Issues

REMINDER: As of February 2012, Taylor and Francis has switched policies and no longer sends each author a pdf version plus a hard copy of the journal. Instead, each author will receive 50 free “Eprints” of their article, and the option to order hard copy issues and reprints through the Rightslink website.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: The Psychology of Warmaking

Under the guest editorship of Ron B. Aviram (Instructor in Clinical Psychology, Dept. of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons), Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice is dedicating part of issue 25(2) to examine the psychological motivations for war.

Intergroup conflict is a continuous human problem. This special issue of Peace Review will address the psychological influences upon making war. Specifically, this pertains to internalization of large groups as part of the self-concept of individuals. This has both cognitive and emotional qualities, and it is influenced by conscious and unconscious needs. It allows us to ask how the large group is represented in the mind of a person. Also, we can ask how unconscious processes associated with group belonging influence aggressive behavior. Our ability to understand the psychological processes that are associated with human destructiveness may help us find novel approaches to minimize the potential for war.

In the summer of 1932 the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, a body of the League of Nations, asked Albert Einstein to invite another intellectual to exchange ideas on any subject of his choice. Of all the people he could have reached out to Einstein decided to ask Sigmund Freud the question: “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?” That Einstein chose to invite Freud to ponder such an important question strongly endorses the potential of psychoanalysis, and psychology in general, to provide humanity with deep understanding about significant problems in society.

In February 2012 the “Is War Inevitable?” Conference examined the psychological motivations for war. This interdisciplinary conference had a clear intention to explore the interaction of the intrapsychic with the macrosocial, highlighting overlapping concepts and literatures between psychoanalysis and social psychology in an effort to understand the psychological components that lead to war. To address a topic as massive as war, we need to look at multiple levels of experience simultaneously. This special issue of Peace Review will publish essays that address the psychological influences upon war-making. Some suggested topics could focus on the interaction of the individual with the large group, unconscious motivations, conscious aggression leading to war, or identity and self-esteem associated with national aggression. A wide variety of approaches to this subject will be considered.

Interested writers should submit essays (2500-3500 words) and 1-2 line bios to Peace Review no later than February 5, 2013. Essays should be jargon- and footnote-free, although we will run Recommended Readings. Please refer to the Submission Guidelines.

We publish essays on ideas and research in peace studies, broadly defined. Essays are relatively short (2500-3500 words), contain no footnotes or exhaustive bibliography, and are intended for a wide readership. The journal is most interested in the cultural and political issues surrounding conflicts occurring between nations and peoples.   

Send essays to: 

Robert Elias (Editor in Chief) or Erika Myszynski (Managing Editor)

peacereview@usfca.edu  

Special Editor Ron Aviram, Ph.D.

135 Central Park West, Suite 1B New York, NY 10023

Email: ronaviram@msn.com

Current Call for Essays: From Victims to Occupy Movements

Under the guest editorship of Eloísa Nos Aldás, Head of the Interuniversity Institute for Social Development and Peace (IUDESP) and in the area of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising, Department of Communication Sciences of the Universitat Jaume I, Castellon, Spain and Jennifer Murphy, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and professor of the International MA in Peace, Conflict and Development Studies of Universitat Jaume I, Castellon, Spain, Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice is dedicating part of issue 25(3) to examine occupy movements and the role of victim versus indignant.

Current occupy movements and related nonviolent social movements from Spain to the United States to North Africa and the Middle East have substantially contributed to the development of diverse conceptualizations around one relatively novel figure: the “indignant.” But, can we truly understand the figure of the indignant without its Janus- faced counterpoint – the “victim?” (This theoretical conceptualization of the “victim” and the “indigant” has been taken, and adapted, from the project proposal “De víctimas a indignados: visibilidad mediática, migración de imágenes, espectacularización de los conflictos y procesos de transformación social hacia una cultura de paz,” led by Dr. Vicente J. Benet).

