Article Retraction & Withdrawal

The Journal of Government and Civil Society (JGCS) is committed to maintaining the integrity, accuracy, and permanence of the scholarly record. On rare occasions, it may be necessary to correct, retract, or withdraw published articles or manuscripts in process to uphold global publication ethics standards.

Integrity & Preservation Standard

Articles that have been published in JGCS remain part of the permanent scholarly literature. Alterations, removals, or retractions are handled strictly through formal editorial notices linked directly to the original record, ensuring full transparency for readers, libraries, and indexing databases.

Policy Categories & Editorial Procedures

1. Article Withdrawal (Pre-Publication)

Applies to manuscripts that have been submitted, are undergoing peer review, or have been accepted but not yet published. Authors may request a formal manuscript withdrawal by submitting a written request signed by all co-authors detailing the specific reasons for withdrawal to the Editorial Board.

Withdrawal is only finalized once the Editorial Board issues an official confirmation letter. Unethical withdrawals, such as requesting a withdrawal after peer review is completed to submit the manuscript elsewhere, constitute scientific misconduct under international publishing ethics. While JGCS does not impose financial penalties or administrative withdrawal fees, instances of unethical withdrawal may result in a temporary ban on future submissions by the authors to the journal.

2. Article Retraction (Post-Publication)

Reserved for published articles that exhibit severe ethical violations, scientific misconduct, or major flaws, including:

Severe plagiarism, data fabrication, or falsification.
Redundant / duplicate publication without attribution.
Unreliable or unreproducible conclusions due to honest errors or misconduct.
Unethical research practices or undisclosed major conflicts of interest.

Procedure: A formal Notice of Retraction is published, watermarking the PDF version of record as "RETRACTED", while maintaining the original PDF and DOI link for bibliographic integrity.

3. Article Correction (Erratum & Corrigendum)

If an error affects the scientific accuracy, author list, or metadata of a published article without rendering its core findings invalid:
• Erratum: Issued to correct an error introduced by the journal during production.
• Corrigendum: Issued to correct a significant error introduced by the authors.
Corrections are published as formal notices linked directly to the original publication DOI.

4. Article Removal (Legal Limitations)

In extremely rare legal circumstances (e.g., court order, severe defamation, or grave violation of privacy rights), a published article may be removed from the platform. In such cases, the full-text PDF is replaced with a notice stating that the article has been removed for legal reasons, while metadata and abstract records remain accessible.