Winner of the 2024 Bernard Brodie Prize

Bernard Brodie lecturing, by Walter Sanders for Life Magazine, September 1946

Contemporary Security Policy awards the Bernard Brodie Prize annually to the author(s) of an outstanding article published in the journal the previous year. The award is named after Dr. Bernard Brodie (1918-1978), author of The Absolute Weapon (1946), Strategy in the Missile Age (1958), and War and Strategy (1973). Brodie’s ideas remain at the center of security debates to this day. One of the first analysts to cross between official and academic environments, he pioneered the very model of civilian expertise that Contemporary Security Policy represents. Contemporary Security Policy is honored to acknowledge the permission of Brodie’s son, Dr. Bruce R. Brodie, to use his father’s name.

The winner of the 2024 Bernard Brodie Prize is:

This article was selected by a jury consisting of five members of the Editorial Board. The jury selected the winner from a shortlist put together by the Editors. This shortlist also included:

The previous winners of Bernard Brodie Prize are:

  • Kjølv Egeland, “A theory of nuclear disarmament: Cases, analogies, and the role of the non-proliferation regime”, January 2022.
  • Eleanor Gordon and Katrina Lee-Koo, “Addressing the security needs of adolescent girls in protracted crises: Inclusive, responsive, and effective?”, January 2021;
  • Elvira Rosert and Frank Sauer, “How (not) to stop the killer robots: A comparative analysis of humanitarian disarmament campaign strategies”, January 2021;
  • Jeffrey Berejikian and Zachary Zwald, “Why language matters: Shaping public risk tolerance during deterrence crises”, October 2020;
  • Tracey German, “Harnessing protest potential: Russian strategic culture and the colored revolutions”, October 2020;
  • Jo Jakobsen and Tor G. Jakobsen, “Tripwires and free-riders: Do forward-deployed U.S. troops reduce the willingness of host-country citizens to fight for their country?”, April 2019;
  • David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks, “Violence in context: Mapping the strategies and operational art of irregular warfare”, April 2018;
  • Betcy Jose, “Not completely the new normal: How Human Rights Watch tried to suppress the targeted killing norm”, August 2017;
  • Martin Senn and Jodok Troy, “The transformation of targeted killing and international order”, August 2017;
  • Trine Flockhart, “The coming multi-order world”, April 2016;
  • John Mitton, “Selling Schelling Short: Reputations and American Coercive Diplomacy after Syria”, December 2015;
  • Wyn Bowen and Matthew Moran, “Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Case Study in Hedging”, April 2014;
  • Nick Ritchie, “Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons”, April 2013;
  • Patrick M. Morgan, “The State of Deterrence in International Politics Today”, April 2012;
  • Sebastian Mayer, “Embedded Politics, Growing Informalization? How Nato and the EU Transform Provision of External Security”, August 2011;
  • Jeffrey Knopf, “The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research”, April 2010;
  • Diane E. Davis, “Non-State Armed Actors, New Imagined Communities, and Shifting Patterns of Sovereignty and Insecurity in the Modern World”, August 2009.

Call for the 2025 Special Issue

CSP CoverContemporary Security Policy is seeking proposals for a special issue to be published in January 2025 (volume 46(1)). The special issue should address a topic within the aims and scope of the journal. CSP has an impact factor of 5.900, which ranks the journal #3 out of 96 in the category International Relations.

One of the oldest peer reviewed journals in international conflict and security, CSP promotes theoretically-based research on policy problems of armed conflict, intervention and conflict resolution. Since it first appeared in 1980, CSP has established its unique place as a meeting ground for research at the nexus of theory and policy. Topics of interest include:

  • War and armed conflict
  • Peacekeeping
  • Conflict resolution
  • Arms control and disarmament
  • Defense policy
  • Strategic culture
  • International institutions

CSP is committed to a broad range of intellectual perspectives. Articles promote new analytical approaches, iconoclastic interpretations and previously overlooked perspectives. Its pages encourage novel contributions and outlooks, not particular methodologies or policy goals. Its geographical scope is worldwide and includes security challenges in Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia. Authors are encouraged to examine established priorities in innovative ways and to apply traditional methods to new problems.

