Review of International Studies

About Review of International Studies

About Review of International Studies

Review of International Studies (RIS) is one of the leading peer-reviewed academic journals in the field of International Relations. It is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British International Studies Association (BISA), the professional association for the study of international politics in the United Kingdom. The journal carries the print ISSN 0260-2105 and the online ISSN 1469-9044, and appears five times per year.

RIS describes its mission as publishing high-quality research that makes significant contributions to conversations about global politics, broadly defined. It encourages submissions that are attentive to both the historical and contemporary dynamics of global politics and their effects, and it welcomes work that is theoretically informed, empirically rich, and methodologically rigorous. The journal explicitly aims to be a place where a range of perspectives can flourish, where outstanding work is showcased and debated, and where the voices in those debates are drawn from a genuinely global community of scholars.

Interdisciplinary and international in its coverage, RIS promotes analysis and understanding of all aspects of international relations. Its remit covers a broad spectrum of subjects and methods: it incorporates new methodologies used in the social sciences and humanities, engages with theory development across traditions, and considers relevant issues from neighbouring fields such as sociology, psychology, political economy, history, and law. The journal is committed to reaching beyond the traditional grounding of the discipline so that it reflects the changing nature of global politics, new political challenges, and contemporary understandings.

In the journal citation rankings, RIS is firmly positioned among the top journals in its category. Its 2025 Impact Factor is 3.1, and it ranks 27 out of 173 journals in the "International Relations" category of the 2025 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate). It is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, and other major databases, and it holds a Q1 standing in the Scopus subject categories for Political Science and International Relations as well as Sociology and Political Science.

History and Development

The journal was founded in 1975 under the title British Journal of International Studies, launched by the British International Studies Association as the association's flagship scholarly journal. The first six volumes appeared under that name. From 1981 the journal adopted its current title, Review of International Studies, reflecting its ambition to serve an international readership and the expanding scope of the discipline itself. Cambridge Core records the journal as continuing the British Journal of International Studies (1975–1980).

Over more than five decades of continuous publication, RIS has built a reputation as a dynamic and authoritative source of reference in the field. In the 1990s the journal published influential special issues and debate forums, including the well-known 1998 special issue marking "The 80 Years' Crisis" in international relations scholarship. Through the 2000s and 2010s it became a major venue for critical security studies, postcolonial approaches, constructivist theory, and feminist international relations — themes that continue to define much of its content today.

The journal has been steered by a succession of distinguished editors, including J. E. Spence, Roy E. Jones, R. J. Vincent, Richard Little, Paul Taylor, Michael Cox, David Armstrong, Nicholas Rengger, Kimberly Hutchings, Ruth Blakeley, and Martin Coward. Each editorial generation has broadened the journal's intellectual remit while maintaining its core commitment to rigorous, pluralistic scholarship on global politics.

Today the journal is firmly established as a BISA journal with a global author and reader base. Cambridge University Press publishes five issues per year for BISA, with articles released online ahead of print under the FirstView programme before appearing in paginated issues. The journal maintains an active public profile, including a dedicated podcast and social media presence, and it runs an annual competitive call for Special Issue and Forum proposals.

Aims and Scope

According to its official statement on Cambridge Core, RIS "publishes high-quality research that makes significant contributions to conversations about global politics, broadly defined." The journal seeks submissions that are attentive to historical and contemporary dynamics of global politics and their effects, and it welcomes theoretically informed, empirically rich, and methodologically rigorous articles that significantly advance scholarship, including interdisciplinary research.

The journal's coverage is deliberately broad. It publishes work across the full spectrum of international studies: international security and strategic studies, international political economy, international political theory, foreign policy analysis, global governance, international law and institutions, development, conflict and peacebuilding, environmental politics, migration, race and colonialism in world politics, gender and feminist approaches, and the study of emotions, discourse, and everyday practices in global affairs.

Methodologically, RIS is open. It considers submissions on the basis of their contribution regardless of theoretical perspective or methodology, and it aims to include underrepresented communities and research traditions. Articles may be qualitative or quantitative, archival or ethnographic, normative or explanatory — what matters is the significance of the contribution to conversations about global politics.

In terms of article types, the journal publishes full-length original research articles only, with a maximum length of 12,000 words (authors must provide an accurate total word count on submission). It also publishes Special Issues and Forums each year, selected through a formal, competitive call for proposals; articles in Special Issues are subject to the same standards as independently submitted articles. The journal has a strong record of publishing agenda-setting special issues that have shaped debate in the discipline.