The familiar figure of the victim evokes empathy and emotional elaboration and "spectacularization" of suffering and is associated with an array of responsive strategies. The victim image is fundamentally – if not intrinsically – passive, the receptor of aggression and or injustice committed by a perpetrator or a structural situation of exclusion and violence. In binary opposition, the indignant demonstrates its willingness to break into the public sphere from an active position that invites alliance and participation. Here the spectacular element is the spontaneous, unplanned, and forceful character of the event and actors. Above all, and of particular interest, is the power of the indignant as an agent who directly participates in processes of social articulation, particularly as they relate to new communication technologies (for example, web 2.0). The viral reproduction of these representations through videos on the Internet, often without providing contextualization, provides insight into the construction of an imaginary that repeatedly portrays conflict truth(s) or linkages to specific events in a manner that can both enhance and distort.

Within these opposing abstract constructions, it is possible to trace different patterns of visibility and invisibility of certain actors and social processes, a relevant and timely research area with significant repercussions for the disciplinary and transdisciplinary conversations among fields such as communication, psychology, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, and education. The question of visibility and strategies of representation of the victim have been extremely instrumental in the treatment of victims of terrorism, gender violence or, increasingly, people who suffer neoliberal globalization’s economic vicissitudes (eviction, exclusion, weakening, or prohibition of democratic processes, etc.). On the flip side, the indignant represents interesting issues of visibility related to the occasional vindication of anonymity, general opposition to old (status-quo) leadership and structures and organizations that involve processes of institutionalization. Within this theoretical and questioning framework, we seek to better understand today’s theoretical conceptual trajectory – from tragic victims to powerful nonviolent occupy and social movements of indignant participators and their empowerment practices.

In accordance with the general topic presented above – From Victims to Occupy Movements – please frame your proposals around one of the following topics:

I. Theoretical conceptualizations of the figure of the victim

II. Theoretical conceptualizations of the figure of the indignant

III. Nonviolent occupy and social movements and comparative studies (Case Studies)

Interested writers should submit essays (2500-3500 words) and 1-2 line bios to Peace Review no later than April 15, 2013. Essays should be jargon- and footnote-free, although we will run Recommended Readings. Please refer to the Submission Guidelines.

Send essays to: 

Robert Elias (Editor in Chief)

Erika Myszynski (Managing Editor)

Email: peacereview@usfca.edu  

Jennifer Murphy (Special Editor)

Email: murphyj@com.uji.es

Universitat Jaume I

Departamento de Ciencias y Comunicación

Av. De Vicent Sos Baynat s/n

12071 Castellón, España (Spain)

Call for Essays: Nonviolent Movements, Prospects and Challenges

Under the guest editorship of William Hoynes (Vassar College) and students in his seminar, “Nonviolence in Theory and Practice,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice is dedicating part of issue 26(1) to examine nonviolent movements in the twenty-first century.

Mass protests in Tunisia and Egypt helped to bring down authoritarian governments in 2011, re-focused global attention on the power of nonviolent social movements, and produced a great deal of commentary about the lessons of the “Arab Spring.” This issue will focus on the prospects for, and challenges facing, nonviolent movements in the wake of the Arab Spring. We seek essays on a broad range of questions about nonviolent movements – national or transnational, contemporary or historical – with a special emphasis on forward-looking analysis of the possibilities for, strategies of, and obstacles to organized nonviolent collective action.

Essays may examine a diverse array of issues, including, but not limited to: the conditions under which nonviolent movements emerge and flourish, the contemporary methods of nonviolent action, the role of social media in the development and coordination of nonviolent action, authorities’ responses to nonviolent movements, the relationship between nonviolent movements and contemporary wars of liberation, media representations of nonviolent movements, appropriate measures of success for nonviolent movements, and evolving definitions of the meaning of violence and nonviolence.

Interested writers should submit essays (2500-3500 words) and 1-2 line bios to Peace Review no later than April 20, 2013. Essays should be jargon- and footnote-free, although we will run Recommended Readings. Please refer to the Submission Guidelines.

Send essays to:

Robert Elias (Editor in Chief)

Erika Myszynski (Managing Editor)

peacereview@usfca.edu  

Special Editor William Hoynes

Vassar College, Department of Sociology,

124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY 12604

Email: wihoynes@vassar.edu

Call for Essays: Climate Change and Peace

Under the guest editorship of Richard Matthew, PhD (Director, Center for Unconventional Security Affairs and Professor, Planning, Policy and Design, University of California Irvine), Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice is dedicating part of issue 25(4) to exploring the linkages between climate change and peace.

