From the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to the 2024 Presidential Election, the United States has experienced great upheaval. This instability and uncertainly has produced significant institutional readjustment and signaled a U.S.-led global order in transition. In this sense, the multiple responses to the increasing rate of change suggests the United States is in the midst of a polycrisis. The term accounts for simultaneous political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological emergencies that shape contemporary reality. A polycrisis amplifies the effect of an isolated crisis, hence, understanding the origins of the interconnection is of paramount importance to identify a potential remedy.
Social scientists that adopt the polycrisis framework identify neoliberalism at its base. Over the last four decades, neoliberalism has become a multidimensional force that challenges analytical frameworks to better understand it. And, as the U.S.-led postwar global order transitions into a new alignment, its trajectory triggers what Hungarian political economist Karl Polanyi called The Great Transformation (1944). The idea captures the complexity embedded in complex institutional changes that can alter the way a nation adapts to ensure its own existence.
In collaboration with Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, Polycrisis in the United States: Multidisciplinary Perspectives represents an initiative to replicate Polanyi’s efforts. This multidisciplinary endeavor aims at compiling ideas and interpretations that help us understand the Great Transformation of our times. Our book aims to collect studies that unveil the dynamics of these changes as well as their future implications. The primary objective is facilitating a space of reflection and inquiry into the conditions that triggered a polycrisis and the series of concatenated outcomes of this process.
We seek proposals that embrace disciplinary as well as multidisciplinary approaches to untangle the intricacies of simultaneous changes. Analyses that consider history, political science, anthropology, sociology, criminal justice, philosophy, and economics are encouraged as well as a combination of disciplines.
All submissions will be accepted via email. We invite abstracts of at least 200 words and a CV. Selected abstracts will be announced to individual authors by May 31, 2026. The deadline for final papers is December 4, 2026. Please contact one of the editors considering your topical area:
Karol Gil Vasquez – Economics and Ideology (karol.gil-vasquez@nichols.edu)
Michael E. Neagle – History and and Legal Studies (michael.neagle@nichols.edu)
Boyd Brown – Social Movements and Cultural Factors (boyd.brownIII@nichols.edu)