Editorial Leadership

As listed on the official Cambridge Core journal page, the current editors of Review of International Studies are:

• Soumita Basu — South Asian University, India
• Andrew Hom — University of Edinburgh, UK
• Cian O'Driscoll — Australian National University, Australia

The editors are supported by a wider editorial board of scholars drawn from universities around the world, reflecting the journal's commitment to a global community of authors and readers. Editorial board members span institutions in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, South Asia, East Asia, Australasia, Africa, and Latin America, and the journal actively seeks to include underrepresented voices in its editorial processes.

Previous editors of the journal include J. E. Spence, Roy E. Jones, R. J. Vincent, Richard Little, Paul Taylor, Michael Cox, David Armstrong, Nicholas Rengger, Kimberly Hutchings, Ruth Blakeley, and Martin Coward — a lineage that reflects the journal's deep roots in British international studies and its growing international orientation.

The journal operates under the auspices of the British International Studies Association. BISA, founded in 1975, is the UK's national professional association for international studies, and RIS is its flagship journal. Cambridge University Press handles production, distribution, and the online platform (Cambridge Core), while editorial direction is set by the academic editors in consultation with the association.

Journal Metrics

The following metrics are drawn from officially published sources and established citation databases:

• Impact Factor (2025, Journal Citation Reports / Clarivate): 3.1, ranking 27 out of 173 journals in the International Relations category. This figure is displayed on the journal's official Cambridge Core page.
• Scopus CiteScore: reported at 7.3 by journal metric trackers, placing the journal in the top tier of its field.
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): approximately 1.6, with a Q1 ranking in both "Political Science and International Relations" and "Sociology and Political Science" categories.
• H-index: reported around 100 in citation databases, indicating deep and sustained influence — 100 articles have each been cited at least 100 times.
• Scopus coverage: 1976 and 1981–present, with more than 2,400 works recorded.

The journal's Impact Factor has risen substantially over the past decade, roughly doubling since 2020, which reflects both the growing influence of the journal and the increasing citation density of international studies as a field. Readers should note that citation metrics move from year to year and should be interpreted alongside qualitative indicators of a journal's standing, such as its editorial board, the influence of its published articles, and its role in disciplinary debates.

The journal's acceptance rate is not officially published. Authors should expect a competitive review process consistent with a leading Q1 journal in the field, and plan timelines accordingly.

Beyond research articles, RIS has cultivated a distinctive profile as a forum for disciplinary debate. Its special issues and forums have repeatedly set the terms of discussion in international studies — on topics ranging from the legacy of the inter-war "crisis" of the field to the ethics of intervention, the politics of knowledge production, and the place of race and colonialism in world politics. The journal also extends its reach beyond print: it maintains an active podcast series in which authors discuss their published research, alongside social media channels that promote new articles to a broad academic audience. For early-career researchers, publication in RIS carries significant signalling value, as the journal is widely read across the UK, Europe, North America, and the Global South, and its articles routinely feature on graduate syllabi in international relations.

Open Access and APCs

Review of International Studies is a hybrid journal: it publishes on a subscription basis while offering authors the option to make their individual articles Gold Open Access under a Creative Commons licence. Authors whose institutions have transformative (read-and-publish) agreements with Cambridge University Press may be able to publish open access at no direct cost; Cambridge maintains a wide network of such agreements with institutions and consortia worldwide.

For authors who need to pay an article processing charge (APC) directly, Cambridge University Press lists the journal's current APC rates on the journal's official fees-and-pricing page: £2,610 GBP / $3,655 USD for Gold Open Access (additional taxes may apply). Cambridge also provides routes to funding open access for authors without institutional coverage, including APC waivers and discounts and equity initiatives; authors should consult the journal's open access options page for full details. There is no charge for colour figures in the online version; colour printing in the print edition carries a separate fee.

The journal is not a fully open access journal and is not listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) — open access is available article-by-article through the hybrid model rather than for the journal as a whole. Authors with funder open-access mandates should check whether their funder's policy is satisfied by the hybrid route or requires a fully open venue.

Abstracting and Indexing

Review of International Studies is abstracted and indexed in the major citation and subject databases, including:

• Web of Science — Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), the source of the journal's Journal Citation Reports Impact Factor
• Scopus — the source of its CiteScore, SJR, and quartile rankings
• JSTOR — with an extensive archival backfile
• UGC CARE list (India)
• ABDC (Australian Business Deans Council) journal list — B rating
• Major EBSCO and ProQuest political science and international relations collections

The breadth of indexing means that articles published in RIS are discoverable through the principal discovery channels used by researchers, libraries, and research assessment systems worldwide. The journal's presence in both the SSCI and Scopus underpins its use in tenure, promotion, and funding evaluations across many national systems.

