About the Journal

Focus and scope

The Diamond Open Access peer-reviewed scholarly journal Parliamentary Studies was established in 2004 and is published by the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. Its purpose is to encourage studies in the fields of democratic governance, parliamentarism and political culture. The journal gathers political analysts, historians, sociologists, researchers in linguistics and law as well as authors within the discipline of political communication.

Publication frequency – two volumes per year (continuous publication).

Languages. The journal accepts articles in Lithuanian and English.

Charges. The journal does not charge article processing charges or submission charges.

The published articles are assigned DOIs (the National Library is a member of CrossRef).

The Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania cordially invites authors to consider publishing their works in the journal Parliamentary Studies.

Why is the journal published by the National Library?

Since 1991, Lithuania’s National Library has been operating as a parliamentary research library.

As a parliamentary library, the National Library does not confine itself solely to addressing transitory issues. It must be noted, as has been emphasised by the Chair of the Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments of the Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), that “The IFLA Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments operates at the intersection of two international communities: one of libraries, which finds its global voice in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and the other of parliaments, represented at the highest level by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)” and “While different in their membership and governance, both organizations believe that cooperation and the sharing of experiences are strong enablers for progress, and that knowledge is vital for development” (see Guidelines for parliamentary research services. IFLA, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2015).

By common accord of the National Library’s Scientific Council, its Director-General and the journal’s Editorial Board, research publications should help find answers, both nationally and internationally, to challenges and even threats facing the parliamentary democracy. Therefore the Library invites researchers to suggest texts on most relevant issues related to political studies, legislation (law), economics, rhetoric and communication. It will strengthen the field of parliamentary studies as well as the possibilities to permanently renew discussions on problematic issues by observing changes in agendas of agencies of democratic societies: “Parliamentary research services are shaped by the culture and traditions of the context from which they emerge”.

Publishing policy and author requirements

Parliamentary Studies is an open-access journal published twice a year. It focuses on articles on political studies, history, sociology, law, information, linguistics and other social and humanities disciplines as well as conference presentations, discussions, study material, publications of sources, surveys and reviews related to parliamentary research. In its informational section, the journal publishes bibliography, chronicle and calendar of events. Parliamentary studies accepts only original papers that have not been submitted elsewhere.

Regarding fees

The publisher does not charge any fees for the submission, reviewing and editing of papers.

Ethics

The Editorial Board adheres to the recommendations by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) set for editors, reviewers and authors.

The Editorial Board has approved the requirements for authors (see Submissions / Author Guidelines), which are followed by the journal’s scientific editor, editor-in-chief and reviewers.

The author is required to register on the Website of the journal Parliamentary Studies here. It will allow loading the paper. When registering, it is important to indicate the correct e-mail, at which the author will be notified about the reviewers’ final decision.

History of the journal

About the conception, establishment and independence

In February 2004, a round-table discussion of researchers and politicians on the lack of parliamentary research related to historical and topical issues held at the Seimas put forward an idea of a specialised journal. On 14 May 2004, an interinstitutional decision on establishing a research journal devoted to investigating parliamentarism was signed by chief executives of five research institutions in Vilnius: the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, the Lithuanian Institute of History, the National Library of Lithuania, the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute (later on renamed into the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences) and the Lithuanian University of Law (later renamed into Mykolas Romeris University). This document was approved by the Board of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania (discussed on 22/06/2004). Politicians recommended that the journal be published by the National Library (though the first issue had been published by the publishers Valstybės žinios) in order to make it immune from any political influence.

Thus, the National Library operating as a parliamentary library under the Law on Libraries of the Republic of Lithuania became the journal’s publisher. The title of the journal was suggested and its initial concept was prepared by Dr. Andrius Vaišnys (in 1997–2006, Head of the Public Relations Unit at the Office of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania; later on, Director of Vilnius University’s Institute of Journalism, Dean of the Faculty of Communication at Vilnius University; Professor at Vilnius University; and in 2010–2020, Chairman of the National Library’s Scientific Council). The first Chairman of the Editorial Board was (until 2009) the historian Aivas Ragauskas (at present, Professor at Vilnius University).

