Chinese Public Administration Review
Chinese Public Administration Review (CPAR) has been the elite international academic platform for high-quality theoretical and empirical work addressing important public administration and policy issues for 20 years. Although initially focused on the Chinese and Asian contexts, CPAR increasingly publishes research from international and comparative settings by scholars worldwide. Published quarterly by the Center for Chinese Public Administration Research and the School of Government at Sun Yat-sen University, CPAR is committed to developing diverse and rigorous research on all aspects of the field. The journal has no disciplinary or methodological bias other than an insistence on academic excellence. All manuscripts are subjected to a double-blind peer-review process before acceptance and publication, most within one and half months. CPAR is currently covered by the Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus, and the Open Archives Initiative (OAI).
Backfile’s note: The CPAR issues from 2002 to 2017 were published by the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University at Newark, and the issues from 2018 to 2020 were published by the Institute for Public Service, Suffolk University.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Launched in 2002, Chinese Public Administration Review is an international and interdisciplinary journal with a strong editorial team consisting of scholars from China, South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and the Netherlands. The journal seeks to publish organizational, administrative, managerial, and policy-based research that improves our understanding of the public sector and welcomes in-depth reviews and book reviews that aim to advance the field’s scholarship. CPAR covers diverse topics in public administration and public policy broadly defined, including but not limited to:
- Intellectual History of Public Administration
- Government Reform
- Administrative Law
- Comparative Public Administration
- Methods
- Public Policy Implementation
- Public Sector Innovation
- Public Sector Human Resource Management
- Public Performance Management
- Public Budgeting and Finance
- Nonprofit Management and Civil Society
- Urban Management and Planning
- E-government and Smart Cities
| Marc Holzer | Suffolk University, USA |
| Ankui Tan | Sun Yat-sen University, China |
| Qiushi Wang | Sun Yat-sen University, China |
| Hongtao Yi | Florida State University, USA |
| Can Chen | Georgia State University, USA |
| Qian Hu | George Mason University, USA |
| Alex Ingrams | Leiden University, Netherlands |
| Liang Ma | Renmin University of China, China |
| Markie McBrayer | University of Idaho, USA |
| Wenxuan Yu | University of Xiamen, China |
| Yueping Zheng | Sun Yat-sen University, China |
| Gang Chen | University at Albany, State University of New York, USA |
| Heungsuk Choi | Korea University, South Korea |
| Tsai-Tsu Su | National Taiwan University, Taiwan, China |
| Bo Wen | University of Macau, Macau, China |
| Hanjin Mao | University of Houston-Downtown, USA |
| Kayla Schwoerer | Rutgers University-Newark, USA |
| Chengxin Xu | Seattle University, USA |
| Dongfang Gaozhao | University of Dayton, USA |
| Ruiying Li | Sun Yat-sen University, China |
| Hang Qi | University of Missouri, USA |
| Guoxian Bao | Lanzhou University, China |
| Jing Bao | Chinese Public Administration Society, USA |
| Evan Michael Berman | Fundazion Getulio Vargas, Brazil |
| Peter B. Boorsma | University of Twente, Netherlands |
| Barry Bozeman | Arizona State University, USA |
| Hon S. Chan | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Bin Chen | City University of New York-Baruch College, USA |
| Zhenming Chen | Xiamen University, China |
| Gregory Chow | Princeton University, USA |
| Jeanne Marie Col | City University of New York-John Jay College, USA |
| Terry L. Cooper | University of Southern California, USA |
| Keyong Dong | Renmin University of China, China |
| Kenneth W. Foster | Concordia College, USA |
| Xiaoping Gao | Chinese Public Administration Society, China |
| Xue Gao | Florida State University, USA |
| Mary Hamilton | University of Nebraska, USA |
| Daniel Harris | Overseas Development Institute Politics and Government, United Kindom |
| Ian Holliday | The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Yilin Hou | Syracuse University, USA |
| Kun Huang | University of New Mexico, USA |
| Yun-Won Hwang | Chung-Ang University, South Korea |
| Chung-yuang Jan | National Chengchi University, Taiwan, China |
| Edward T. Jennings | University of Kentucky, USA |
| Taijun Jin | Nanjing Audit University, China |
| Chan-Gon Kim | Vice Mayor Central District, South Korea |
| Pan S. Kim | Yonsei University-Wonju, South Korea |
| Donald E. Klingner | University of Colorado, Colorado Springs |
| Zhiyong Lan | Arizona State University, USA |
| Huafang Li | University of Pittsburgh, USA |
| Weiwei Lin | Rutgers University-Newark, USA |
| M. Jae Moon | Yonsei University, South Korea |
| Martin Painter | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Jun Peng | University of Arizona, USA |
| Suzanne Piotrowski | Rutgers University-Newark, USA |
| Allan Rosenbaum | Florida International University, USA |
| David Rosenbloom | American University, USA |
| E.S. Savas | City University of New York-Baruch College, USA |
| Ruowen Shen | Wichita State University, USA |
| Zixiang (Alex) Tan | Syracuse University, USA |
| Tian Tang | Florida State University, USA |
| King T. Tsao | Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Richard Walker | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Shaoguang Wang | Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China |
| Jiannan Wu | Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China |
| Shuzhang Xia | Sun Yat-sen University, China |
| Hua Xu | East Carolina University, USA |
| Ping Xu | The University of Rhode Island, USA |
| Xiaolin Xu | Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China |
| Lan Xue | Tsinghua University, China |
| Kaifeng Yang | Renmin University of China, China |
| Litianqing Yang | Sun Yat-sen University, China |
| Meng Yuan | Chongqing University, China |
| Chengfu Zhang | Renmin University of China, China |
| Mengzhong Zhang | Gannon University in Pennsylvania, USA |
| Nandiyang Zhang | Renmin University of China, China |
| Yahong Zhang | Rutgers University - Newark, USA |
| Zhirong Zhao | Zhejiang University, China |
| Guanghui Zhou | Jilin University, China |
