Call for Proposals: Civil Wars 25th Anniversary Special Issue

The Journal of Civil Wars (housed within CGSC) are currently seeking contributions for a Special Anniversary Issue to celebrate 25 years the journal. Proposals for contributions due by 30th October 2022.

Next year (2023) marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the journal. To celebrate this milestone the editors are compiling a Special Anniversary Issue to reflect on our history, take stock of the present state of the field and to consider some challenges and opportunities for future studies of Civil War and Conflict. The special issue offers an occasion to pause and reflect on the state of the field, how it has evolved and explore future trajectories and opportunities. As such we seek diverse contributions which reflect on, inter alia the epistemology and ontology of the field, reexamine theoretical assumptions and frameworks, examine the range of sub-fields which have emerged within the study of civil wars and discuss the methodological challenges faced by both quantitative and qualitative approaches alike. Alongside reflections from the current and former editors we seek proposals and submissions for the following types of contributions to the Special Issue:

• Big picture examinations of the evolution of the field and the journal's place within those developments.
• Examination of particular sub-fields or themes within the discipline, in terms of both their development and their future potential. Examples may include (but are not limited to): conflict drivers, localised/micro dynamics, escalation/de-escalation, civil war recurrence, interventions, peace processes and conflict termination.
• Commentary articles reflecting on key contributions made by specific articles published in the journal over the past 25 years.
• Methodological challenges, including ethics and fieldwork dynamics which have emerged or changed over the years, and their implications.
• Engagements with the epistemological and ontological assumptions which underpin the field, broadly defined.
• Discussion of key case studies and their influence on the development of the field.

Book Reviews:

The special issue will contain a number of book reviews revisiting classic works in the field. The reviews will assess, the strengths, weaknesses and legacies of these works - and especially how they speak across North/South debates and experiences of political violence and civil war. We therefore also invite scholars to submit mid-length book reviews of these 'classics' of c.2,000 words.

Book reviews should be submitted to our Reviews Editor Rebecca Tapscott rebecca.tapscott@graduateinstitute.ch or to Assistant Reviews Editor Daniel Rincón Machón daniel.rincon@graduateinstitute.ch

Further Information/Deadlines:

We envisage that most articles in the Anniversary Special Issue will be shorter than the usual length allowed for research articles and thus should be in the 3,000-6,000 word range but are open to discussion based on your specific proposal.

We also strongly encourage contributions from practitioners, junior scholars, women and those offering perspectives from the Global South.

Please contact the editors directly to discuss your proposed contribution: James Worrall j.e.worrall@leeds.ac.uk and Alex Waterman alex.waterman@giga-hamburg.de

Your email should include:

• Your proposed type of contribution
• Provisional title
• A brief summary of the article’s focus
• A brief rationale detailing the article’s contribution to the Special Issue

We aim to publish the Special Issue as either Number 2 or 3 of Volume 25 and as such we request that proposals for contributions are sent to the editors by the 30 October 2022 at the very latest with the deadline for submissions for the special issue being 28 February 2023.