Huge thanks to our contributors @christinaboyes.bsky.social @hyyppati.bsky.social @mervekeskin.bsky.social Dana Landau, Rachel Schwartz and @meganastewart.bsky.social for reflecting on the fuzzy edges, ordering processes, need to de-centre violence and issues of knowledge production in the field

Many thanks to Gerda Henkel Stiftung for supporting this project + to our interlocutors and participants who were so generous in their time. Thanks also to members of the COIN Forum down at Warminster, the JSS editorial team and reviewers for such a constructive and supportive process!

This picture of compromise and negotiation reflected the epistemic influences, positionality, and power brought to the table by various authors and stakeholders, shaped by path dependencies brought about by deadlines and critical negotiations to break deadlocks

We show a picture of epistemic negotiation and complexity often overlooked in critiques of the manual's 'classical' representation of insurgencies. FM 3-24 blended neoclassical approaches, attempts to widen typologies, 'mosaic' and GWOT(Iraq)-specific models of insurgency

We illustrate the fluid, negotiated nature of these knowledge processes through analysis of documentary and interview evidence of the drafting process of FM 3-24

We theorise 4 steps through which knowledge is integrated into doctrine: Knowledge Generation, In-Team Knowledge Negotiation, Org. Knowledge Negotiation and Critical Stakeholder Knowledge Negotiation. These processes are not linear, nor do they occur only once during drafting

Interested in joining us for a discussion? DM us or contact @alexwaterman.bsky.social. We're particularly keen to pull in a broad church of civil wars scholars reflecting the field's methodological diversity, so please do circulate widely!

We are keen to build on our excellent roundtable at #ISA2025 in Chicago this year (keep an eye out for a write-up in our next issue!) by reflecting specifically on epistemology and the diverse research approaches that make up our field of study

Abstract here 👇

Thank you to @hannahrwest.bsky.social and @alexwaterman.bsky.social for editing this special issue; stay tuned for the full line-up of papers imminently!