Call for Papers for a special issue! Societal Violence – Analyzing the Role and Impact of State and Individual Actions from Legal, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives.

Istanbul Policy Review invites papers for a special issue titled " Societal Violence – Analyzing the Role and Impact of State and Individual Actions from Legal, Historical, and Contemporary Perspectives.". The third issue of the Journal aims to cover scholarly debates and research on the contemporary challenges of our times.

Classic definitions of violence in social sciences have influenced social scientists’ work but have also been contested through sociological scholarship extensively. From this perspective, violence is understood as a primitive and last resource form of power that imposes actions over others (bodies and things) who cannot resist them. Thus, societal violence in general may be experienced by anyone and is rooted in discrimination, inequality, and the idea of hegemony, supremacy, arrogance, or superiority as the “natural” status quo, between not only the individuals of the society, but also the States of the international society.

By uncovering societal violence and the ambiguous individual and statal approaches including gendered, physical, psychological, sexual, economical, oral, domestic, workplace ones and many more that have led it to be considered a tolerable component of life until recent times, this special issue examines how and if violence, in its different forms and through its various means, is an expression of power and control over bodies and minds and affects health. In this context, the State has a critical role in combating, eradicating, and preventing, but also in perpetrating and perpetuating violence.

Additionally, inter-state violence regarding international politics and relations is also another “post-truth” form of societal violence of our recent times. That has a “post-truth” situational dilemma due to the fact that, while international society is mainly mentioning and emphasizing the critical importance of global peace and stability, then the same international society plays the “three-monkeys” regarding many international crisis, armed violences, intransigences, disputes, namely in short all sorts of conflicts and wars between different societies of the world.

This special issue encourages an evaluation, and reevaluation, of state obligations in protecting rights, preserving values, and achieving social justice through a general perspective, and aims to feature insights from diverse geographical areas, while also providing a comparative analysis of the State’s role in different cultural and political contexts, as both domestically and inter-stately.

Articles may address a wide range of topics related to societal violence and the role of the individual and the State in this manner, including, but not limited to: 

1. Societal violence and legal frameworks
2. Law enforcement and judicial responses to societal violence
3. Policies addressing societal violence
4. Societal violence and the impact of cultural and societal norms
5. Societal violence and intersectionality
6. State, education, and awareness in preventing societal violence
7. Societal violence, the State, and the influence of technology and social media
8. State and social support systems and services
9. International perspectives on and responses to societal violence, including asymmetric threats such as terrorism, cyber-space, international irregular migration, radical political trends, social media violence, violence originating from computer world, and so forth.

Deadline for full paper submissions: 01 Decembre 2024

Publication date: Februray 2025

For queries, please get in touch with the editors:

Assoc. Prof. Dr Zeynep Banu Dalaman, Istanbul Topkapi University, Türkiye

Asst. Prof. Dr. Gökhan Ak, Istanbul Topkapı University, Türkiye

E-mail: banudalaman@gmail.com; gokhanak@topkapi.edu.tr; 

Web: https://journals.tplondon.com/ipr/