarz | Queen Mary University of London, UK |
| Leonard Seabrooke | Copenhagen Business School, Denmark |
| Brent J. Steele | University of Utah, USA |
| Jelena Subotic | Georgia State University, USA |
| Shogo Suzuki | Manchester University, UK |
| Jonas Tallberg | Stockholm University, Sweden |
| Baldur Thorhallsson | University of Iceland, Iceland |
| Ann Towns | University of Gothenburg, Sweden |
| Torunn L. Tryggestad | Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway |
| Srdjan Vucetic | University of Ottawa, Canada |
| Juha Vuori | Tampere University, Finland |
| Julie Wilhelmsen | Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Norway |
| Anders Wivel | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| William C. Wohlforth | Dartmouth College, USA |
| Ayse Zarakol | University of Cambridge, UK |
| Maja Zehfuss | University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cac to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Cooperation and Conflict will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
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 the Journal 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 the journal may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print 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 on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.
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 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 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 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
Before submitting your manuscript to Cooperation and Conflict, please ensure your manuscript falls within the Aims & Scope of the journal.
Cooperation and Conflict publishes four types of articles:
Research Article
Research Articles accepted for publication in Cooperation and Conflict reflect the journal’s pluralist outlook in that they are theoretically informed, empirically rich, and methodologically rigorous. Some Research Articles will engage with theoretical, empirical and/or methodological debates in the IR discipline. These articles typically address key debates and provide theoretically and methodologically informed research that is supported by rigorous empirical analysis. Another type of Research Article – analytical essays – integrate scholarship, clarify debates, provide new perspectives on research, identify new directions for the field, and present insights into scholarship in various parts of the world.
Articles submitted for publication should be 8.000-10.000 words in length, including references, footnotes, figures, and tables. If referees point to major omittances in the articles submitted, the editors may in certain cases expand the word limit.
Theory Note
Theory Notes are submissions that are shorter, more focused, demonstrate a novel perspective on existing research, and encourage scholarly debate. Often, Theory Notes will focus on conceptual and theoretical contributions without providing new empirical evidence.
Theory notes submitted for publication should be 4.000-5.000 words in length, including references, footnotes, figures, and tables.
Review Essay
Review Essays should assess between three and five recently published academic works which share a common theme and/or debate, and collectively represent an emerging debate. A Review Essay in considered for publication in Cooperation and Conflict go beyond evaluating the works in question and is an opportunity to develop an original argument that goes beyond the immediate concerns of the reviewed books.
Review Essays submitted for publication should be 4.000-5.000 words in length, including references, footnotes, figures, and tables.
Review Essays go through the same peer review process as full-length articles and are held to the same scholarly standards.
Forum
The journal will on occasion issue calls for Forums, but forum editors are also welcome to contact the editors to gauge the journal’s interest in a specific topic. This should include an abstract and a list of contributors. The journal cannot consider unsolicited forums for review.
Forum articles should be submitted as one file with all contributing authors anonymized.
Forum articles submitted for publication should be no longer than 12.000 words in length, including references, footnotes, figures, and tables.
Each article submitted to Cooperation and Conflict should be accompanied by:
(a) title of article and abstract of 200 words maximum;
(b) author's full name; a biographical note of no more than 70 words which includes institutional address, e-mail address if applicable, telephone and fax numbers.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their 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
Cooperation and Conflict strictly adheres to a double-anonymize reviewing policy.
As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the names of two peers who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below:
- The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission
- The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors
- Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted
Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite/reject any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.
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.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
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.
Cooperation and Conflict 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.
This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [grant number xxx].
Multiple grant numbers should be separated by comma and space. Where the research was supported by more than one agency, the different agencies should be separated by semi-colon, with “and” before the final funder. Thus:
This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number zzzz]; and the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number aaaa].
In some cases, research is not funded by a specific project grant, but rather from the block grant and other resources available to a university, college or other research institution. Where no specific funding has been provided for the research we ask that corresponding authors use the following sentence:
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Please include this information under a separate heading entitled “Funding” directly after any other Acknowledgements prior to your “Declaration of Conflicting Interests” (if applicable), any Notes and your References.
Important note: If you have any concerns that the provision of this information may compromise your anonymity dependent on the peer review policy of this journal outlined above, you can withhold this information until final accepted manuscript.
For more information on the guidance for Research Funders, Authors and Publishers, please visit: http://www.rin.ac.uk/funders-acknowledgement
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Cooperation and Conflict encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
The journal 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, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
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
Cooperation and Conflict 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 the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised 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 licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence 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
Cooperation and Conflict offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. 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.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
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.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
Cooperation and Conflict does not currently accept supplemental files.
Cooperation and Conflict adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Cooperation and Conflict is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cac 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 the journal 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.
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 this journal. 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 Cooperation and Conflict editorial office as follows: