PRISM - Call for Manuscripts

Call for Manuscripts

About

PRISM: The Journal of Emerging Threats | Complex Statecraft is the Irregular Warfare Center’s (IWC) flagship journal of national and international security affairs. PRISM’s mission is to provide unique insight for current and future national security leaders on emerging challenges beyond strictly the military domain, and the integrated statecraft required to address them. These emerging challenges include, but are not limited to, transnational and/or multi-domain threats; gray zone, hybrid, or irregular conflict; emerging technologies (e.g., AI and cyber); and geoeconomic competition.

PRISM is committed to excellence, scholarly rigor, and practitioner- and policy-relevant “big ideas” in the national and international security realms. We are an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that aims to be a ready reference on the desks of practitioners, academics, and policymakers, and to be cited as foundational research and analysis in national and international security documents.

Submissions

PRISM is published semiannually (spring and fall) and welcomes unsolicited submissions from policymakers, practitioners, and scholars, particularly those that present fresh thought, enduring insight, or best practices related to the current and emerging national and international security environment. We seek to publish provocative, insightful, and well-reasoned submissions. We welcome contributions not only from established authorities in the field but also emerging voices, including early career practitioners, policymakers, and scholars.

PRISM accepts three types of submissions:

Research Articles

  • • Articles should be 5,000–7,000 words in length, including footnotes, endnotes, and tables and/or figures. (Note: Longer submissions may be considered on a case-by-case basis.)
  • • Research articles should make an original contribution to our understanding of policy issues and debates in national and/or international security.
  • • They should be theoretically informed and methodologically rigorous and provide significant and original analytically driven insights into real-world problems in a way that is accessible to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
  • • We welcome submissions that make novel theoretical arguments, present original and significant empirical findings, and engage with pertinent policy issues.
  • • We expect all articles to have relevance to our practitioner, policymaker, and academic audiences. For this reason, submissions that advance purely empirical findings or rely heavily on statistical models and quantitative methods are unlikely to be considered for publication.

Standard book reviews

• Reviews should be 700–900 words in length.

• The PRISM book reviews section covers the latest scholarship across national security, international security, and related fields, from the theoretical to the policy-focused, and from the regional to the global.

• A book review should inform the reader of the book’s content, quality, and place in the overall context of its field, and make any necessary policy or scholarly recommendations.

Extended book reviews

• These reviews should be 2,000–4,000 words in length, including footnotes, endnotes, and tables and/or figures.

• While similar to standard book reviews in several ways, extended book reviews go further as they typically entail a review of two or more related books and/or a more in-depth analysis of a single book than a standard book review.

Submission Guidlines

Submissions should follow these guidelines. Note: These guidelines are intended to help set expectations and ensure a smooth submission and review process for both prospective authors and the editorial team but are not meant to be overly prescriptive.

  1. Send your submission as a Word document with a cover letter that contains a 150-word abstract to PRISM@irregularwarfarecenter.org. Submissions need to be in a Word document, Times New Roman, 12-point font, and 1.5 line spacing with no first-line indent.
  2. The subject line will depend on what type of document you decide to submit; choose between “PRISM Journal Title of Article,” “PRISM Insights Title of Article,” or “PRISM Perspectives Title of Article.”
  3. Each author must provide their full name and a biography of 50–75 words. **Authors’ names will be removed if the government approves the manuscript and before peer review begins to ensure a blind peer review.
  4. All submissions must adhere to Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) formatting guidelines. Authors should consult CMOS Common formats are available here: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html. Proper formatting is imperative. PRISM reserves the right to reject submissions that do not adhere to these requirements. PRISM uses footnotes and endnotes, NOT a bibliography. Do NOT put a footnote for your name and/or biography. Please note that CMOS allows for only one footnote at the end of a sentence. Footnotes should never be placed in the middle of a sentence. Endnotes can list more than one source. Endnotes should all be listed in chronological order at the end of the manuscript.
  5. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from the copyright holder to use any third-party material, including graphics, tables, or images. Please include any graphs, tables, or pictures as a separate, high-quality file. Files embedded within a Word document are not optimal for publishing. Additionally, if an image, graphic, table, or picture is required for a section of the document, please note where it should be embedded in the document and provide the name/title and the source of the image, graphic, table, or picture.
  6. Those employing quantitative methods must use readable and well-labeled graphs and charts (as opposed to in-text formulae and regression tables).
  7. All submitted manuscripts will go through an internal review process before peer review. Additionally, all manuscripts will go through a required security review prior to being cleared for publication.
  8. All submissions must be original and should not be under consideration elsewhere. PRISM does not accept submissions that have been published in whole or in part in other journals, regardless of whether the author retains the copyright.
  9. Please ensure that you disclose any conflicts of interest, funding sources, and institutional review board approvals at time of submission, redacted appropriately to ensure anonymity during peer review.
  10. Authors are also welcome to email PRISM@irregularwarfarecenter.org to ask if an article might be the right fit for PRISM.

Review Process

The publication threshold for submissions is largely determined by topical relevance, scholarly standards of argumentation, quality of writing, and readability. Authors are strongly encouraged to provide clear solutions or actionable knowledge for the reader.

Our process from the initial receipt of submissions to the review and publication can last several months. However, we aim to inform authors of our decision to accept or reject their submission within 30 days.

The first stage for a newly submitted paper is the editorial staff’s decision on whether to send it for peer review.

Peer reviewers are chosen for the following reasons:

  • • Independence from the authors and their institutions
  • • Ability to evaluate the technical aspects of the paper fully and fairly
  • • Currently or recently assessing related submissions
  • • Availability to assess the manuscript within the requested time

Moreover, if a submission is accepted but we are unable to publish it for some reason, PRISM will revert publication rights to the author so that they may explore other publication options.