Leviathan

Dear readers,

Looking back, 2025 featured prolific pushing of political boundaries, from authoritarian populists testing the limits of democracy to new generations of protesters demanding greater accountability. It is in this context that Beyond Power presents new ways of thinking about power and politics. 

Leviathan Journal cultivates the voices of a new generation, using academia to rewrite traditional conceptions of power. It is a forum where authors, editors and readers alike wrestle with challenging propositions, agreeing and disagreeing, in pursuit of reckoning with today's challenges. 

The authors situate themselves within both ancient and contemporary debates, contributing to these conversations meaningfully and powerfully. This edition contains 33 individual interpretations of ‘beyond power’, guiding readers through complex political conversations and promulgating new ways to understand political power. 

Each article and the journal as a whole would not be possible without the incredible dedication, enthusiasm, and creativity of our entire editorial team. This year’s team has done an exceptional job at bringing each author’s underlying idea to life both with the written word and visually, as well as cultivating a passionate political community.

Beyond Power begins with Rizwan Ayub’s textual analysis of poetry from incarcerated individuals in the Attica Prison, using Black feminist theory to uncover new forms of resistance. Further finding political meaning in culture, Alice Marshall analyses the politics of art, illuminating the covert relationship between Abstract Expressionism and the CIA’s Cold-War manoeuvres. Continuing in the U.S., Chase Waldheim debates on the political implications of Texas and California’s recent redistricting proposals, while  Zofia Jastrun continues the conversation on electoral politics, inviting us to consider how sortition may reinvigorate government responsiveness. Also centring opposition to entrenched political systems, Samsara Chakkara analyses the recent Gen-Z protests in Nepal and how this politically-engaged younger generation capitalises on social media as a tool for mobilisation, before we turn East to the metro system in Hong Kong, which Tian Yun Cheung utilises to argue for the benefits of public-private monopolies in public infrastructure.

Amber Khlat, Leo Rosenthal, and Georgia Folsom challenge traditional conceptions of the  nation-state, by analysing Hezbollah’s governance, the outsourcing of state responsibilities to Big Tech, and the expansion of Amazon Web Services, respectively. Following this work on emerging technology, Hannah Walsh warns of the dangers of creeping authoritarianism through technological mediums, and Aurora Bortolin similarly notes that the rise of digital ‘third places’ has allowed populism to take root in the United Kingdom. Also responding to the modern far-right threat, Tommaso Prever analyses the EU’s legal vulnerabilities to populism from within. 

Daniel Cook builds on these legal themes to highlight the residues of authoritarianism in the Spanish judicial system. Furthering the debate on institutional responses to executive overreach, Cerys Jones and Rachel Barlow each compare the impeachments of U.S. President Donald Trump to the diverging cases of former-President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro and former-President of the Republic of Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol. 

Taking an economic turn, Ryan Chowne analyses the economic dependency of Canada on the United States in an era characterised by tariffs, and Matilda Stevens-Cox highlights the power of pension funds to be stewards of sustainable governance. Also adopting an environment-centric approach, Max Huberty assesses China’s hydroelectricity dam-building projects in Tibet and their detrimental impacts on Tibetan people’s livelihoods and culture. Moving south, Finn Hughes and Sophia Pregent focus on the South China Sea, looking at chokepoint dependency and energy security discourse, respectively. 

Joseph Harmon and David Naranjo Quintero challenge traditional theories of International Relations, critiquing Walt’s contributions to security studies and assessing which framework best reflects the politics of outer space. Charlotte Magill similarly applies theories of IR to the ongoing tension between Kosovo and Serbia, analysing how national identity has been shaped by securitisation.

Alice Ashcroft explores the relationship between the Nevada–Semipalatinsk Movement in Kazakhstan and the nation’s nuclear policy, and Ornela Beqa argues that democracy has yet to be fully realised in Albania. Further exploring nation-states in Europe, Eliza Goca argues for a clearer conception of Central Europe and its relationship to Russia.

Alex Daniels compares the decolonisation processes in Guinea and Senegal, and Mahlaka Imran analyses the weaponisation of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. Ellie Davey explores the narratives and underpinnings of violence against Indigenous peoples in colonisation in the Americas and Australia, and Arin Koc assesses how political violence is entrenched in the Turkish state. Catherine Meneghetti compares non-central government-driven processes in Mexico and the United States that undermine freedom of speech in both countries. Kate Taylor analyses the United Nation’s structural impediments to preventing genocide from occuring. Lastly, the issue concludes with Editor-in-Chief, Grace Hitchcock’s article about the Kremlin’s policy of ‘passportisation’ as part of a wider effort to undermine international legal mechanisms.

We sincerely hope that the next 200 pages offer a thought-provoking and enjoyable read. We encourage you to read, ponder, read again and discuss. These articles are meant to inspire, motivate and mobilise, and we hope that Leviathan is not just a publication, but a community of political thinkers.

Sincerely,

Grace Hitchcock

Editor-in-Chief