Working Papers
Managing Editors: Emmy Eklundh, Anthony Kelly, Julius Schneider, Lazaros Karavasilis, Daniel Balinhas, Lenon Maschette
ISSN: 2979-1510
The Reactionary Politics Working Papers series aims to publish cutting-edge scholarship and commentary on reactionary politics, broadly defined. The series is truly interdisciplinary and reflects the RPRN tenet that reactionary politics can only be understood if approached beyond disciplinary silos. The RPRN publishes academic research in multiple stages, from early thoughts to fully-researched projects.
The Reactionary Politics Working Papers series is focused on encouraging innovative and critical research that challenges the limitations, biases, and blind spots of mainstream academia. Rather than protecting established approaches within the social and political sciences, we seek to support research that contends with the inherent ambivalence and complexity of reactionary politics. With this approach, we endeavour to connect with researchers’ lived experiences in a way that recognises their social and political struggles, while working to overcome embedded obstacles in academia.
We are also conscious that traditional academic publishing comes with a range of barriers, and therefore want to keep as low of a threshold as possible to letting scholars share research with our audience. Similarly, we want to provide a space for authors to express their research in their own terms, consistent with the ethos underlying the RPRN, thereby subverting dominant publishing and disciplinary logics. In so doing, we aim to foster academic dialogue, constructive horizontal criticism, and interdisciplinary rigour by giving the opportunity to researchers to share and discuss their work in progress within a safe and supportive environment.
To this end, the RPRN employs an open-open-open approach: we are open to a range of formats in submission, as long as they are consistent. We employ an open peer review process, to ensure that there is respectful dialogue between authors and reviewers. We are fully open access and will never create impediments to reading or publishing.
Contributor guidelines
The RPRN accepts two types of publications:
- Long format: The longer format paper can be between 4,000 and 6,000 words, excluding references. Such pieces resemble an academic article, but with a slightly shorter length to enable authors to develop work into full-length articles.
- Short format: The shorter format paper is 1,500 to 2,000 words in length. In this category, we aim to publish:
a. Dialogues: Where several authors engage in collective discussions (see the IPS example here: https://academic.oup.com/ips/pages/General_Instructions)
b. Research notes: Where an author presents comments and reflections on theory, concepts, methods, fieldwork, and/or current events
c. Field notes: Where an author comments on a new trend in the academic field
Submissions of either the shorter or longer format can be thematically open, within the context of the RPRN’s aims and interests. Prospective contributors are encouraged to choose the format, whether long or short, they believe is best suited for their academic output.
Submissions may also be accepted in response to occasional thematic calls, to be defined from time to time by the RPRN editorial board. All submissions to the working paper series, whether research or commentary, should be original work and should not be published elsewhere.
Peer review process
All submissions to the Reactionary Politics Working Papers series will be peer reviewed. To that end, the RPRN operates an open peer review policy. This means that reviewers are not anonymous and we encourage reviews to be published as commentary, if both author and reviewer agree to do so. This is designed to create a horizontal dialogue rather than seeing the peer review process as the end of the discussion.
By fostering open dialogue between colleagues, this peer-review policy also challenges the hierarchical and gatekeeping dynamics of traditional academic journals, which have historically produced geographical (predominance of Global North scholarship), seniority (advantage for established researchers), and content biases (systematic overrepresentation of certain types of research). The Reactionary Politics Working Paper Series promotes constructive exchange and feedback aimed at counterbalancing these structural biases.
Peer reviewers are chosen among the RPRN editorial board, in a first instance, but can also extend to RPRN membership. Editorial decisions will be established in the first instance by the team overseeing the working paper series, with additional oversight provided by the editorial board where necessary. These steps will ensure an equitable, unbiased, and supportive peer review process.
Submit your paper
To submit your paper, please email workingpapers@reacpol.net
To facilitate triage, please put Working Papers in the subject of your email.
No. 5 Complexity and Democratic Crisis Gerard Gill Reactionary Politics Working Papers No. 5 *** Download pdf *** Suggested citation: Gill, G. (2026). Complexity...
No. 4 “I will take care of this country”: The paradox of helplessness in Lula’s discourse amid the rise of the far right in Brazil Bianca Alighieri Luz Monteiro and...
No. 3 Climate Delayism As Reactionary Politics in Africa Oluwaseun Oguntuase Reactionary Politics Working Papers No. 3 *** Download pdf *** Suggested citation:...
No. 2 Austerity Redux: Sovereigntism and Technocratic Centrism as Neoliberal Bedfellows Ana Țăranu Reactionary Politics Working Papers No. 2 *** Download pdf ***...
No. 1 Mythologised Pasts, Foreclosed Futures: Selective Memory, Neoliberalism, and Reactionary Consolidation in Lithuania Benjamin Nangle Reactionary Politics Working...