Special Issue Information

Special issue proposals should contain (in one PDF document):

  • A short discussion of the rationale and contribution of the special issue (3 pages max). Please also state why the topic falls within the aims and scope of the journal and why the proposal would be of interest to a large audience.
  • Contact details, institutional affiliation, one paragraph biography of the special issue co-editors, and three recent publications of each of the co-editors. Feel free to include a link to the personal website of the co-editors. Do not submit full CVs.
  • A list of confirmed articles and authors. Please include for each article (a) the title; (b) 150 word abstract; (c) a very short statement how the article contributes to the special issue and why it needs to be included; (d) a one paragraph author biography; and (e) three recent publications of the author(s).
  • The current state of the special issue. Please describe the background (e.g. previous workshops and conferences) and the timeframe towards the submission deadline.

The special issue will consist of a substantive introduction and 6-7 articles. The introduction should stand on itself. It should serve as a state-of-the-art article and be a reference point for all the other articles in the special issue. It is recommended that special issue proposals include 9-10 articles. All articles will be sent by the journal for peer-review on an individual basis. It is unlikely that all articles will eventually make the cut.

Most articles in CSP are around 9,000-10,000 words (including notes and references). However, manuscripts up to 12,000 words are accepted, for example when they include multiple case studies or use mixed methods. Total word limits will be discussed in case of acceptance.

Please submit your application (one PDF file) to csp@nullmaastrichtuniversity.nlThe deadline for the special issue proposal is 18 November 2023. The decision will be announced soon afterwards. The decision by the editors is final. All articles will have to be submitted by 16 February 2024. The full special issue should go into production in October 2024.

Ukraine forum: call for abstracts

When Russia started its war against Ukraine, almost one year ago, it took many observers by surprise. As an academic journal, which is committed to provide policy-relevant analysis of contemporary security issues, we felt it was our duty to make our pages available to cover the war in Ukraine. We did so in a special forum on “War in Ukraine”, published in our July 2022 issue, which we considered as a first attempt at understanding this war and its immediate consequences.

We are now almost one year further and the war rages on. While there is much analysis on the war, as editors of Contemporary Security Policy, we are still missing some introspection in the academy. The war in Ukraine has highlighted that we got many things spectacularly wrong. We are therefore planning a second special forum on how the war has changed our understanding of security studies.

This is an open call and we welcome abstracts on this broader theme including on topics such as:

  • The revolution in military affairs (drones, cyber, etc)
  • Hybrid warfare as the new normal
  • Strategic studies and battleground tactics
  • Changing alliances and international cooperation
  • Domestic politics and international security
  • Ukrainian agency and Westsplaining
  • Eurocentrism and the global south
  • Any other topic of interest

Please send your initial idea (150 word abstract) and paper title to csp@nullmaastrichtuniversity.nl by 10 February 2023. From these abstracts we will make an initial selection. We would expect full papers by 30 April 2023, which will then be subject to peer-review. Please note that articles published in our special forums are shorter at around 5000 words including references.

We expect that all special forum papers address three points:

  • What was the consensus in the academic literature on topic X prior to the war in Ukraine?
  • What precisely did we get wrong (with empirical illustrations from the war in Ukraine)?
  • Why were we wrong on topic X? Because of dominant perspectives, our own biases, limited data?

Please note that as editors we are interested in first-person analysis. We want to know what we as a discipline or field of study got wrong, not why other colleagues were wrong. So no strawmen or blaming others; introspection and revisiting your own work is much encouraged.

Shortlist 2023 Bernard Brodie Prize

Bernard Brodie lecturing, by Walter Sanders for Life Magazine, September 1946
Bernard Brodie lecturing, by Walter Sanders for Life Magazine, September 1946

Contemporary Security Policy awards the Bernard Brodie Prize annually to the author of an outstanding article published in the journal the previous year. The award is named for Dr. Bernard Brodie (1918-1978), author of The Absolute Weapon (1946), Strategy in the Missile Age (1958) and War and Strategy (1973), establishing ideas that remain at the centre of security debates to this day. One of the first analysts to cross between official and academic environments, he pioneered the model of civilian influence that CSP represents.

It is a great pleasure to announce the shortlist of the 2023 Bernard Brodie Prize:

The shortlist has been put together by the editors. The Bernard Brodie Prize will be awarded by a jury from the CSP editorial board.

Changes to the Editorial Board

Contemporary Security Policy has an active Editorial Board, which reflects its aims and scope and its worldwide audience. The membership of the Editorial Board is updated on an annual basis to capture emerging research agendas and to give new colleagues the opportunity to contribute to the development of the journal. We have made a number of changes to the Editorial Board.

