“I have all the guns and all the money. I can withstand challenge from without and from within. Am I right, comrade?”
– Elaine Brown (Chair of the Black Panther Party from 1974-77)
It is by now a truism in political commentary that the liberal order of the 1990s and 2000s, built on international law, regulated global commerce, and widely shared norms and institutions, has come to an end. Either out of deliberate statecraft or gloomy resignation, a palpable sense of pessimistic realism seems to have taken its place. Erosions of democratic norms and majoritarian politics within countries have also weakened checks and balances to protect the weak from the strong. Meanwhile, cultural trends, such as the online manosphere, promote strength as the ultimate masculine virtue. Like no other time in recent memory, power and strength seems to trump law, ethics, and restraint.
But is it so simple? There is a powerful critique from the peripheries of the international system that might has always made right, and those with power both historically and in the present exercise it to exploit and normalise their exploitation. Or perhaps, drawing on the view of Elaine Brown, might is a force for right: political action without power, and indeed coercive power, is meaningless. There can be no right without might.
This issue calls for submissions that deeply engage with the notion that ‘might makes right’ as it pertains to politics and culture today. It hopes to go beyond reflexive invocations of Thucydides to explore the diverse manifestations of strength and its limits: not just the ethics of power but the power of ethics as well.
Possible topics to explore include (but are not limited to):
- Return of Great Power politics
- State of international law, norms, and institutions
- The manosphere, hegemonic masculinity, and the role of strength
- Ethics and efficacy of political violence
- The virtue, or lack thereof, of self-restraint
- Truth, power, and their mutual relation
Potential books for review:
- The Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order (2026) by Alexander Stubb
- The Presidential Pardon: The Short Clause with a Long, Troubled History (2026) by Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash
- Living with Men: Reflections on the Pelicot Trial (2026) by Manon Garcia (trans. Maya B. Kronic)
The deadline for submissions is 22 April 2026 (23:59 UK time). Submit essays via the form at this link. Please include a short 1-2 sentence bio of the author. Email submissions@oxfordpoliticalreview.com with any questions.
In general, we are looking for submissions that take one of the following formats:
Long-form articles consisting of no more than 2,000 words
Book reviews and review essays of no more than 1,500 words
Interviews of no more than 2,000 words
For more information on our general submission guidelines, please follow this link. Pieces that do not adhere to our style guide will be rejected.
Typically, we have more submissions than we can accept. If we like your submission but cannot accept it for the print issue, we will publish it separately online.