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*Editorial*

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This issue of *PARISS* (5.2) is closing a crucial year in which the existing political tensions around the possibilities of finding solutions to the ongoing violence in Ukraine and Palestine have exacerbated. At the time of writing, November 11th, a date that saw the closing of the first world war in 1918, the hope for the emergence of diplomatic solutions led by international institutions is depicted as illusory by all the warmongers. The election of Donald Trump on November 6th is analysed as the end of international law, rise of protectionism and self-interest, treating international relations as a realm of cynical foreign affairs looking only at the short-term interests of the country. Is the triumph of nationalistic geopolitics blind to the consequences they created in the past? The previous issue evoked the increasing de-humanisation at work in the conduct of conflicts, and the sense of impunity that some leaders of these conflicts and their right-wing supporters had; this may now be extended to other countries which called themselves advanced democracies for so long. In these conditions we have to engage even more than before in an intellectual fight for maintaining decency, responsibility, international law and justice, as well as right of pacific dissent internally, including the possibility for academics to use their “freedom” in order to voice against nationalistic policies and bring their expertise to the fore. An International Political Sociology using reflexivity on the positioning of intellectuals in situation of danger, and on the strength of symbolic power against the brutalisation of the world is necessary, and needs to build collective voices, who may have diverse positions and trajectories but share the project to stand up to the wind, a position defended already by Etienne de la Boetie during the religion wars and which today can still be a political compass against the tyrants, the warmongers and their accomplices.

To do so, we have during the last six months, continued to work on the prolongation of our running theme on biographical reflections on academic freedom, with a new set of authors who have accepted to reflect on their own situations and how each experience may speak to others to understand our common social suffering. We are witnessing the conditions of teaching
and researching being reduced, and sometimes strategically destroyed through forced resignations. We have received a large number of proposals of contributions, and we thank all of their authors. We had very difficult choices to make. The three papers we have selected are, we hope, both informative and reflective, and they avoid simple accusations of one side against another. They try to redress some narratives that governments and media have sometimes been keen to organise as a truth. The authors have accepted to publish under the same collective name, as previously, and we will gather all the contributions together into one transcript at a later point, as well as translating them into other languages. We will also continue in forthcoming issues to inform this question of (lack of) academic freedom as a lived experience, beyond the important claim of defending its principle, by undertaking interviews with people directly touched by these forms of violence.

The second article is also a collective paper which has been the result of discussions emerging about the responsibility of scholars and their possibility to act in front of the de-democratisation and brutalisation of politics. Derrida has asked about the force of the law both in theoretical terms and in interventions after 2001, opening a discussion with Habermas. Some scholars are now dismissive of what could (or would) be the force of international law when the international institutions are not listened to, and deliberately ignored. But the fact that they cannot be a substitute for current policies is not a sign of inefficiency or complicity. They are crucial to the future legitimacy of states and to the status of their leaders, that may not indefinitely stay unpunished. This includes all those who participate in international crime and take decisions. This is where believing like short sighted geopoliticians that the escalation of force against large segment of populations is a solution to win a "war", is wrong. In the long run, it is for decades that their voices are weakened internationally, so the ultra-nationalists are often the gravediggers of their nations and the fame of their citizen in the world. We begin with three interventions remembering us what the Court of International Justice has done and can do, as well as a strong discussion about the "binding" effect of its decisions.

Here also, we are opening a call for informed contributions coming from law, political theory, and other disciplines on this topic of the force of international law (beyond the sole ICJ), engaging our view of possible futures where violence has not necessarily the last word.

The third paper is also correlated with the question of freedom for academics to do research when confronted with secrecy under the argument of defense secrecy and or national security, when it is not the national security of a third party designated as the "owner" of the information. This is an important question
in practical terms. Here the two authors Travis Van Isacker and William Walters examine the UK's use of deportation charter flights and the way this process is managed by institutions in relation to knowledge in migration studies. The paper shows how state secrecy shapes what is known and unknown, transforming access to information into a site of struggle. Through this lens, the authors explore four key analytics: the impact of state interactions, the symmetry of disclosure and concealment, the influence of mediating devices and infrastructures, and the cultural-legal frameworks governing information control. Their work shows how freedom of information (FOI) requests, though powerful, often reveal limitations in academic research under secrecy, making it essential for scholars to consider both formal and informal means of access. This contribution broadens the discussion on FOI in academia, calling for critical reflection on the mechanisms of knowledge production and the subtle balance between transparency and enforced ignorance. We will continue to open our journal to research concerning secrecy, academic research, rights recognized or not by legislation to the researchers, effective practices of the institutions in different countries and or international institutions.

