About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Athena is a diamond open access, double-blind peer review scholarly journal that analyzes Globalization's problems and global concerns from legal, philosophical, historical, political, and social perspectives, aiming to provide theoretical answers to these challenges. The Journal functions as an interdisciplinary laboratory that welcomes contributions from philosophy of law, political thought, cultural anthropology, international law, political philosophy, ethics, moral and theoretical philosophy, philosophy of technology, and legal history.

Through a multidisciplinary approach, the journal endeavors to provide theoretical answers to the complex issues of contemporary global reality, developing widely shared perspectives and formulations that address these challenges.

Athena aims to critically examine contemporary challenges: the crisis of the nation-state, the encounter between different civilizations, migration flows, human rights, international constitutionalism, global justice, multiculturalism, new identities, technological acceleration, and the emergence of new forms of power and regulation. Athena seeks to move beyond traditional Western dogmatism by recognizing the particularity of the Western tradition and its relationship with other cultures, without claiming positions of superiority."

Editorial Sections

  • Foreword: Not Open Submission / Reviewed (Editorial Review, only) / Indexed
  • Articles: Open Submissions / Peer-Reviewed / Indexed
  • Miscellanea: Open Submissions / Peer-Reviewed / Indexed
  • Conference Papers: Open Submissions /Peer-Reviewed/ Indexed
  • Book Reviews: Open Submissions / Peer-Reviewed / Indexed

Publication Frequency

In 2021 and 2022, the Journal published one issue per year. Starting from 2023, Athena adopts a half-year frequency, by releasing two issues per year.

Indexing

  • ACNP – Italian Catalogue of Serials

  • BASE – Bielefield Academic Search Engine

  • DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals

  • EBSCO - leading provider of research databases...for universities, colleges, hospitals, corporations, government, K12 schools and public libraries worldwide

  • ERIH PLUS – European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences

  • Heinonline – Law Journal Library

  • Google Scholar – A simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature

  • Jisc Library Hub Discover

  • ROAD – Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resource

  • Sudoc- French National Bibliographic Database for Higher Education and Research

  • Ulrichsweb – Global Serials Directory

  • WorldCat – The World’s Largest Library Catalog

  • ZDB - Zeitschriftendatenbank – German Union Catalogue of Serials

The Journal is currently included in the scientific journals' lists (Area 11a/ Historical, Philosophical and Pedagogical Sciences ; Area 12 / Legal Studies ; Area 14 / Political and Social Sciences) by the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR).

Editorial Process

Initial Submission Review

All submitted manuscripts that comply with the Authors' Guidelines undergo an initial anonymization process managed by both the Managing Editor and the Executive Editor. This allows the Editor-in-Chief to evaluate each submission for general eligibility for inclusion in Athena (hereinafter, "Journal"). Subsequently, the Board of Directors reviews selected manuscripts to ensure their compatibility with the Journal's scientific aims. Manuscripts that do not align with the Journal's purpose and/or scope, as determined on a case-by-case basis and from a comparative perspective, are rejected at this stage (Desk Rejection).

The Editorial Office promptly notifies all Authors of manuscript receipt through either the Journal's email account or the OJS Platform (hereinafter, "OJS"). Authors will be informed whether their manuscripts are eligible for peer review or have been rejected (Desk Rejection) within two weeks of the receipt notification, via email only.

Quality Assessment and Peer Review

As part of the initial quality assessment and prior to peer review, each manuscript undergoes plagiarism detection through iThenticate software. If no plagiarism is detected, the manuscript is anonymously sent to two external, independent reviewers with appropriate scholarly expertise in the relevant research field for formal evaluation (double-blind peer review). This process typically takes up to 6 weeks.

In exceptional cases, one of the two Reviewers may be a member of either the (1) Board of Directors or the (2) Associate Editors Team. In such circumstances, the reviewer will conduct their role in accordance with the Code of Ethics (specifically sections 2.2, 8.1, and sections 3.1 and 3.2 regarding conflicts of interest).

Decision Process

The Editorial Office keeps Authors whose manuscripts have been peer-reviewed duly informed throughout the process to ensure transparency and integrity. The Editor-in-Chief makes decisions regarding Publication Offers based on multiple factors, including compliance with the topic proposed in the Call for Papers and the manuscript's scientific potential to foster pluralism in scholarly debate. The reviewers' feedback (including requests, comments, and suggestions) is the most significant factor in this decision. The non-binding advisory opinions of the Board of Directors, Associate Editors, and the Managing Editor also contribute to the Editor-in-Chief's decision. This decision is then communicated to the Authors via email as soon as it is finalized (the time required is typically longer for manuscripts considered eligible for publication with Major revisions).

Revision Process

Each revised manuscript with Major revisions undergoes a new round of review by the same Reviewer who evaluated the original version. For manuscripts requiring Minor revisions, the Managing Editor confirms compliance with the Reviewer's requested changes.

