Abstract
We are excited to begin our new role as stewards of Political Theory. As we take up this responsibility, we are particularly grateful to the most recent editorial team for fostering a rigorous and inclusive space for scholars of all kinds across the journal’s pages and supporting us in the transition. Editors Joshua Dienstag, Lisa Ellis, Alison McQueen, and Davide Panagia; book review editor Nancy Luxon; and assistant editors Stephen Cucharo and Naomi Ellis have set a sterling example and left us with big shoes to fill. As enthusiastic readers of this journal, we have keenly appreciated their vision and many contributions to the field. We would also like to extend our deep thanks to the selection committee: chair Kennan Ferguson, Emily Beausoleil, Murad Idris, Lida Maxwell, and Benjamin McKean. We are heartened by the trust they have put in us and cognizant of the duties it entails. We are happy to announce that our team will be joined by Bart Feberwee, graduate student in UCSC’s History of Consciousness, who will be assistant editor during 2024–2025.
As political theorists, we are well aware of the celebrated role that this journal plays in our discipline. We are committed to upholding and enhancing its reputation within the field, attained for over half a century by editors who have upheld the highest standards of scholarly rigor. Recent generations of editors have done a great deal to enhance the journal’s pluralism and inclusiveness in various directions. Nonetheless, we believe that much more can be done to ensure that our flagship journal reflects the increasing diversity in the field. The current state of the discipline has arisen from persistent efforts to question well-established canons, decenter Eurocentrism, mix methods, challenge conventions, and engage in daring experimentations. However, this is only part of a much broader sea change, which results from the enormous yet invisible, anonymous, and often unrecognized work of many scholars eroding unspoken boundaries of what may count as political theorization. Our ambition is to ensure that all stripes of scholarship are given space within the journal so that it aligns with the lived reality of our vocation. We aim to make it more imaginable for others to consider Political Theory a potential home, and it is our hope that our commitment to bold thinking, creativity, and diversity will encourage producers of many different genres of scholarship who are already redefining what political theory is, who may do it, and how it can be done, to reflect this vibrancy and sense of regeneration in the forthcoming pages.
With an eye toward facilitating a renewed sense of purpose that we consider to be crucial for the future of political theory, we are also eager to foster engagement and collaboration across the traditionally defined boundaries of the academic community. We believe that the pursuit of timeless, untimely, and urgent questions alike asks us to transcend constraining boundaries and engage in inter- and transdisciplinary conversations that can open new directions, create unanticipated areas of scholarship, define novel concepts, and propose unconventional answers. We envision political theory as an expansive field of inquiry that cuts across disciplines and cultivates new spaces for conversation, spanning the humanities, social sciences, arts, and natural sciences. This is especially important in the face of a dauntingly complex present that poses global, multiscalar, and all-encompassing challenges that are highly uneven in their effects, intersectionally compounded, and differentially lived. The political challenges of the present necessitate a multiplicity of different perspectives, forms of expertise, methodologies, and approaches, and we will strive to create space for more collaborative, outside-the-box, and transdisciplinary projects to appear in these pages.
We are deeply grateful for the community of authors, reviewers, and readers who make Political Theory their intellectual home and a shared space to address the complexity and challenges of our times. To sustain this vibrant spirit of exchange, we will be especially attentive to the need to offer generous and welcoming feedback to potential authors who have chosen the journal as a place to submit their work. We have been in the profession long enough to know how important it is to receive fair, generous, and constructive criticism. A real engagement with substance can make a huge impact on the quality of scholarship, but its tenor and style can equally make a momentous difference in scholars’ affective ties and commitment to our vocation. With this in mind, we will do our best to create a welcoming environment for everyone, especially junior scholars, female scholars, scholars of color, and international scholars. We will strive to ensure that every author’s ideas are respected, their work generously received, and their achievements celebrated so that our journal and our discipline can be enhanced by the values of equality, independence, and respect that we uphold and nurture.
Our invitation, then, is for you to think of Political Theory as a place to submit your boldest, most rigorous, and most creative work. From our side, we will put forth our utmost effort to be equally courageous and willing to venture into uncharted territory. We are happy to be working with the current editorial team and authors whose work is under consideration or awaiting publication in upcoming issues. Please join us as we embark on this new adventure together.