Discourses on War in the 21st Century
NB: DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS SUBMISSION EXTENDED to 31 MAY 2024
Guest Editors:
Magdalena Lemańczyk (Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) and Marek Troszyński (Collegium Civitas, Poland)
Important dates:
· New DEADLINE 31 May 2024: deadline for abstract submission (500 words), indicating major references (not included in the word limit)
· 14 June 2024: notification from editors on paper acceptance
· 31 December 2024: due date for full text submission
· June 2025: publication of the thematic issue.
Over the centuries, war has been a recognised means of resolving conflicts amongst states and its nature has continuously evolved throughout the eras.
Despite the codification of the law of armed conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries, mainly in a number of the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the establishment of international organisations responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, mankind has not avoided wars, including the global ones. Disparities of interest, territorial conflicts, ethnic-national and religious problems, terrorism and radical Islamism, the struggle for regional supremacy or the fight over raw resources are just some of the causes of the ongoing wars in the world. As a consequence, far-reaching changes occur in the demographic, socio-cultural, identity, economic, geopolitical, environmental (ecological) spheres, including: population losses (as a direct and indirect result of military operations), genocide, uncontrolled migration, social pathologies or exploitation of children and women, weaponisation of refugees, ecological disasters, etc.
Moreover, the hitherto classical Clausewitzian conception of war has been revised by the conception of the so-called ‘new war’, the war of the globalisation era, incorporating elements of classical war, guerrilla war and organised crime. (Kaldor M. (2013). “In Defence of New Wars”. Stability. International Journal of Stability & Development. 2(1): 4, 1-16). In recent years, the concept of hybrid warfare has also become more widespread, incorporating elements of conventional warfare, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, criminal activity and virtual warfare methods and techniques.
Generally, though, by the concept of war we understand – according to István Kende – a violent mass conflict in which:
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“Two or more armed forces are participating in the fighting, at least one of which are regular fighting forces (military, paramilitary units, police) of the government;
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There must be a minimum of central control of the fighters on both sides, even if this manifests itself as organised armed defence or planned assaults (guerrilla operations, partisan war, etc.);
- Armed operations continue and are not occasional, spontaneous clashes; i.e. both sides operate according to a planned strategy regardless of whether fighting takes place on the territory of one or more societies and of how long they take”. (https://warpp.info/en/m1/articles/definitions-of-war-and-conflict-typologies).
Our comprehension of the term ‘discourse’ is expansive and includes both a “system of statements which constructs an object” (Parker I. (1992). Discourse dynamics: critical analysis for social and individual psychology. London: Routledge. p. 5) and “specific ways of knowing social practices (…) resources for representing social practices in the text” (van Leeuwen T. (2008). Discourse and Practice. New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 6).
Due to the current international geopolitical situation, we tend to focus mainly on the discourse on the war in Ukraine (since 2014), but we do not exclude texts addressing other wars in the 21st century, e.g. Israel’s war with Hamas or in Syria and Yemen.
We are particularly interested in the clearly presented methodological and theoretical approaches selected by the Authors of the proposed articles. Research-based papers using methods of discourse studies, such as Discourse Analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies, will be given priority.
Our comprehension of the term ‘discourse’ is expansive and includes both a “system of statements which constructs an object” (Parker I. (1992). Discourse dynamics: critical analysis for social and individual psychology. London: Routledge. p. 5) and “specific ways of knowing social practices (…) resources for representing social practices in the text” (van Leeuwen T. (2008). Discourse and Practice. New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 6).
Due to the current international geopolitical situation, we tend to focus mainly on the discourse on the war in Ukraine (since 2014), but we do not exclude texts addressing other wars in the 21st century, e.g. Israel’s war with Hamas or in Syria and Yemen.
We are particularly interested in the clearly presented methodological and theoretical approaches selected by the Authors of the proposed articles. Research-based papers using methods of discourse studies, such as Discourse Analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies, will be given priority and considered for publication.
The language of submitted articles is English.
Contributors should submit the e-copy of their manuscript to the editors of this Special Issue: m.lemanczyk@isppan.waw.pl; marek.troszynski@civitas.edu.pl