Ask the Editors: Journal of Deliberative Democracy x Re_Dem

Do deliberative democrats make good jurors? Sonia Bussu reflects on her experience as a foreperson in a jury trial.

Lucy Parry: It’s a responsibility that we take very seriously. When we applied as a team to become JDD editors, we had a vision for our tenure around enhancing inclusion, impact and transparency. Since then we have initiated a number of measures to try and apply these principles in practice. Sonia Bussu led the development of a new peer review form, with structured questions. The aim of this is to ensure more consistent and constructive feedback for authors. Early in our tenure, we also planned a decision tree to support the consistency of our editorial decisions.I think this is one way in which we show how seriously we take the role and responsibility.

Hans Asenbaum: It’s a big responsibility indeed. We are aware of the work and hopes many put into their submissions to the journal, and we are put in the difficult position of making decisions whether to go forward with manuscripts rather quickly. As we do this on top of our regular work load, we need to make sense of whether the submission fits the journal’s scope and is of sufficient quality in a relatively short time. Being generous as editors at this initial stage can actually cause further problems as manuscripts will fail in the later stages of the review process. So we need to carefully weigh whether we want to invite reviewers to take time out of their busy days to engage with the paper. This also results in ethical tensions around our role as gatekeepers. I often think of Foucault’s work on the disciplinary power of institutions and how we are partly sucked into this logic. Sometimes manuscripts have potential but require too much additional support to get to the right standard and we aren’t able to offer that.

Re_Dem: How long has the journal been around and what is its origin story?

Lucy: The journal was founded in 2005 as a collaboration between researchers and practitioners in deliberative democracy. So facilitating knowledge exchange across research and practice has always been central to the journal’s ethos and we maintain that commitment today, especially through the Deliberative Democracy Digest, and the Journal’s Reflections from the Field section.

We have gone through several name changes over the years! We were once The International Journal for Public Participation, then the Journal of Public Deliberation, and the Journal of Deliberative Democracy, since 2020.

Re_Dem: What is the funding situation of the journal? How does it work?

Lucy: The Journal of Deliberative Democracy (JDD) is published by University of Westminster Press (UWP), who are an open access publisher. JDD is published under a diamond open access model, which means that there are no fees charged to authors, readers or institutions at any point in order to publish or read an article.

JDD has a contract with UWP that supports the publication of up to twelve articles per year. This increased recently from eight articles, to reflect the increasing interest in publishing in JDD. Any additional articles on top of the twelve need to be funded separately. The Journal receives funding from the newDemocracy Foundation, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and the International Association for Public Participation, and this funding helps cover additional article charges, as well as costs for the Deliberative Democracy Digest, and paying our Editorial Assistant.

Re_Dem: How does the submission process work? What happens once we submit an article?

Olivia Mendoza: Once an article is submitted, as Editorial Assistant I do an initial assessment on whether it meets formal and technical requirements of the journal. After this, it is assigned an editor who then decides whether or not the article is suitable for peer review.

Hans: One important thing that might not be clear to people from the outside, is that we divide submissions according to our expertise, broadly speaking. So Hannah and Franzi cover quantitative, Sonia covers qualitative, Lucy takes Reflections from the Field and the Digest, and I do theory pieces. Olive assigns submissions to us on that basis.

What happens then is we review the submission and decide whether to desk reject it, or take it forward for review. There are many reasons why we might desk reject an article, and it’s not necessarily because the article isn’t ‘good’. Often, it’s not clearly linked to relevant literature or debates in the field, so it’s out of scope. Or, there is potential but the manuscript requires too much support and guidance to get it up to the necessary quality and standard for review.

Lucy: Once we decide to send something out for review, then it’s up to us to find suitable reviewers. I’d say this is possibly the hardest part of our role. Finding people with the right expertise, who are also available and willing to take on this task within the required timeframe, is really difficult. We understand why, because we all act as reviewers for other journals too. It’s an additional service that is expected of us as academics, but it is unpaid, and being able to do it or not depends on so many factors.

