New Books in Political Science Chiara Libiseller, "Reconceptualizing War: The Rise and Fall of Fashionable Concepts in Strategic Studies" (Oxford UP, 2026)
May 12, 2026
Dr. Chiara Libiseller, lecturer in strategic studies at King’s College London and author of Reconceptualizing War, studies how concepts in strategic studies go in and out of fashion. She traces RMA, counterinsurgency, and hybrid warfare. Short, sharp takes explore why concepts become dominant, how practitioner-academic ties shape trends, and why reflexivity is needed to avoid narrowing research.
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How Concepts Become Fashionable In Strategic Studies
- Fashionable concepts in strategic studies follow a lifecycle where widespread use makes them broader and vaguer.
- Chiara Libiseller noticed hybrid warfare in 2014–15 became ubiquitous yet analytically hollow, prompting her PhD and this book.
Practitioner Adoption Drives Academic Fashion Cycles
- Close practitioner–academic ties make strategic studies prone to shifting fashions tied to policy priorities.
- When defense actors adopt a concept, academic interest follows, narrowing theoretical development and long-term coherence.
Four Ingredients That Create A Concept Fashion
- Four conditions commonly trigger a concept's rise: advocates pushing an interpretation, a cognitive crisis, a promising solution, and malleability.
- Institutionalization by defense bodies then grants authority and accelerates diffusion.
