Frequently Asked Questions About WPR

What is the mission of World Politics Review?
World Politics Review provides uncompromising analysis of critical global trends to give its readers the context they need to have confidence in their decisionmaking. While WPR is a for-profit, privately owned company, it is also a missioned-based organization, committed to integrity, quality and the principles of an intellectually honest press whose exclusive purpose is to inform readers.


Does World Politics Review have a political leaning?
WPR is strictly nonpartisan with regard to political party affiliation or allegiance and has no animating political agenda. However, WPR can be broadly described as liberal internationalist, combining a reality-based approach that recognizes the need for all the tools and instruments of statecraft with a preference for diplomacy and multilateralism in support of a rules- and norms-based global order.


Who reads World Politics Review?
Our readers include policymakers, analysts, researchers, academics, journalists, business professionals, and students. Most of our readers use the information we provide in their jobs and studies, however some of our readers simply have a deep personal interest in international affairs.

About 49 percent of visitors to our website came from the United States, with the United Kingdom, India, Canada and Australia rounding out the top five countries of reader origin. Our paying subscribers are also located all over the world, with similar proportions in the United States and outside it.


Who are World Politics Review’s writers?
World Politics Review contributing writers are experts on the subjects they write about. They include researchers, academics, policymakers and journalists. Although our in-house editors do write for the site, most of our articles are written by outside experts. We have ongoing relationships with a core lineup of contributors, some of whom contribute as often as multiple times per month. Others contribute less frequently, and some have published with us only once. We both commission articles directly from writers and consider unsolicited pitches. Our standards are high and uncompromising, and the qualifications of our writers reflect this. They are often quoted as expert sources – and their work for WPR is frequently cited – in major news outlets.

As part of its supplementary service designed to keep readers informed about breaking news, World Politics Review also publishes links to outside sources in its daily News Wire.

How do I subscribe to World Politics Review?
If you would like full access to everything we publish, you can sign up for a WPR subscription. You can cancel for any reason simply by writing to subscriptions@worldpoliticsreview.com.

If you cancel during a paid subscription term, we will set your subscription to cancel at the end of the term for which you have already paid, unless you specify otherwise.

If you request to cancel a paid subscription immediately, instead of waiting until the end of the current term, we will refund to you a pro-rated amount for the unused portion of the subscription term. For example, if you request an immediate cancellation and refund halfway through a yearly term for which you paid $97, we will refund $48.50.

If you would like to get World Politics Review for multiple users at your office or school, fill out this form or send an email to subscriptions@worldpoliticsreview.com to request an institutional trial.


Where and how can I read World Politics Review?
You can read World Politics Review on the web at www.worldpoliticsreview.com. The website’s format adjusts automatically to the size of your browser window, so you can read it comfortably from tablets and mobile phones as well as desktops and laptops.

There is no print version of World Politics Review.

Almost all articles on the website are behind a paywall, so you will need to sign up for a subscription to get access. If you are not yet sure whether you wish to subscribe, you can sign up for our free daily (Mon.–Fri.) newsletter, in which we share a handful of selected articles each week.

Who is behind World Politics Review?
World Politics Review was founded in 2006 by Hampton Stephens, a former reporter who had also previously worked on the business side of publishing. Hampton is the 100% owner of World Politics Review.

World Politics Review was initially a part-time project, but evolved into a full-time business around 2008. The goal was and remains to create better discourse and debate about foreign affairs and international relations in the U.S. and around the world. WPR’s growth has been “bootstrapped” by its founder. There are no outside investors, nor any institutional backing. In short, World Politics Review is a fully independent publishing company. 

Since 2008, Editor-in-Chief Judah Grunstein has helmed a growing World Politics Review editorial staff, which now includes five full-time editors. Links to staff bios can be found at the bottom of our About page.


How does World Politics Review support itself financially?
World Politics Review is supported almost entirely by the subscription payments of its individual and institutional subscribers. We occasionally accept advertising in our non-paid email newsletters for products and services that comport with our values. There is no advertising on our website or in our email newsletters for subscribers.


Where is World Politics Review based?
World Politics Review’s editorial office is in Brooklyn, NY, with other employees in Newcastle, UK, Tampa, FL, and Lagos, Nigeria. More than half of our readers and subscribers are outside the United States, and we are committed to examining global politics through an international lens, not dominated by a U.S.-centric perspective.


Can I write for World Politics Review?
Those interested in writing for WPR should read our contributor guidelines.


Is World Politics Review a peer-reviewed journal?
World Politics Review is not peer-reviewed. Peer review is most relevant for validating primary research and in general WPR does not publish primary research.

WPR is meant for uses other than discipline-specific research, and  it operates on a more rapid timeframe, so peer-review is both less relevant and impractical. Our up-to-date analysis provides academics with a useful and accessible means to support and contextualize their own primary research in related disciplines.

Instead of using the peer-review process, we ensure the integrity of what we publish in the same manner that journalistic publications do. That is, our team of editors, who are well-versed in international issues, evaluates the credentials of each contributor and reviews and fact-checks their writing prior to publication. (A short bio indicating the credentials of each author is published at the bottom of each article, and users can also click on the name of any author on our website to link to their author page, where in most cases a longer bio is published.)

It should also be noted that a significant number and proportion of WPR articles are written by peer-reviewed authors, even if WPR itself is not peer-reviewed.

For our contributing writers who are academics themselves, WPR represents a channel for the dissemination of their research to achieve impact beyond the academy.