Interdisciplinary Political Studies

Call for book reviews for the Special Issue: "Informal Markets, Politics And Social Practices: Inter¬disciplinary Contributions To Unpack A Manifold Concept"

Interdisciplinary Political Studies

Vol.4 Issue 2

Declaration of interest for reviewers by: 15th May 2018First submission due: 30th July 2018Final version due: 15th September 2018
Length of reviews: 1000-1500 words per book Contact: editors.idps@gmail.com


IdPS has selected a list of recommended books for review, but it also welcomes other suggestions from reviewers within the topic of the upcoming special issue. Book reviewers are free to choose their book(s) but we cannot guarantee that we can get hold of all of them. Potential reviewers might choose to review two books (1000­-1250 words) if they think that is of added value.

If you are interested in writing a review, please send an e­mail with your 1) name and institutional affiliation, 2) preferred book, 3) short biographical statement and postal address. We will announce the outcome of our selection on May 30th 2018.

For further details, please contact Giulia Cimini, the book reviews editor, at the address above.

Call for Papers for a Special Issue on:

Informal markets, politics and social practices: inter-disciplinary contributions to unpack a manifold concept

The notion of informality has been often associated - if not overlapped - with criminality, illegality/extra-legality, corruption, clientelism, and hybrid sources of authority, morality and governance; by “informal” it has been actually meant diverse practices and actions that are not regulated by the state ( Routh 2011) or rules that are created and enforced through non official channels (Helmke and Levitsky 2004). Pioneer studies of informal economic practices have focused on informal trade, employment and entrepreneurship based on trust-sensitive and network-sensitive activities (e.g. itinerant trade and suitcase trade, open-air markets, bribery, smuggling and what has been termed as “the economy of favours”, Ledeneva 1998); scholarship has then acknoweledged that informality is not only an expression of economic activities but is also embedded in social and political spheres, being “connected to sociality, kinship relations, and a continuity of everyday tactics” (Morris and Polese 2014, 8), and related to routines of resilience and survival as well as coping strategies and private safety nets.

Whereas the presence of informal institutions, networks and processes of decision-making appears as a recurrent characteristic in countries in transitions as well as in developing and post-colonial contexts, examples of informality abound also in developed countries. The presence of mixed organisational systems and practices and the interpenetration of different providers of social services, security and justice cannot be considered a context-specific peculiarity.

Within the field of comparative politics, informal institutions are often considered as the unwritten “rules of the game” enabling and constraining political actions. The informal dimension plays an important role in many aspects of political order including the analysis of executive-legislative relations (Helmke and Levitsky 2006), legislative decision making (Reh et al. 2003), the linkage between elites and citizens (Kitschelt 2000) or the process of government formation in parliamentary systems (De Winter 1995). An interestingly but often neglected question regards the emergence of informal institutions and their influence on the negotiation of subsequent formal rules (for instance, Farrel and Héritier 2003). Among international institutions, informal intergovernmental organisations have been categorized as an intermediate category between non-institutionalized interactions and formal intergovernmental institutions (Vabulas and Snidal 2013). The concept of informality has revealed to be a crucial analytical category also for studying post-conflict situations and international interventions (Moe 2016; Boege, Rinck and Diebel 2017). Recent empirical works have drawn attention on the range of activities happening outside and beyond the control of the state (see for example Schroeder, Chappuis and Kocak 2014; Knudsen and Frederiksen 2015).

Call for book reviews - For the Special Issue "Trump And The Post-American World Order"

Inter-disciplinary Political Studies

Vol.4 Issue 1

Declaration of interest for reviewers by: 30^th January 2018

First submission due: 30^th March 2018

Final version due: 15^th May 2018

Length of reviews: 500-750 words per book

Call for book reviews - For the Special Issue "Trump And The Post-American World Order"

Inter-disciplinary Political Studies Vol.4 Issue 1

Declaration of interest for reviewers by: 15th January 2018

First submission due: 30th March 2018

Final version due: 15th May 2018

Length of reviews: 500-750 words per book

Contact: editors.idps@gmail.com

Call for Papers for a Special Issue on:

Trump and the Post-American world order

Guest Editors: Edoardo Baldaro (Università Orientale di Napoli) and Matteo Dian (Università di Bologna)

Call for Papers for a Special Issue on:

Free to think, free to research: challenges to academic freedom in the context of contemporary global politics

Editors: Alessandra Russo & Federico Russo

- Submission of long abstracts (about 1,000 words): 15 FEBRUARY 2017

- Selection of long abstracts: 15 MARCH 2017

- Submission of articles: 15 JUNE 2017

- Provision of peer review feedback: 30 AUGUST 2017

- Submission of revised drafts: 15 OCTOBER 2017

- Publication of the issue: 15 NOVEMBER 2017