About the Journal

Society, Power & Law (SPL) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to publishing critical, theoretical, and empirical scholarship at the intersection of legal sociology, political economy, critical legal studies, and power dynamics in governance. Recognizing that legal institutions and statutory frameworks are fundamentally mediated by relations of power, class, gender, and societal structures, SPL provides a rigorous intellectual forum for legal theorists, sociologists, political scientists, criminologists, and socio-legal scholars. The journal prioritizes research that deconstructs the mechanisms through which legal systems legitimize authority, reproduce socio-economic hierarchies, and serve as arenas for resistance and democratic transformation.

Scope and Topics

SPL welcomes original empirical research articles, critical theoretical treatises, socio-legal case analyses, and systematic reviews. Key areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to:

• Critical Legal Studies & Power Dynamics: Hegemony and the law, state-sanctioned violence, structural violence, legal instrumentalism, and elite control of legal frameworks.

• Political Economy & Legal Systems: Law and capitalism, corporate accountability, regulatory capture, labor exploitation, property rights, and the legal reproduction of economic inequality.

• Law, Social Movements & Resistance: Civil disobedience, activist lawyering, legal mobilization by grassroots movements, indigenous sovereignty, and subaltern legal struggles.

• Sociology of Legal Institutions: Power relations within judicial hierarchies, police discretion, penal systems, carceral sociology, and surveillance governance.

• Postcolonial, Decolonial & Intersectional Jurisprudence: Decolonizing legal theory, intersectionality in legal outcomes, racial justice, and customary vs. modern state legal authority.

Publication Frequency

Society, Power & Law (SPL) is published biannually (2 issues per year: June and December), operating an online-first continuous publishing model to ensure rapid editorial turnaround and global open-access dissemination.

Peer Review Process

To safeguard academic rigor and critical scholarship standards, SPL enforces a strict double-anonymous peer review protocol. All submitted manuscripts undergo preliminary editorial screening to assess scope alignment, theoretical grounding, original contribution, and adherence to international publication ethics (COPE guidelines). Manuscripts passing desk review are assigned to at least two independent international experts in critical legal studies, sociology of law, or political science. Review criteria center on theoretical depth, methodological soundness, argumentative clarity, empirical/doctrinal rigor, and contribution to understanding the nexus of law, power, and society.