In the fourth article, Damien Rogers introduces us already to some of these major stakes. He discusses the practices of the professionals in charge of writing national security strategy, which justifies the collection of secret intelligence and use of state violence. Who are they? From what bureaucracies and political parties or think tanks do they come from? How have they obtained such a status? As he explained, by “fatigue” against a certain level of secrecy, or by ignoring the questions of the social trajectories, this study has not yet sufficiently received scholarly attention. Using the New Zealand document “Secure together” and drawing on its proximal experience as an academic and former security professional, he argues that it perpetuates a “doxa of insecurity,” reinforcing the privileged status of security bureaucrats who prioritize alliance-building over genuinely participatory democratic practices. Rogers shows how the bureaucratic narrative of perpetual threats both justifies state secrecy and marginalizes alternative views on security.

We engage strongly other submissions along the research of these professionals of the writing of public documents regarding national security which often play with secrecy and national security to create delusion or decoys, building alliances with science-fiction writers or academics to pretend that they can foresee and predict future threats.

In the fifth article, Martina Tazzioli presents her research on the making by authorities of migrants' route from the Italian-Slovenian border to the French-Italian one, focusing on two overlapping migration movements: Italian workers and refugee workers from Yugoslavia. She analyses how labour policies,
asylum regime and border controls are mutually entangled and reverberate
on the frontier, and challenges some of the assumptions accepted by some
migration specialists who accept this idea of “routes”, “flows” and “geography
across border states” that police collaboration has presented as permanent
truth, validated later by policy analysts, without a thorough reflection on
what these geographical items means and do to the people traveling. Instead,
she emphasizes the fluid, contested, and historically layered nature of
migrant movements, shaped by the active role of migrants themselves and
their attempts to resist control. Through this lens, the author highlights how
political and social frameworks shape migration geographies, urging scholars
to critically examine the effects of labour, asylum, and border governance on
migrant mobility.

Our sixth article sees Izadora Xavier del Monte explores also analytically
the narratives and practices of different authorities engaged in practice of
(in)securitization via the detailed study of the participation of the Brazilian
military in the UN peacekeeping operation in Haiti (MINUSTAH, 2004–2017).
She shows that, although the mission was framed by the UN as a humanitarian
intervention, Brazilian soldiers often interpreted it through the lens of “urban
pacification” and the “enemy within” narrative, practices shaped by Brazil’s
own history of military interventions in urban areas and counter-insurgency
operations. Her research reveals how Brazilian soldiers adapted their domestic
strategies and discourse to the Haitian context, treating the mission as a
militarized peacekeeping effort rather than purely humanitarian. The three
papers resonate with the question of the performativity of the language of
national bureaucracies (of security) and the inside-outside “travels” and
translations they allow internationally, which often support exchanges of
violent and discriminatory practices in the name of care and protection.

In the two following articles Audrey Alejandro and Paul David Beaumont
discuss the series of papers of our previous issues concerning: “Decentering
agency in world politics”. Audrey Alejandro comes back in her second article
on the core of the general project she exposed previously, and which is to
build a bridge between the methodology of writing and the methodology of
reflexivity through the issues of Eurocentrism and its denial of “non-Western”
agency. Paul David Beaumont concludes by indicating the importance to
systematically develop strategies to help not only authors, but also readers on
their own reflexive journey, warning the author to cultivate humility in the
authorial voice, and the Anglo-American readers to judge the papers along the
illusion that Anglo-American norms are a coherent and quasi universal whole.

In the final paper, Jérôme Lamy, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez and Guillaume
Carnino present the main lines of their book Global History of Techniques,
19th-21st Century. We have invited these authors to publish this synthesis, as the book is central for all the people interested in the relation between politics, techniques and modes of governmentality. Moving away from Eurocentric “grand narratives,” the authors emphasize diverse regional contributions and unique temporal patterns in the evolution, exchange, and adaptation of techniques. They propose the use of “techniques” over “technology,” arguing that the term better captures the knowledge, practices, and material culture central to human activities, particularly in non-Western contexts. By analyzing case studies from regions like Oceania and focusing on specific sectors, such as hydraulic engineering and Big Science, the authors illustrate how regional histories and social conditions shape the development and use of techniques. This calls for a deeper appreciation of the complex cultural dimensions underlying technical knowledge and its historical trajectory. We will continue this way of presenting major books by asking one author to answer our questions, either by a direct interview, by participating in a round table with other authors, or by presenting the key rationale of the book in a more synthetic way.

PARISS *Editorial Office*
parisseditorial@gmail.com