First of all, Christian Enemark, Stephanie Hofmann, Maria Mälksoo, Rajesh Rajagopalan, and Michael E. Smith have decided to step down from the Editorial Board. They have all been long-standing members of the Editorial Board and have made valuable contributions to the journal by reviewing articles, serving on the jury of the Bernard Brodie Prize, and by providing overall guidance to us as editors. They also provided strong expertise on topics central to the aims and objectives of the journal. We want to thank them for their service. Their expertise and experience as leading scholars will be missed.

It is also time to welcome new colleagues. To reflect the development of the journal, we have invited three new colleagues to join the Editorial Board. These are highly qualified scholars, from a variety of countries, who bring along exciting new expertise. All of them share a commitment to high quality publishing in peer-reviewed journals. They are also dedicated in terms of policy impact and outreach.

The new colleagues on the Editorial Board are:

  • Stephen Herzog (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
  • Chin-Hao Huang (Yale-NUS College, Singapore)
  • Anne-Kathrin Kreft (University of Oslo, Norway)

The Editorial Board will continue to be updated in the future.

Call for the 2024 Special Issue

CSP CoverContemporary Security Policy is seeking proposals for a special issue to be published in January 2024 (volume 45(1)). The special issue should address a topic within the aims and scope of the journal. CSP has an impact factor of 5.719, which ranks the journal #4 out of 96 in the category International Relations.

One of the oldest peer reviewed journals in international conflict and security, CSP promotes theoretically-based research on policy problems of armed conflict, intervention and conflict resolution. Since it first appeared in 1980, CSP has established its unique place as a meeting ground for research at the nexus of theory and policy. Major fields of concern include:

  • War and armed conflict
  • Peacekeeping
  • Conflict resolution
  • Arms control and disarmament
  • Defense policy
  • Strategic culture
  • International institutions

CSP is committed to a broad range of intellectual perspectives. Articles promote new analytical approaches, iconoclastic interpretations and previously overlooked perspectives. Its pages encourage novel contributions and outlooks, not particular methodologies or policy goals. Its geographical scope is worldwide and includes security challenges in Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia. Authors are encouraged to examine established priorities in innovative ways and to apply traditional methods to new problems.

Special Issue Information

Special issue proposals should contain (in one PDF document):

  • A short discussion of the rationale and contribution of the special issue (3 pages max). Please also state why the topic falls within the aims and scope of the journal and why the proposal would be of interest to a large audience.
  • Contact details, institutional affiliation, one paragraph biography of the special issue co-editors, and three recent publications of each of the co-editors. Feel free to include a link to the personal website of the co-editors. Do not submit full CVs.
  • A list of confirmed articles and authors. Please include for each article (a) the title; (b) 150 word abstract; (c) a very short statement how the article contributes to the special issue and why it needs to be included; (d) a one paragraph author biography; and (e) three recent publications of the author(s).
  • The current state of the special issue. Please describe the background (e.g. previous workshops and conferences) and the timeframe towards the submission deadline.

The special issue will consist of a substantive introduction and 6-7 articles. The introduction should stand on itself. It should serve as a state-of-the-art article and be a reference point for all the other articles in the special issue. It is recommended that special issue proposals include 9-10 articles. All articles will be sent by the journal for peer-review on an individual basis. It is unlikely that all articles will eventually make the cut.

Most articles in CSP are around 9,000-10,000 words (including notes and references). However, manuscripts up to 12,000 words are accepted, for example when they include multiple case studies or use mixed methods. Total word limits will be discussed in case of acceptance.

Please submit your application (one PDF file) to csp@nullmaastrichtuniversity.nl. The deadline for the special issue proposal is 18 November 2022. The decision will be announced soon afterwards. The decision by the editor is final. All articles, including the introduction, will have to be submitted by 10 February 2023. The full special issue should go into production in October 2023.

The 2022 Bernard Brodie Prize

Contemporary Security Policy awards the Bernard Brodie Prize annually to the author(s) of an outstanding article published in the journal the previous year. The award is named after Dr. Bernard Brodie (1918-1978), author of The Absolute Weapon (1946), Strategy in the Missile Age (1958), and War and Strategy (1973). Brodie’s ideas remain at the center of security debates to this day. One of the first analysts to cross between official and academic environments, he pioneered the very model of civilian influence that Contemporary Security Policy represents. Contemporary Security Policy is honored to acknowledge the permission of Brodie’s son, Dr. Bruce R. Brodie, to use his father’s name.

