Call for papers - Covid and conflict: Local impacts and global questions
Coordinating Editor
Andres F. Rengifo
Rutgers University, School of Criminal Justice, NJ, United States
The health crisis triggered by COVID-19 has upended billions of lives from the staggering ranks of those di-rectly exposed to illness and tragedy, to others af-fected by record levels of unemployment and the re-alignment of government operations and other ser-vices. The progression of the pandemic and its associ-ated responses in government and society have fueled old conflicts and created new ones, many of which have amplified the potential for violence, abuse and other crimes. These twin forces have also recast broader tensions involving the role of local vs. global authorities, the integration of state vs. private strate-gies, and the priority given to short vs. long-term poli-cies of mitigation and reconstruction.
To study these contrasts empirically and substan-tively, IJCV seeks submissions documenting the im-pact of COVID-19 across key topics related to conflict and violence. This encompasses the tracing of local problems linked to the outbreak and their range of in-tended and unintended consequences, as well as the critical assessment of global questions emerging in a post COVID-19 world. Consistent with the multi-dis-ciplinary nature of the journal, we welcome empiri-cally grounded submissions from social sciences, hu-man rights, law, and health/public health research and related fields.
Topics of particular interest are:
- Impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable populations (refugees, displaced persons, people incarcerated, first-responders, elderly people).
- Impact of social-distance measures on recorded levels of crime/violence (including, for example, homicide, and domestic violence), policing prac-tices (staffing levels, deployments), and criminal sanctions (pre-trial detention, community-based sanctions).
- Disparities in the enforcement of social-distance measures across race/ethnicity/gender and in terms of health-care provision or access to state-sponsored reconstruction programs.
- Structure of responses to COVID-19 in the Global North vs. South (local vs. national/federal re-sponses, role of security/law enforcement agen-cies, approaches to testing and containment, bor-der controls, etc.), and associated conflicts over redistribution of wealth across or within coun-tries.
- COVID-19 and crimes such as price-gouging, theft of medical supplies, counterfeited goods/ smuggling, corruption) or more general forms of vigilantism, stigma, and other evolving mecha-nisms of “social control” targeting suspected COVID-19 victims and first-responders.