In cases where Reviewers disagree about publication eligibility, the Editor-in-Chief may assign the manuscript to a third external Reviewer before making a rejection decision. The non-binding advisory opinions of the Board of Directors, Associate Editors, and the Managing Editor also contribute to the Editor-in-Chief's final decision.

In exceptional cases, (3) a member of the Scientific Committee may serve as the third Reviewer, taking into account their scholarly expertise in evaluating the manuscript.

The Editor-in-Chief then makes a decision on extending a Publication Offer based on all Reviewers' feedback. The non-binding advisory opinions of the Board of Directors, Associate Editors, and the Managing Editor also inform this decision.

Exceptional Cases

In rare instances, the Editor-in-Chief may authorize the publication of a manuscript deemed directly suitable for publication, bypassing the peer-review process. In such cases, requesting non-binding advisory opinions from both the Board of Directors and (4) the Scientific Committee is mandatory. An Editorial note will appear on the front page to inform readers about this editorial decision and its rationale.

Role of the Scientific Committee

The Scientific Committee, composed of internationally and nationally recognized experts and academics, is responsible for maintaining the Journal's prestige and scientific integrity. It is not generally involved in the peer-review process (except in circumstance "(3)" mentioned above) or editorial decisions (except in circumstance "(4)" mentioned above regarding non-binding advisory opinions).

Athena manages the entire Peer Review process in accordance with the Ethics Code.

Fees

Athena has neither article submission charges (ASCs) nor processing fees (APCs).

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

It releases its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). It is not necessary to ask further permissions both to author(s) or journal board, although you are kindly requested to inform the journal for every reuse of the papers.

Authors who publish on this journal maintain both the copyrights and the publishing rights.

Authors are welcome to post pre-submission versions, the original submitted version of the manuscript (preprint) and the final draft post-refereeing (postprint) on a personal website, a collaborative wiki, departmental website, social media websites, institutional repository or non-commercial subject-based repositories.

Ethics

All editorial, publishing and reviewing activities of Athena comply with the Code of Ethics adopted by the AlmaDl Journal Service.

Especially for:

  1. The Editorial Team (Editor-in-Chief, Directors’ Board, Managing Editor, Associate Editors, Assistant Editors and Executive Editor): sections 2.1, 3.1, 8.1

  2. The Reviewers: sections 2.2, 3.2 and 8.2

Each Author is invited to read the Code of Ethics (especially sections 2.3, 3.3, 5 and 8.3) before submitting a manuscript to the Journal. Authors accept the whole Code of Ethics (especially sections 2.3, 3.3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.3) by submitting a manuscript to the Journal.

Each member of the Scientific Committee is duly informed on the Code of Ethics before joining the role in the Journal’s body. In case of reviewing commitment, it will be conducted in accordance with the Code of Ethics (i.e. sections 2.2, 3.2 and 8.2).

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The provisions outlined herein govern exclusively the manuscript development phase for the submission to the Journal, and do not extend to computational AI utilization for research data processing or analytical insights generation.

Implementation

Authors may leverage AI composition systems solely to enhance linguistic quality, stylistic coherence, and readability. Such technologies must function as supplementary tools rather than primary intellectual contributors. They cannot substitute for the researcher's obligation to formulate legal interpretations, establish theoretical frameworks, synthesize findings, or articulate professional judgments. All AI-assisted content requires comprehensive human validation given the potential for AI systems to generate persuasive yet factually questionable, incomplete, or prejudiced material. Ultimate intellectual ownership and responsibility for all manuscript content remains with the human authors.

Attribution 

AI systems and algorithmic tools cannot receive authorship designation or citation as intellectual contributors. The authorial role encompasses fundamental responsibilities exclusive to human cognition, including critical evaluation of accuracy claims, final manuscript authorization, and submission approval. Authors bear responsibility for ensuring content originality, verifying authorship qualifications, and confirming compliance with intellectual property provisions.

Transparency

Authors must explicitly acknowledge any utilization of AI-based composition systems within their submission documentation. Publications will include a formal declaration regarding such technological assistance. This transparency requirement fosters scholarly integrity, maintains reader confidence, ensures compliance with technological platform agreements, and applies exclusively to newly developed content rather than previously certified materials.

Data Policy

When relevant, authors are encouraged to follow Open Science and FAIR principles by publishing the research data associated to their articles in trusted data repositories, according to the international best practices and data management guidelines.

Detailed information is reported in the AlmaDL Journals Data Policy.

Authors who are affiliated to the University of Bologna can publish their data in AMSActa, the institutional research data repository.

Archiving Policy

As part of AlmaDL Journals, the Journal adopts a strategy to ensure long term preservation of the published content. Please see the archiving policy of the publishing service AlmaDL Journals.

The Journal’s Repository Policy for auto-archiving is recorded on Sherpa Romeo

Publisher

Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna
Alma Diamond – open scholarly communication

Via Zamboni 33,
40126 - Bologna (Italy)

Ownership

Alma Mater Research Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI)
Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Via Galliera, 3
40121 - Bologna (Italy)