Landmark Papers

Several articles published in Review of International Studies have become landmark contributions to the discipline, each verified here through the Crossref registry with its DOI:

• David A. Baldwin, "The concept of security" (1997) — DOI: 10.1017/S0260210597000053. One of the most cited articles in security studies, clarifying the conceptual foundations of "security" and cited several hundred times. A touchstone for how the field defines its core concept.
• Ken Booth, "Security and emancipation" (1991) — DOI: 10.1017/S0260210500112033. A foundational statement of critical security studies, arguing that security should be understood in terms of emancipation — freeing people from physical and human constraints.
• Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey, "The postcolonial moment in security studies" (2006) — DOI: 10.1017/S0260210506007054. An agenda-setting intervention calling for security studies to confront empire and colonialism, widely credited with helping to open the postcolonial turn in the field.
• Roland Bleiker and Emma Hutchison, "Fear no more: emotions and world politics" (2008) — DOI: 10.1017/S0260210508007821. A pioneering article on the role of emotions in world politics, foundational for the emotions research agenda in IR.
• Roland Paris, "Saving liberal peacebuilding" (2010) — DOI: 10.1017/S0260210510000057. A major reassessment of the liberal peacebuilding project, arguing for institutionalisation before liberalisation — one of the most cited peacebuilding articles of its decade.
• Alexander Wendt, "The state as person in international theory" (2004) — DOI: 10.1017/S0260210504006084. A landmark constructivist-theoretical contribution on state personhood and its implications for international theory.

Together these articles illustrate the journal's long-standing role as a venue for agenda-setting theoretical and conceptual work — from the meaning of security, to emancipation, postcolonialism, emotions, peacebuilding, and the philosophy of the state.

Publishing in Review of International Studies

Scope fit. RIS welcomes original research on global politics regardless of theoretical perspective or methodology, but it is selective: manuscripts must make a significant contribution to conversations about global politics and advance scholarship in a meaningful way. Before submitting, read several recent issues to gauge the journal's current debates and the level of theoretical ambition it expects.

Article length. The journal publishes full-length original articles only, with a maximum of 12,000 words. Provide an accurate total word count on submission; manuscripts that substantially exceed the limit may be returned.

Peer review. RIS adheres to a double-blind peer review policy: the identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from both parties. Anonymise your manuscript fully — remove author names, acknowledgements, and self-identifying citations — and allow time for the refereeing process to take place.

Special Issues and Forums. The journal runs an annual competitive call for Special Issue and Forum proposals. If you are organising a collective project, watch for the call and note that Special Issue articles face the same requirements as regular submissions.

Submission system. Manuscripts are submitted through Cambridge's online submission system (linked from cambridge.org/RIS), which requires a separate account from Cambridge Core. Read the journal's author instructions — particularly the "preparing your materials" page — before submitting. Manuscripts not conforming to the guidelines may be returned without review.

Open access planning. Decide before submission whether you will publish via the subscription route or Gold Open Access, and check whether your institution's agreement with Cambridge covers the APC. Confirm funder compliance early.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ISSN of Review of International Studies?
Print ISSN 0260-2105; online ISSN 1469-9044.

Who publishes Review of International Studies?
Cambridge University Press, on behalf of the British International Studies Association (BISA).

When was Review of International Studies founded?
1975, as the British Journal of International Studies; it has carried its current title since 1981.

Who are the current editors?
Soumita Basu (South Asian University), Andrew Hom (University of Edinburgh), and Cian O'Driscoll (Australian National University), as listed on the official Cambridge Core journal page.

What is the Impact Factor of Review of International Studies?
The 2025 Impact Factor is 3.1, ranking 27 out of 173 journals in International Relations (2025 Journal Citation Reports, Clarivate).

Is Review of International Studies open access?
It is a hybrid journal: articles can be published Gold Open Access for an APC (currently £2,610 / $3,655), or via the subscription route at no cost to the author. Many institutional agreements cover the APC.

How often is it published?
Five times per year, with articles also released online ahead of print via FirstView.

Is Review of International Studies peer-reviewed?
Yes — it uses double-blind peer review, and it is indexed in the SSCI, Scopus, and other major databases.

This depth profile was researched from the publisher's official journal pages in October 2026.