Since 2011, the updating of the journal’s Editorial Board has been a prerogative of the National Library’s Scientific Council; a new board is approved by an order by the National Library’s Director-General.

About the symbol

On the journal’s title banner next to the National Library’s logo, there is the historical Great National Emblem, the original image of which was presented at the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania by the heraldry artist Arvydas Každailis in 2004. The Great National Emblem is a symbol of the parliamentarian tradition of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which originated during the period from the late 15th to the early 16th century (1492–1512). For a certain period of time (until 2008), it adorned the main lobby of the building of the Seimas, but, unlike the historical flag of Lithuania created and presented by Arvydas Každailis, it was not authorised by law. When the journal’s concept was being discussed, Arvydas Každailis assented to a proposal to print the symbol on the cover of every paper issue of Parliamentary Studies and show it in the journal’s electronic version so that it could become a symbol of the tradition of parliamentary research.

Since the very beginning of its publication (the first issue appeared in June 2004), the journal has been issued in two versions: electronic and printed. The electronic format was renewed in January 2021.

Outline of the journal’s concept

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andrius Vaišnys
10/05/2004

The periodical research journal “Parliamentary Studies” is devoted to the publishing of studies and papers addressing the historical, legal and linguistic tradition of the national and European parliamentarism and expressions of public political life. Everything that has been scattered over the pages of Lithuania’s parliamentarism during the development of its statehood is worthy to be systematically investigated and consistently presented in order to demonstrate the tradition of activities of the parliamentary institution of the Lithuanian State at various stages of its history and its contribution to the maturity of the democratic society as well as to establish prerequisites for insight. Works published in this journal and on this Website, therefore, can and should affect the maturity of Lithuania’s political culture as well as bring to light and encourage studies in this direction by researchers within the domains of history, law, linguistics and political and information sciences. Parliamentarism is multifaceted and, therefore, its investigation should be interdisciplinary. 

The journal has accumulated its audience (both readers and authors), among whom there are not only policy makers and observers of politics but also researchers of the State’s history and law.

“Parliamentary Studies” focuses on its main objective: to present a spectre of issues related to the role of the parliamentary institution at various time periods by evaluating personalities, implication of decisions, processes and political situations from the point of view of democratic progress. The journal’s Editorial Board would like to achieve this goal by concentrating Lithuania’s appropriate political, historical and cultural legacy, discovered in certain sources and interpreted by authors, within a single system consisting not only of a periodical journal but also the Website parlamentostudijos.lt.

The structure of the journal and submitted papers should be fully in line with requirements for research works (publications). These requirements are presented in the author guidelines section.

As it were in order to “calibrate” the quality of studies devoted to parliamentarism, we publish articles on political governance reforms in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, when there was a move towards the impact of the contemporary parliamentary institution. Why is it important? In the first place, let us give an insight: if we truly purport to conceptualise the entire legacy of the political tradition of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, we must thoroughly investigate and identify the traditional progression until the Republic of Lithuania, i.e. the 21st century.

After our restored State became fully parliamentarian, the principal (not only internal but also foreign) issues were discussed at the Seimas. The principle of openness, which marked the 1920–1926 period of the State’s history (partially until the April of 1927) allowed the Lithuanian society to better comprehend advantages of democratic governance as well as discern the perspective of cross-border relationships. The subsequent decision making, based on a closed model, and the implementation of universal anti-democratic occupational scenarios enforced on the Baltic States, as we very well know, entirely confirm advantages of openness and publicity that is characteristic of a parliamentary regime. When proceeding to the recent time period, the early 21st century, which was full of contradictions within national policies, we should attempt to prove that democracy becomes a national value when the society perceives its core nature as the proper art of governing and not of messing about, particularly not of permitting to mess about in the name of the nation.

Politics, History, Language, Law – the Website’s main sections – will provide works offered by authors of “Parliamentary Studies”. The News Section will announce upcoming events which could be of interest to those who do research on the development of parliamentarism and observe public life from a scientific perspective

(For the presentation to chief executives of research institutions, the Board of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and for publishing).