World Policy Journal is the flagship publication of the World Policy Institute. The Journal's pages are filled with articles written in a lively, non-academic style, coming from strong points of view that transcend the traditional foreign-versus-domestic policy divide, reflecting WPI's "world" perspective. WPJ's progressive, global outlook challenges conventional wisdom. It runs policy articles that present a well-supported argument and offer provocative policy recommendations; essays that consider (and reconsider) such issues as geo-political and economic change, global security (broadly defined), immigration, exile, and ethnicity; articles that provide insight into a historical era, event, or person; and articles that illuminate cultural change and cross-cultural influences; profiles that comment on the political or cultural context of which the subject is a part; book reviews; and reportage from regions or on subjects not widely covered in the general media.

Duke University Press publishes approximately one hundred books per year and thirty journals, primarily in the humanities and social sciences, though it does also publish two journals of advanced mathematics and a few publications for primarily professional audiences (e.g., in law or medicine). The relative magnitude of the journals program within the Press is unique among American university presses. In recent years, it has developed its strongest reputation in the broad and interdisciplinary area of "theory and history of cultural production," and is known in general as a publisher willing to take chances with nontraditional and interdisciplinary publications, both books and journals.