Institutions of performance: The journal as a theater of power and legitimacy

Abstract

This article theorizes the academic journal as a theatrical institution that stages the production, negotiation, and legitimization of knowledge. Through a conceptual analysis informed by Foucault, Butler, and performance theory, it argues that the processes of submission, review, and publication constitute a performative dynamic in which authority and intelligibility are continually rehearsed. Within this dramaturgy, the peer review process functions as a scene of epistemic contestation: reviewers act as opposing directors shaping the author’s performance of legitimacy, while the editor mediates between conflicting interpretations. The author, compelled to navigate these demands, becomes both actor and subject, performing compliance within an institution that both disciplines and displays intellectual labor. Drawing on critical theories of power, performativity, and subject formation, the article reimagines the journal not as a neutral repository of scholarship but as a stage upon which knowledge itself is enacted—where, as in theater, the struggle for publication mirrors the broader politics of recognition and intelligibility within the academy. By conceptualizing peer review as a theatrical and political performance, the article foregrounds how scholarly legitimacy is acquired through institutional rituals of interpretation, negotiation, and compliance, thereby offering a new conceptual framework through which readers in political studies may understand academic publishing as a site of power rather than merely an evaluative system.