Call for Submission for Vol. 9, No. 1 June 2026 on “Political Memory, Emotions, and the Politics of Exclusion in IR”

A growing body of literature has emphasized that emotions, memory and exclusion constitute a fundamental element of world politics. Nevertheless, these themes have continued to receive relatively limited attention within mainstream International Relations (IR) scholarship (Crawford, 2000; Bleiker & Hutchison, 2008; Mercer, 2010; Hutchison & Bleiker, 2014; Pace & Bilgiç, 2018). The dominance of rational-institutional and empiricist–positivist approaches in IR has constrained analytical engagement with emotional and affective dimensions, which are often framed as subjective, irrational, and methodologically elusive. Yet, over at least the past two decades, scholarships on emotions, affect, and political memory have expanded significantly. This body of literature demonstrates that emotions operate as social and political practices that play a central role in the formation of collective identities and historically constituted global power relations (Ahmed, 2004; Berenskoetter, 2014; Hutchison, 2016). 

Emotions function as mechanisms that bind political subjects to particular memories, draw boundaries between “us” and “them,” and shape what is deemed morally and politically meaningful in world politics. At the same time, memories of colonialism, structural violence, and the emotions of affected communities such as grief, political anger, existential anxiety, and past trauma are frequently excluded from mainstream IR discourse and international policymaking. This limited engagement with emotional dimensions has direct implications for how political memory is understood to operate through mechanisms of selection and exclusion in International Relations, shaping affective orientations toward particular political subjects. Certain historical experiences are activated, legitimized, and granted international recognition, while others are silenced, depoliticized, or marginalized (Olick, 2007; Subotić, 2019). These processes generate moral hierarchies, understood as normative structures that determine which forms of suffering are recognized as worthy of concern, which victims are considered legitimate, and which historical experiences are deemed politically relevant by dominant powers (Pace & Bilgiç, 2018).

These dynamics are evident across a range of contemporary political contexts. The reactivation of Chinese memories of Japanese imperialism following the election of Prime Minister Takaichi illustrates how historical wounds are mobilized as sources of political legitimacy and as an ontological foundation of the state. Similarly, the invocation of European colonialism in the speeches of Global South leaders in international forums demonstrates how historical memory is deployed to contest structural inequalities within the postcolonial global order (Bhambra, 2014). The sharpest contrast can be observed in divergent global emotional and political responses to conflicts and humanitarian crises. Widespread Western solidarity with Ukraine illustrates how emotions such as grief, anger, and empathy are mobilized to provide moral justification for international sanctions and political intervention. In the United States and parts of Europe, populist far right group actively exploit fear within discursive and social practices (Koschut et al., 2017). By contrast, protracted suffering in other contexts such as Palestine is frequently framed as a “chronic” or “intractable” conflict, resulting in empathic fatigue and marginalization within the global moral landscape (Bashir & Goldberg, 2017). These disparities reflect a global empathy gap, in which certain forms of suffering are articulated as universal humanitarian crises, while others are treated as peripheral tragedies. Such patterns point to the enduring intersection between emotional exclusion, political power, and postcolonial historical relations (Bhambra, 2014; Kinnvall, 2019).

In light of these concerns, we invite contributions that employ critical, reflectivist, and interdisciplinary approaches to examine how emotions and memory operate as political practices in contemporary international relations. Submissions may engage with emotions, political memory and the politics of exclusion across macro, meso, and micro-levels of analysis, and may take the form of review articles (min. 6000 words) or empirical research (min. 8000 words). Contributions are expected to highlight how emotions and memory organize recognition, silencing, and global hierarchies of care, while also rethinking the epistemological boundaries of mainstream IR scholarship.