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Carl Schmitt’s Afterlife in Decolonial Theory: Rereading Walter Mignolo

By Harald Kümmerle. To say that Carl Schmitt is a controversial figure would be an understatement. Called the “crown jurist of the Third Reich” for his proactive engagement with Nazi politics, he remains a key point of reference for the New Right. His influence, however, reaches far beyond this milieu. This article argues that while Mignolo’s alignment with Russia cannot be solely attributed to his appropriation of Schmitt, his ultimate stance reveals deeper contradictions inherent in Schmitt’s work itself.

A bridge with a steel structure painted in blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Cognitive Dissonance in Stay-Leave Decisions of Ukrainian Forced Migrants

By Natalia Zaitseva. The motives of Ukrainian women for mobility and immobility, recorded several years after forced displacement, cannot be considered indicators of the causal mechanisms of decision-making. They are rather the result of a secondary reflection on experience, adapted to new life circumstances and existing structural constraints. Therefore, at the current stage of the war, it is more productive to focus on investigating how forcibly displaced persons interpret and experience their countries of residence. It is these perceptions that allow for a deeper under- standing of the dynamics of (im)mobility in the context of a protracted war.

Five people sitting at a table behind to banners that read "Mothers of May: Against state terrorism" and "Stop the violence against Black youth".

Militarization as Conviviality: How Women Define and Resist Gendered Everyday Violence and Discipline in Brazil

By Izadora Xavier do Monte. This contribution looks at Brazilian security dynamics to understand how gender intersects with Brazilian perceptions of peace, war, security, and militarization. Women in Brazil have insisted that militarization deeply shapes their everyday interactions, their living together with others, affecting how they carry out their roles and live their lives as women. It’s not just a question of police violence; it’s about armed men everywhere – whether police, hired gunmen for landowners, or others. This widespread militarization is failing to makewomen feel safe, and gender is vital to understand what makes for that dynamic.

A group of women dressed in black dances while holding colorful handkerchiefs.

Iran: A Nation Inscribed Anew in Joyful Mourning

By Nahid Siamdoust. These days in Iran people are marking the 40th day after the passing of the thousands who were killed in the January 2026 protests, an Islamic tradition that symbolizes the closure of the mourning period. Reports and videos from the country show hundreds of people gathered, clapping in honor of the dead and singing the national anthem, in unconventional ceremonies that are more akin to political events than personal commemorations. In rejecting long entrenched traditions of collective mourning, these Iranians are enacting a new articulation of national identity, one that refuses to trade in the same language of the Islamic Republic.

Old black-and-white photo of three people, from left to right: A man with glasses wearing an uniform and a black hat, a boy with short hair, an older boy in the same uniform and hat.

Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist

By Najati Sidqi, Introduction by Margaret Litvin. In the opening chapter of his posthumously published memoir, the activist and intellectual Najati Sidqi (1905–1979) reminisces about the cultural heterogeneity of his birthplace Jerusalem. In 1924, he became one of its first Arab members of the Palestine Communist Party (PCP). The PCP rejected both British imperial rule and Zionism, which they considered “a bourgeois movement that benefited only wealthy Jews. They insisted that their party, which “was for all inhabitants of Palestine,” could “reconcile the interests of the working classes” of Jews and Arabs alike.

A group of scholars in front of a brown building with a sign reading "Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre".

Disrupting the Knowledge Trap ‒ Early-Career Researchers and the Global South as Agents of Epistemic Change

By Natália Bueno, Roberta Holanda Maschietto, and Sarah Njeri. This entry questions the foundations of knowledge production in Peace and Conflict Studies by advocating an incremental movement that adopts a bottom-up and inside-out approach. Specifically, we argue that, with support, early-career researchers (ECRs) from the Global South can be pollinators, spreading new knowledge production methods across ECR groups globally and scaling up to engage mid- and senior-level researchers. This is essential for the progression of better, more inclusive knowledge production worldwide.

The interior of a multi-storey building with stone walls and wooden balconys looking out on the courtyard.

Framing religious tolerance for public diplomacy – the monarchy’s instrumentalisation of Morocco’s Jewish community

By Andreas Wüst. The exodus of thousands of Jewish families from Morocco and the lamentable situation of Jewish heritage in the country, the result of years of omission and disinterest, are now followed by a strategy to preserve and renovate Jewish memory. André Azoulay, the king’s advisor and himself a Moroccan Jew, promotes the kingdom’s narrative about a diverse, tolerant and moderate society. While the public promotion of Jewish heritage before 2016 was part of a general strategy to improve Morocco’s image on the international level, it has now become pivotal to Moroccan foreign policy concerning the territory of Western Sahara.

A black and white photograph showing a woman with light hair and a white shirt.

A Liberal Society Stands or Falls with its Conception of Equality – 5in10 with Meret Plucis

Meret Plucis completed her legal education at Humboldt University Berlin, Panthéon- Assas University in Paris (LLM), and the University of Amsterdam (LLM). Early on during her studies, she developed a focus on European Union law. With her re:constitution fellowship, Meret Plucis returns to a more applied angle: examining how gender equality is strategically reinterpreted in retirement and labor law, connecting constitutional theory with on-the-ground legal realities. Her professional and personal interests are centered around feminist issues.

Protestors in yellow shirts photographed through a shattered window.

Judicial Power and Democratic Erosion: The Procedural–Substantive Dilemma of Democracy in the Brazilian Supreme Court

By Julia Wand-del-Rey Cani. This post contributes to understanding how Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF) has comprehended its democratic role, particularly during the Bolsonaro era, and argues that there is a tension between substantive democratic defense and procedural consistency. More broadly, it distinguishes between constitutional courts balancing democratic substance and democratic procedure, with the aim of answering the following question: to what extent should judicial self-regulation be constrained during periods of democratic erosion?

A mural showing Baschar al-Assad holding a sign that reads "Syrial killer".

Staying With Uncertainty: Syrian Intellectual Life in Germany

By Anne-Marie McManus. In a recent essay published by Reset Dialogues on Civilizations, Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab called on scholars to attend closely to the forms and concerns that shape contemporary Arab thought, locating its newness in the uprisings of 2011 and the ruptures that followed. In his response, included in the broader dossier, Samer Frangie cautioned that the category of “Arab thought” functions as a “historiographical device,” one that has brought together “dispersed, contradictory, and elusive acts of” intellectual production under a shared political horizon.