Since the publication of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, efforts to define and investigate climate change in relation to security have received significant attention from both the academic and practitioner communities. For example, in 2009, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon released Climate Change and Its Possible Security Implications. This report identified five ways in which climate change may be linked to international security by: increasing human vulnerability to things like water and food insecurity; obstructing and undermining economic development; increasing the risk of violent conflict; displacing people or posing an existential threat to some states, such as those that could literally disappear under sea level rise; and contributing to international tensions by overwhelming bilateral and multilateral forms of cooperation in areas such as shared water basins.

While much analysis and debate has focused on whether and how climate change might contribute to insecurity, instability and violent conflict, some thought also has been given to the question of whether climate change mitigation and adaptation can strengthen peace and peacebuilding. In fact, the United Nations report mentioned above suggests that adaptation and mitigation projects might function as “threat minimizers” in places vulnerable to adverse climate change effects.

This special issue seeks papers that explore the real and potential linkages between climate change and peace. Is developing this linkage desirable, or should the peace community be wary of it? Is there a new nexus for peace that must focus on the complex relationships among climate, food, water, and energy? Should climate change become an explicit focus of peacebuilding and humanitarian operations? If climate change is ignored, is peace at risk? What can peace mean in places experiencing “double exposure:” places where social systems have been devastated by violent conflict and where ecosystems have been affected by climate driven disasters, such as drought? Does climate change affect critical relationships such as between women, war, and peace or between refugees, war, and peace? How should we think about peace and justice for those communities where climate change poses an existential risk—such as many small island states? How do we grapple with the implications of the worse case scenarios of global climate catastrophe? What if climate change effectively restructures the world into largely incommensurable populations of climate change winners and climate change losers? How, in short, does climate science affect peace and our perceptions of peace?

Interested writers should submit essays (2500-3500 words) and 1-2 line bios to Peace Review no later than July 15, 2013. Essays should be jargon- and footnote-free, although we will run Recommended Readings. Please refer to the Submission Guidelines.

Send essays to: 

Robert Elias (Editor in Chief)

Erika Myszynski (Managing Editor)

Email: peacereview@usfca.edu  

Special Editor Richard Matthew

Professor, University of California Irvine

Email: rmatthew@uci.edu

Recent Peace Review Issues:

