An interdisciplinary journal at UCLA studying how governments, courts, schools, and agencies actually work — and how they can be reformed to serve the public better.
Every day, we encounter debates about immigration, reproductive healthcare, education, artificial intelligence, civil rights, criminal justice, climate policy, and countless other issues that shape public life. Behind each of these debates lies something larger: the institutions responsible for implementing laws, delivering services, protecting rights, and serving the public.
Institutions are the systems through which societies govern, educate, protect, regulate, and care for their communities. They include governments, courts, schools, universities, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, foster care systems, nonprofit organizations, and international organizations. These institutions influence nearly every aspect of society by determining how justice is administered, how children are protected, how elections are conducted, how healthcare is delivered, and how governments respond to emerging challenges. Yet while public discourse often centers on political disagreement or individual actors, less attention is given to the institutional structures that produce these outcomes.
While these discussions are important, they often overlook a more fundamental question:
To answer that question, we must look beyond individual actors and examine the systems themselves. Institutional performance is shaped by governance, legal frameworks, incentives, oversight, organizational culture, funding, and implementation. Understanding these structural mechanisms allows us not only to explain why institutions succeed or fail, but also to identify reforms capable of strengthening them.
Journal of Institutional Accountability at UCLA was founded to create an interdisciplinary forum where students from diverse academic backgrounds can collaborate to study institutional performance and develop evidence-informed reforms. By bridging disciplines and applying a shared framework of institutional analysis, we seek to move beyond describing problems toward understanding their structural causes and proposing practical solutions that strengthen institutions and better serve the public.
Journal of Institutional Accountability at UCLA envisions a society in which institutions are accountable, transparent, and continually challenged to better serve the public. Our goal is to confront institutional injustice by strengthening the public's capacity to evaluate institutions and demand systems that protect rights, respond to wrongdoing, and advance more equitable outcomes.
We believe meaningful reform begins with understanding why institutions produce the outcomes they do. Rather than focusing solely on individual actors or isolated events, our scholarship examines the structural mechanisms that shape institutional performance.
Every publication follows a shared framework of institutional analysis, asking five fundamental questions:
What is the problem?
Why does it exist?
What institutional mechanisms contribute to it?
What reforms could address it?
What outcomes should those reforms achieve?
Journal of Institutional Accountability at UCLA publishes interdisciplinary scholarship that examines how institutions shape people's lives, why they produce unequal or ineffective outcomes, and how they can be reformed to better serve the public.
Our contributors begin with issues they care deeply about — human rights, immigration, reproductive healthcare, civil rights, education, foster care, criminal justice, technology, public health, environmental protection, and beyond — and investigate the institutions responsible for shaping those outcomes.
A student concerned about reproductive healthcare might examine how hospital policies, state regulations, insurance structures, and medical oversight affect access to care. A contributor interested in immigration might study how court backlogs, administrative discretion, legal representation, and detention systems influence due process. A student focused on child welfare might analyze how licensing rules, reporting systems, funding incentives, and oversight structures affect the safety of children in institutional care.
Although these subjects differ, every publication is connected by a shared purpose: to move beyond identifying injustice and toward understanding the systems that sustain it. We seek scholarship that asks:
Our goal is to give students the opportunity to transform their academic interests and lived concerns into rigorous, constructive research. Contributors will not simply comment on public problems — they will learn to investigate institutional structures, evaluate evidence, compare alternative models, and develop practical recommendations for reform.
The Journal's principal form of long-form scholarship. Each study focuses on a specific institution or system and examines the gap between its intended purpose and its actual performance — identifying the people affected, analyzing the structural causes of institutional outcomes, and proposing legal, administrative, or organizational reforms.
Rather than examining an entire institution, a Policy Brief addresses one specific institutional problem and proposes a defined response — clear, accessible, and useful to audiences beyond the university.
Comparative Analyses examine how different institutions respond to similar challenges — states, countries, historical periods, agencies, universities, courts, or healthcare systems. The goal isn't to declare one system better, but to identify the structural features that produce different outcomes.
The Journal is not limited to one political ideology, academic department, or area of law. Institutional problems rarely belong to a single discipline. A strong publication may draw from:
We are building a publication where students from different backgrounds can bring distinct forms of knowledge to a shared question: how can institutions become more accountable, more just, and more capable of serving the people whose lives they shape?
Every contributor should be able to see an issue they care about reflected in this work, and recognize that they have the ability to investigate it, challenge it, and help imagine a better institutional future.
The institutions we inherit need not be the institutions we leave behind. Join us in building a future shaped by thoughtful scholarship, meaningful accountability, and the continued pursuit of justice.
Every enduring institution begins with a small group of people willing to ask difficult questions and build something larger than themselves. As a founding member of Journal of Institutional Accountability at UCLA, you will have the opportunity to shape the Journal's culture, establish its traditions, and contribute to a publication designed to continue long after its founding class graduates.
Whether your interests lie in human rights, immigration, environmental policy, education, public health, artificial intelligence, criminal justice, housing, or another area of public concern, there is a place for your perspective within this Journal. We are not seeking students who already have all the answers — we are seeking students who are intellectually curious, committed to rigorous scholarship, and passionate about strengthening the institutions that shape public life.
Every person brings a different story, a different perspective, and a different way of understanding the world. Those differences are not simply welcomed — they are essential to our mission. Perhaps you have witnessed a problem firsthand and want to understand why it exists. Perhaps you've spent years studying an issue that matters deeply to you. Whatever has brought you here, your perspective has the potential to ask questions that no one else can.
You do not need to be an expert. You do not need publishing experience. You simply need curiosity, a willingness to learn, and the belief that thoughtful research can contribute to a more accountable and just society. If there is an issue you care about, there is a place for you here.
Our commitment to institutional accountability extends beyond publication. Through service, we strive to support the communities and causes our members care about most, connecting thoughtful scholarship with opportunities to help.
For our Journal, a flagship project is a key focus or area we strive to help in through a month of dedicated service. It gives our community a shared cause to work toward and a way to turn concern into meaningful action.
A project might focus on supporting people affected by a particular institutional problem, working with a community organization, or responding to a need our members identify. The form of service will depend on the cause and the needs of the people we hope to support.
We welcome suggestions about the causes you care about and the service you would like to take part in. Members are encouraged to propose a flagship project for a month: an area of need, a community to support, or an opportunity to contribute together.
Tell us what matters to you, why it deserves attention, and how you envision our Journal helping. Your interests and ideas can help shape our monthly focus and the service we undertake as a community.
Suggest an organization or cause for a month of service. Tell us what matters to you and how our community could help.
No prior publishing experience required. Paste your manuscript below, or link to a Google Doc if you'd rather share it that way — we'll follow up by email.
If there is a system you believe can be improved, we want to help you investigate it.