cfp Journal of Political Power

[IPS Section]

Allusions, Illusions, and Delusions of Political Power

Special Issue for The Journal of Political Power

Guest Editor, Selina Gallo-Cruz, PhD

The Journal of Political Power is now accepting submissions for a new special issue, “Allusions, Illusions, and Delusions of Political Power”. This special issue will center critical research in lesser recognized or understood forms of power operations, the changing political landscape in which these power relations develop, and new challenges to resistance to political power. 

We seek studies that advance theoretical understandings of allusions to power, how myriad forms of authority shape offices and understandings of power, illusions of power, the ways in which power is performed but decoupled from implementation, and delusions of power, an understanding of social contexts where beliefs about the nature of political power shield realities of domination and control. We are particularly interested in research that explores the boundaries between overt and covert, visible and invisible power relations; this may include state or other institutional efforts at demobilization, how these efforts pose challenges to resisters and how they navigate them.

Diverse empirical topics are welcome. Theoretical concerns may include:

- developments in the study of repression, including the use of “channeling”, and its impacts on power consolidation, cooptation, political control and/or demobilization of challenges to power

- state-sponsored movements and/or transnational repression

- the use of strategic public relations, media control, or propaganda and its effects on political power and resistance

- phenomenological analyses of institutional obstacles to power

- cultural analyses of political power strategies, planning, and interests 

- historical legacies of power in coloniality and ongoing forms of economic imperialism

- constructions/perceptions of threat and Othering in power relations

- the relationship between cognition and power

- tensions and interactions between legitimation and power

 

Abstracts of approximately 500 words due April 25, 2025. Send an email to: srga...@syr.eduand managinge...@gmail.com with the title “JOPP 2026 Special Issue submission.”

Authors will be notified of an invitation to submit a full paper for review by May 23.

Full drafts will be due for review by October 1.

If accepted for publication, papers will be included in the July, 2026 issue.