Summer 2013 (Vol. 25, No 2) The Psychology of Warmaking
Spring 2013 (Vol 25, No 1) Projecting Peace
Winter 2013 (Vol 24, No 4) Can Cyprus be Solved?
Fall 2012 (Vol 24, No 3) Children in Armed Conflicts
Summer 2012 (Vol 24, No 2) General Issue
Spring 2012 (Vol 24, No 1) Human Rights Education Praxis
Winter 2012 (Vol 23, No 4) Cambodia's Genocide and Tribunals
Fall 2011 (Vol 23, No 3) Prisons, Social Justice, and Peace
Summer 2011 (Vol 23, No 2) The Democratic Republic of the Congo: A Vanquished War, A Consolidating Peace?
Spring 2011 (Vol 23, No 1) Toward a More Socially Responsible Psychology
Winter 2011 (Vol 22, No 4) Inequalities in the World System
Fall 2010 (Vol 22, No 3) Memorializing Space
Summer 2010 (Vol 22, No 2), U.S. Military Bases Abroad
Spring 2010 (Vol 22, No 1), The New Arms Race in Space
Winter 2010 (Vol 21, No 4) Special Topics
Fall 2009 (Vol 21, No 3) Post-Genocide Rwanda
Summer 2009 (Vol 21, No 2) Imaging War
Spring 2009 (Vol 21, No 1) Hybrid Political Orders and Peacebuilding
Winter 2009 (Vol 20, No 4) North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
Fall 2008 (Vol 20, No 3) Citizenship & Social Justice
Summer 2008 (Vol 20, No 2) Darfur
Spring 2008 (Vol 20, No 1) Literature, Film & Human Rights
Winter 2007 (Vol 19, No 4) Academic Repression & Human Rights
Fall 2007 (Vol 19, No 3) Environmentalism
Summer 2007 (Vol 19, No 2) The Concept of War
Spring 2007 (Vol 19, No 1) Land Rights & Conflict
Winter 2006 (Vol 18.4) Democracy, Torture and Double Standards/ Global Women's Rights Forum/ Art as Witness
Fall 2006 (Vol 18, No 3) Nonproliferation and Disarmament
Summer 2006 (Vol 18, No 2) Military Dissent
Spring 2006 (Vol 18, No 1) Human Rights in the Americas
Winter 2005 (Vol 17, No 4) War and Peace in the Media
Summer & Fall 2005 (Vol 17, No 2 & No 3) Globalization & LGBT (Double-issue)
Winter 2005 (Vol 17, No 1) Psychological Interpretation of War
Winter 2004 (Vol 16, No 4) Underground Youth Movements
Fall 2004 (Vol 16, No 3) Law and War
Summer 2004 (Vol 16, No 2) Asian American Issues
Spring 2004 (Vol 16, No 1) Women and Security
Winter 2003 (Vol 15, No 4) Patriotism
Fall 2003 (Vol 15, No 3) Ubantu - Humane Solutions from Africa
Summer 2003 (Vol 15, No 2) Artists of Resistance
Spring 2003 (Vol 15, No1) Israel and Palestine
Winter 2002 (Vol 14, No 3) Immigration
Fall 2002 (Vol 14, No 3) Forgiveness and Reconciliation
Summer 2002 (Vol 14, No 2) - Utopias
Spring 2002 (Vol 14, No 1)- The Future of Peace Studies
Winter 2001 (Vol 13, No 4) - The Death Penalty
Fall 2001 (Vol 13, No 3) - Social Justice Movements and the Internet
Summer 2001 (Vol 13, No 2) - Literature and Peace
Spring 2001 (Vol 13, No 1) - Contested Society in Northern Ireland

For a list of authors and essays from these and other issues, please look at the list of all essays.

Upcoming Peace Review Issues:

The Psychology of WarmakingWriter's Deadline EXTENDED: February 5, 2013

From Victims to Occupy Movements Writer's Deadline: April 15, 2013

Nonviolent Movements Writer's Deadline: April 20, 2013

Climate Change and Peace Writer's Deadline: July 15, 2013

CURRENTLY, AS OF OCTOBER 2012,
WE ARE MOST INTERESTED IN CONSIDERING PEACE PROFILES FOR PUBLICATION AND PROPOSALS FOR FUTURE ISSUE THEMES.

We are open to issue theme suggestions. If you are interested in becoming a Special Editor for an upcoming issue or have an issue theme idea, please do email us at: peacereview@usfca.edu.

Ongoing: Off-Theme Essays, Peace Profiles, Book Reviews, Recommended Films, Film Reviews, Interviews. Relevant topics include war, violence, human rights, political economy, development, culture and consciousness, the environment, gender, race, sexuality and related topics. (Deadlines: same as above).

Recent Essays:

Some Reviews of the Journal:

2007 Utne Independent Press Award Nomination for International Coverage
Peace Review is included in the nominees for the magazine’s 2007 Independent Press Awards, which honors the very best in independent media from the pool of more than 1,300 sources Utne uses to cull its content.

Project Censored Award Winner, 2000
For the year 2000, Peace Review was awarded Project Censored's Top 25 Most Censored Stories for not merely one but two of its essays. Both articles were rated in the Top 14 Stories, and both of which appeared in the June 1999 issue.

"Peace Review is absolutely superb . . . very topical, easy to read . . . a pleasure." Johan Galtung, Institute for Peace, University of Hawaii, USA

". . . unswervingly honest in attacking power politics, totalitarianism, militarism, and war . . . For libraries that support studies of peace, war, military science, and international relations." Choice, November 1989

"I can resist no longer . . . the issues I have seen so far have been too good to miss!" Bruce Kent, CND, London, UK

"Peace Review is important and has widespread potential for the education of the general public about peace research." Robin Crews, Past Director, Peace Studies Association, USA