The co-winners of the 2022 Bernard Brodie Prize are:

These articles were selected by a jury consisting of six members of the Editorial Board: Tobias Bunde, Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Yee Kuang Heng, Nicole Jenne, Maria Rost Rublee, and Carmen Wunderlich. The jury selected the winners from a shortlist put together by the Editor-in-Chief Hylke Dijkstra. This shortlist also included:

The previous winners of Bernard Brodie Prize are:

  • Jeffrey Berejikian and Zachary Zwald, “Why language matters: Shaping public risk tolerance during deterrence crises”, October 2020;
  • Tracey German, “Harnessing protest potential: Russian strategic culture and the colored revolutions”, October 2020.
  • Jo Jakobsen and Tor G. Jakobsen, “Tripwires and free-riders: Do forward-deployed U.S. troops reduce the willingness of host-country citizens to fight for their country?”, April 2019.
  • David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks, “Violence in context: Mapping the strategies and operational art of irregular warfare”, April 2018;
  • Betcy Jose, “Not completely the new normal: How Human Rights Watch tried to suppress the targeted killing norm”, August 2017;
  • Martin Senn and Jodok Troy, “The transformation of targeted killing and international order”, August 2017;
  • Trine Flockhart, “The coming multi-order world”, April 2016;
  • John Mitton, “Selling Schelling Short: Reputations and American Coercive Diplomacy after Syria”, December 2015;
  • Wyn Bowen and Matthew Moran, “Iran’s Nuclear Program: A Case Study in Hedging”, April 2014;
  • Nick Ritchie, “Valuing and Devaluing Nuclear Weapons”, April 2013;
  • Patrick M. Morgan, “The State of Deterrence in International Politics Today”, April 2012;
  • Sebastian Mayer, “Embedded Politics, Growing Informalization? How Nato and the EU Transform Provision of External Security”, August 2011;
  • Jeffrey Knopf, “The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research”, April 2010;
  • Diane E. Davis, “Non-State Armed Actors, New Imagined Communities, and Shifting Patterns of Sovereignty and Insecurity in the Modern World”, August 2009.

Changes to the editorial team and board

Contemporary Security Policy is one of the oldest peer reviewed journals in international conflict and security. Since it first appeared in 1980, the journal has established its unique place as a meeting ground for research at the nexus of theory and policy. In the last five years, however, the journal has developed rapidly. The number of submissions has doubled. The journal received its first impact factor and now ranks 29/94 among international relations journals. Articles continue to cover all areas of international security and use a plurality of methods (from discourse analysis to experiments). The journal continues to develop further. All signs for 2022 are positive.

As the journal growths, so do the demands on our editorial team. Not just in workload, but also in terms of an increasingly wide range of expertise. Furthermore, as the journal becomes more central to security studies and indeed the discipline, it is also important that responsibilities are shared. In other words, the journal can no longer rely on a single editor. I am therefore very pleased to announce that three new associate editors will join me in editing Contemporary Security Policy from January 2022. They are all established scholars and have previously worked with the journal. We will work as a team and share workload. We will take collective responsibility for editorial decisions. And we will all, from our own backgrounds and expertise, make the journal stronger.

The new associate editors are:

  • Myriam Dunn Cavelty (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
  • Nicole Jenne (Pontifical Catholic University, Chile)
  • Yf Reykers (Maastricht University, The Netherlands)

Contemporary Security Policy will not change editorial direction. We remain committed to continue to publish the best articles on topics that are contemporary, cover security issues, and are policy-relevant. Articles published in our journal need to be accessible in language and useful to our worldwide audience. We publish articles from all theoretical perspectives and using all sorts of different methods. We will also do our best to keep the publication process as efficient as possible and we will continue to proactively engage with authors. We will have to get used to the new editorial setup in the coming months. So please bear with us and do reach out in case of any questions, worries, or suggestions.

Contemporary Security Policy also has an active Editorial Board, which reflects its aims and scope and its worldwide audience. The membership of Editorial Board is updated on an annual basis to capture emerging research agendas and to give new colleagues the opportunity to contribute to the development of the journal. I have made a number of changes to the Editorial Board.