| Ling Zhu | University of Houston, USA |
| Qianwei Zhu | Fudan University, China |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Chinese Public Administration Review
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Please read the guidelines below then visit Chinese Public Administration Review’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cnpar to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Chinese Public Administration Review will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.4 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 Chinese Public Administration Review and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication
Please note that Chinese Public Administration Review does not accept submissions of papers that have been posted on preprint servers.
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 Research ethics and participant consent
3.3 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.4 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Identifiable information
4.4 Supplemental material
4.5 Reference style
4.6 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
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Before submitting your manuscript to Chinese Public Administration Review, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Chinese Public Administration Review publishes research articles, review articles, commentaries, and book reviews. Manuscripts should conform to the following guidelines: title, name, address, and organizational affiliation on the first page. On the second page put the title, an abstract, and commence the text. Research articles, review articles and commentaries should contain no less than 6000 words and no more than 10,000 words, including abstract (150-250 words), endnotes, and references; tables, figures, charts, and appendices should be excluded from the word count. Book reviews should have no abstract and contain no more than 3,000 words, including endnotes and references. All material should be a single Word file with 12-point, Times New Roman type, double-spaced with margins of one inch.
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 best to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication.
Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:
- The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors.
- The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper.
- The author has recommended the reviewer.
- The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).
Chinese Public Administration Review is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third-party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for Chinese Public Administration Review can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website.
The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in Chinese Public Administration Review. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.
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. Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your paper.
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.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
Chinese Public Administration Review 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.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Chinese Public Administration Review encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Chinese Public Administration Review 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, use the statement to confirm why it cannot be shared.
- Cite this data in your research
Peer reviewers may be asked to peer review the research data prior to publication.
- Peer reviewers may be asked to assess compliance with the research data policy
- Peer reviewers may be asked to assess research data files
If you need to anonymize your research data for peer review, please refer to our Research Data Sharing FAQs for guidance.
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
Chinese Public Administration Review 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 Chinese Public Administration Review against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized 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 Research ethics and participant consent
If applicable, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent.
Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for participant information and images to be published was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the participant’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.
Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.
3.3 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.
3.4 Open access and author archiving
Chinese Public Administration Review 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.
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.
Where a journal uses double-blind peer review, authors are required to submit:
- A version of the manuscript which has had any information that compromises the anonymity of the author(s) removed or anonymised. This version will be sent to the peer reviewers.
- A separate title page which includes any removed or anonymised material. This will not be sent to the peer reviewers.
See https://sagepub.com/Manuscript-preparation-for-double-blind-journal for detailed guidance on making an anonymous submission.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Chinese Public Administration Review adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
4.6 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit Chinese Public Administration Review’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Chinese Public Administration Review is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cnpar 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 Chinese Public Administration Review 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).
Upload a separate “Title Page” at step 6 of the online file upload procedure, that includes the paper title, author name(s), abstract, key words, affiliation(s), professional biography (less than 100 words), acknowledgements (and any other identifying information) as you would like them to appear in the final, published article.
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 Chinese Public Administration Review editorial office as follows:
Email: cpar@mail.sysu.edu.cn
Telephone: 86-20-84110257
7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.
If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com