Olivia: For the double-blind peer review process, at least two subject experts are assigned. Based on the reviews the editor will make a recommendation for rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance. The first review period can take at least forty days but this largely depends on reviewer availability. Step-by-step information on our review process is published on our website.

Hans: It’s also worth saying that our submissions have tripled in the past three years, so we are dealing with an increasing number of manuscripts day to day. One way in which authors can support the process is by ensuring that they follow all the guidelines and review the submissions checklist on our website before submitting. This saves Olive and us a lot of time in getting through submissions!

Lucy: Our publisher (UWP) has told us that the rapid rise in peer review requests, against a relatively static pool of reviewers, is becoming an increasing issue across the whole academic publishing ecosystem. So we just ask that authors be patient when waiting on a review – we're trying!

Re_Dem: What kind of topics do you see in submissions? Are there any topics that seem overrepresented recently, or underrepresented?

Hans: I’d say that we’re getting a lot of submissions on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and democracy at the moment. I wouldn’t say it’s an overrepresentation as such, because it’s an important topic so there is a lot of interest. I would also say that we have a lot of submissions focussed on Europe, and that research from the Majority World is underrepresented. We are committed to trying to counter that bias, which is also reflected in the field more broadly.

Lucy: I can speak from the Digest’s perspective more clearly. The Digest is not peer-reviewed, and articles are either commissioned by me, or people approach me with a piece or idea. I would say that there, deliberative mini-publics in Europe are probably overrepresented.

Olivia: Definitely second that: in the past three years we’ve had a large number of submissions on mini-publics, and AI and technology’s role in democratic innovations in the Global North. There are a few submissions from Global South contexts which remain concentrated in Latin America. There are much fewer submissions from Asian countries.

I went through the titles of articles published in the JDD from 2023-2025. The words that come up the most reflect our impression (excluding expected words such as deliberation, democracy, deliberative and democratic).

Olivia: Based on articles published in 2023-2026 (up to June), there is a total number of 86 authors (this includes all authors, whether first or secondary). I analysed the spread of authors in terms of career stage, sex and institutional affiliation/country.

In terms of career stage, across all three years early career researchers and senior scholars made up the bulk of authors, while mid-career authors stayed relatively small and steady.

Olivia: Based on articles published in 2023-2026 (up to June), there is a total number of 86 authors (this includes all authors, whether first or secondary). I analysed the spread of authors in terms of career stage, sex and institutional affiliation/country.

In terms of career stage, across all three years early career researchers and senior scholars made up the bulk of authors, while mid-career authors stayed relatively small and steady.

Lucy: Evidently there’s a bias towards Global North institutions. One way we are actively trying to counter that bias is through our new Special Features. Every 1-2 years we will put out an open call for collaboratively authored articles on key but perhaps understudied themes in the field. The first of these from our 2025 call is perspectives on participatory and deliberative democracy from the Majority World.

Lucy: There is a literal cost associated with the word count for our publishers. Keeping word counts around the 8,000 mark enables us to publish more articles. I appreciate that it’s difficult to keep word counts down, it’s something I struggle with myself. In practice, word counts often go up a bit during the peer-review process as authors add in additional information or citations. So the finally-published articles have some variation, but keeping it around 8,000 or less on submission allows for this. If articles are significantly over (or under) 8,000 on submission, they are rejected and we explain to authors that they can resubmit once this technical criterion is met.

About the Authors

The Journal of Deliberative Democracy is hosted at the University of Canberra and published by University of Westminster Press. The current JDD editorial team has been in post since 2023.

Re_Dem is a peer-led network for young scholars in the field of democratic innovations. With nearly 250 members, the network is the largest community of PhDs and early-career researchers focusing on democratic renewal, citizen participation, and public-driven governance.

Camille Thibert is a PhD student (1st year) at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research investigates the scaling dynamics of democratic innovations in the nordics and especially in Finland. He is also the co-founder of Re_Dem.