Overview

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has profoundly disrupted the global security architecture and reshaped the intellectual landscape of international relations. The conflict demonstrates how emotions and deterrence are interwoven in contemporary security politics – challenging traditional rationalist paradigms and demanding renewed theoretical attention to the affective dimensions of power, escalation, and restraint.

This special issue of the Ideology and Politics Journal invites contributions that explore how the Russian invasion of Ukraine serves as a critical case for reconceptualizing securitization theory and deterrence thinking. The war illustrates that emotions such as fear, anger, moral outrage, and solidarity are not merely by-products of deterrence strategies but integral components of how deterrence and security narratives are constructed, communicated, and sustained across multiple audiences.

Rationale and Theoretical Significance

The Russo-Ukrainian war provides a unique empirical and conceptual arena for testing and refining theories of securitization and deterrence. It reveals how emotional and cognitive mechanisms jointly shape threat perception, alliance cohesion, and strategic signaling. Whereas classical deterrence theory has traditionally focused on credibility, capability, and rational calculation, the ongoing war underscores how deterrence success or failure often depends on emotional credibility—perceived resolve, moral legitimacy, and the ability to evoke fear or reassurance among both allies and adversaries.

Key questions include:

• How do emotional narratives affect deterrence credibility and escalation management?
• What roles do empathy, fear, and anger play in shaping deterrent communication between nuclear and non-nuclear actors?
• How do moral emotions mobilize international coalitions and reinforce security communities?

Analytical Dimensions

Multi-Level Securitization and Emotional Deterrence
The conflict operates simultaneously at local, national, regional, and global levels, each deploying emotional appeals to deter aggression or maintain solidarity. These dynamics highlight deterrence as an emotional process aimed at influencing belief systems and perceptions of risk.

Real-Time Observation and Digital Amplification
The war’s real-time documentation offers unparalleled insight into how deterrent signals circulate, mutate, and acquire emotional intensity through digital media ecosystems as well as enforce innovations.

Value-Based Mobilization and Strategic Morality
Emotional responses—solidarity, moral outrage, fear of escalation—have produced coalitions that defy interest-based realism and foreground moral deterrence as a critical factor in alliance behavior.

Key Research Areas

We welcome submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Deterrence of States: How do emotions shape deterrence credibility, escalation control, and innovations signaling? How can emotional narratives reinforce or undermine deterrent postures?
• Geopolitics and Emotions: How feelings of fear, solidarity, and moral obligation reshape European and global security architectures.
• Narrative Warfare: Competing emotional framings of the conflict and their implications for deterrence and international order.
• Digital Emotions: How social media amplifies deterrence messaging, moral appeals, and threat perception.
• Trauma and Memory: The impact of collective memories and historical trauma on deterrence logic and emotional mobilization.
• Decolonial Emotions: Emotional responses in the Global South informed by postcolonial experiences and moral positioning vis-à-vis the conflict.

Methodological and Empirical Approaches

We encourage submissions that combine theoretical innovation with empirical depth, including:

• Case studies of deterrence signaling and emotional framing;
• Analyses of emotional dimensions in national or alliance-level decision-making;
• Comparative studies of counter-narratives and emotional resistance;
• Mixed-methods or computational analyses of emotional discourse in media and policy.

Submission Details

Authors are invited to submit an abstract (maximum 300 words) no later than 10 November 2025 to Dr. Victoria Vdovychenko and Dr. Oleksii Polegkyi at the emails: vv333@cam.ac.uk  and polegkyi@gmail.com. The Editorial Board will review all abstracts and inform selected authors who will be granted the opportunity to submit a full paper for publication.

The deadline for the full paper submission is 26 January 2026. Articles should be written in American English and range between 6,000 and 10,000 words (Word doc, Times New Roman, 12, single spacing).

The Special Issue of the Ideology and Politics Journal is expected to be published by July 15, 2026.

All submissions to the Ideology and Politics Journal are subject to double-blind peer review, which determines acceptance for publication. Review and publication in the Ideology and Politics Journal are free of charge.

For detailed information on submission procedures and publication terms, please visit the Instructions for Authors. By submitting an article for review, authors agree to comply with all terms of cooperation outlined by the IPJ Editorial Board.

Editors of the Special Issue: Dr. Victoria Vdovychenko (University of Cambridge) and Dr. Oleksii Polegkyi (The Catholic University of Lublin).

Editor-in-Chief of the Ideology and Politics Journal: Mikhail Minakov (European University Viadrina)

Further information about the Ideology and Politics Journal can be found at About the Journal.