CALL FOR PAPERS: Annual Conference 2025, Legitimacy in Conflict and Peace, 17-19 September 2025
The Conflict Research Society (CRS) is pleased to invite submissions for its 2025 Annual Conference from 17-19 September 2025, which will explore the theme of Legitimacy in Conflict and Peace. The conference aims to investigate how legitimacy is constructed, contested, and transformed in both conflict and peacebuilding contexts. Generally, legitimacy could be defined as the rightfulness and appropriateness of a rule, institution, or a leader (and their actions). Questions about legitimacy are central to major ongoing armed conflicts, including the Sudanese civil war, the Gaza war and wider escalating conflict in the region, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers are invited to submit papers that explore how legitimacy impacts conflict dynamics, shapes peace processes, and influences post-conflict recovery and governance.
We welcome papers that engage with questions such as:
- What are the sources of legitimacy for different actors in conflict and peace processes?
- How do perceptions of legitimacy influence the outbreak, prolongation, or resolution of conflicts?
- How is legitimacy negotiated or contested in peace processes and post-conflict governance?
- What roles do justice, fairness, and representation play in the construction of legitimacy in peacebuilding?
- How do external factors, such as international organizations, peacekeepers, and NGOs, contribute to or undermine the legitimacy of conflict parties and peace efforts?
- How do truth commissions, reparations, apologies, and trials contribute to or hinder the legitimacy of peacebuilding efforts?
- How does legitimacy intersect with ethnic, religious, and cultural identities in conflict and peacebuilding?
- What is the role of traditional and digital media in shaping the legitimacy of conflict parties and peace processes?
- How do notions of social contract theory apply to conflict resolution and the re-establishment of state authority?
In addition to submissions on the conference theme, we invite submissions that explore, more broadly, topics related to conflict onset, political violence, contentious politics, conflict diplomacy, peacebuilding, and reconciliation. The conference will continue its tradition of multidisciplinarity and is open to the full range of methodological approaches to the subject. The CRS conference promotes dialogue around these multidimensional issues. We invite you to submit panel and individual paper proposals that bridge theory, empirics, and practice in peace and conflict research.
We also invite workshop proposals for the ‘workshop day’ of this year’s conference, to be held on September 17. We will provide rooms that can be used for full or half-day workshops. The workshops will provide scholars and practitioners with the space to learn, exchange ideas, and form collaborations. The focus of the CRS workshops can vary from substantive topics through methodological issues to teaching and professional development. We welcome workshops that feature graduate students, early career scholars, and practitioners. To apply for a workshop, you need to provide a workshop abstract (no more than 200 words) and a list of participants. Please note that all workshop attendees must register for the entire conference.