First of all, Alan Bloomfield has decided to step down from the Editorial Board. He has been a key voice on strategic culture and has repeatedly published with Contemporary Security Policy. I want to thank him for his service. This expertise will be missed.

It is also time to welcome three new colleagues to join the Editorial Board. These are highly qualified scholars, from a variety of countries, who bring along exciting new expertise. All of them share a commitment to high quality publishing in peer-reviewed journals. They are also dedicated in terms of policy impact and outreach.

The new colleagues on the Editorial Board are:

  • Stéfanie von Hlatky (Queen’s University, Canada)
  • Magnus Lundgren (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)
  • Rebecca Slayton (Cornell University, USA)

The Editorial Board will continue to be updated in the future.

Hylke Dijkstra
Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Security Policy

Call for the 2023 Special Issue

CSP CoverContemporary Security Policy is seeking proposals for a special issue to be published in January 2023 (volume 44(1)). The special issue should address a topic within the aims and scope of the journal. CSP has an impact factor of 2.640, which ranks the journal #29 out of 94 in the category International Relations.

One of the oldest peer reviewed journals in international conflict and security, CSP promotes theoretically-based research on policy problems of armed conflict, intervention and conflict resolution. Since it first appeared in 1980, CSP has established its unique place as a meeting ground for research at the nexus of theory and policy. Major fields of concern include:

  • War and armed conflict
  • Peacekeeping
  • Conflict resolution
  • Arms control and disarmament
  • Defense policy
  • Strategic culture
  • International institutions

CSP is committed to a broad range of intellectual perspectives. Articles promote new analytical approaches, iconoclastic interpretations and previously overlooked perspectives. Its pages encourage novel contributions and outlooks, not particular methodologies or policy goals. Its geographical scope is worldwide and includes security challenges in Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia. Authors are encouraged to examine established priorities in innovative ways and to apply traditional methods to new problems.

Special Issue Information

Special issue proposals should contain (in one PDF document):

  • A short discussion of the rationale and contribution of the special issue (3 pages max). Please also state why the topic falls within the aims and scope of the journal and why the proposal would be of interest to a large audience.
  • Contact details, institutional affiliation, one paragraph biography of the special issue co-editors, and three recent publications of each of the co-editors. Feel free to include a link to the personal website of the co-editors. Do not submit full CVs.
  • A list of confirmed articles and authors. Please include for each article (a) the title; (b) 150 word abstract; (c) a very short statement how the article contributes to the special issue and why it needs to be included; (d) a one paragraph author biography; and (e) three recent publications of the author(s).
  • The current state of the special issue. Please describe the background (e.g. previous workshops and conferences) and the timeframe towards the submission deadline.

The special issue will consist of a substantive introduction and 6-7 articles. The introduction should stand on itself. It should serve as a state-of-the-art article and be a reference point for all the other articles in the special issue. It is recommended that special issue proposals include 9-10 articles. All articles will be sent by the journal for peer-review on an individual basis. It is unlikely that all articles will eventually make the cut.

Most articles in CSP are around 9,000-10,000 words (including notes and references). However, manuscripts up to 12,000 words are accepted, for example when they include multiple case studies or use mixed methods. Total word limits will be discussed in case of acceptance.

Please submit your application (one PDF file) to csp@nullmaastrichtuniversity.nl. The deadline for the special issue proposal is 26 November 2021. The decision will be announced soon afterwards. The decision by the editor is final. All articles, including the introduction, will have to be submitted by 18 March 2022. The full special issue should go into production in October 2022.

Word length

We have increased the word length requirements for our journal. We now suggest that articles can be up to 10,000 words, or 12,000 words when they include multiple case studies or use mixed methods. We have noticed that our submissions are increasingly ambitious in terms of methods and original data. At the same time, the discipline (rightly) demands a comprehensive discussion of the literature. We hope that increased word length facilitates both.

In practice, we have always been flexible and have allowed authors more space when required. Indeed, we feel that research should not be constrained by things like word length. We have now updated the formal requirements in line with our practices. We continue to insist that writing remains accessible and concise. Contemporary Security Policy speaks to a worldwide audiences of students, academics and policy professionals. More flexible guidelines require more discipline and this is a key part of our editorial process.

Longer articles also does not mean fewer articles. Our publisher has kindly increased the journal page budget by 25%. So we remain very much open to quality submissions and hope to publish more in the near future, including those that are slightly longer.