International Political Anthropology is a new interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal that will be published bi-annually, run by the Marsilio Ficino Association (AMF). It provides a forum for interdisciplinary and comparative scholarship, addressing problems and concerns of the contemporary political world through the prism of anthropologically based approaches. It gives voice to conceptual and methodological creativity, linking the study of politics to perspectives and tools drawn from disciplines, subject areas, and modes of enquiry that were long considered irrelevant to the study of politics proper.

 

International Political Anthropology invites contributions that link contemporary problems of politics to the comparative analysis of civilisations, mythology, archaeology, history of the longue durée, religion, symbolism, violence, or political spirituality. We also encourage contributions that thematise the pre-political links between human beings and authority in themes such as gift-giving, trust, beauty, truth, and truth-telling. We are similarly interested in submissions that connect analysis of historical crises with the interpretation of meaning as a central aspect of the formation of leaders, political consciousness, or social cohesion.

 

International Political Anthropology recognises that institutional accounts of politics within the frame of the state and in the relations between states have exhausted their capability to provide meaningful accounts of contemporary events, such as the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, the crisis of the nation-state, the proliferation of new forms of violence and war, the resurgence of religion as a political force, or the acute and seemingly worldwide crisis of political leadership, all relating to the ongoing globalization processes. While the contemporary study of politics is predominantly contained within the temporal and mental horizon of the Enlightenment, assuming that modernity can be studied on its own terms, this journal wishes to approach contemporary problems with a genuine sense for expanding horizons to both non-Western and pre-modern, even ancient political societies. It aims to root the understanding of contemporary problems in a range of traditions and streams of thought that encompass Antiquity, Renaissance, early modernity, and theoretical attempts in the course of the 20^th century that worked towards bringing these threads together. Recognising that many of the greatest figures of political thought lived through periods of crisis or dissolution of order, this journal thus opens up possibilities for an experiential as opposed to a ‘scholastic’ type of theory building, where experience shapes political consciousness, interpretive judgments, and meaning-formation.

 

Each issue of the Journal is divided into three sections:

1) free-standing articles,

2) a Symposium or reflections, and commentaries relating to a specific theme,

3) book reviews, review articles, and comments to the Journal.

 

We happily accept proposals for all three sections, although book reviews and review articles will normally be solicited by the Chief Editors.

While the working language of the Journal is English, our explicit aim is to incorporate and disseminate scholarship produced outside the English-speaking world. In short, we are interested in contributions that discuss innovative scholarship from any corner of the academic landscape. The editorial board of the Journal of International Political Anthropology is composed of leading scholars within the above mentioned disciplines and approaches.

 

"We will review your submission and send it back to you with comments. 

However, we do not accept multiple submissions or 'vanishing authors';

 

-we would like to ask your implicit consent for publication with IPA (of course this does not imply immediate acceptance for publication by us, the IPA editors);

-you have the option to withdraw your manuscript from publication (by sending a return e-mail to this one) within a reasonable amount of time of 24 hours from your submission.

 

These are our suggestions and we are asking politely every author to follow these rules, as in general, there is an important amount of time and effort from our part to readjust a manuscript for publication." 

 

The Editors