CFP Creating for the state: the unions of artists and the state artists during the communist regimes in Eastern Europe

This a call for articles for a special issue of Studia Politica Romanian Political Science Review

An understudied topic of the establishment, functioning, and demise of the communist regimes, the (creative) unions of artists in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union represent a fascinating topic of research, which best captures the relationship between the artists and the state. This relationship was not static, but evolved in time in the decades from the 1950s to the 1990s, and was further on transformed by the change of regime at the beginning of the 1990s. The state artists, those that accepted to create for the new communist states, were one of the main effects of the establishment of the new regimes. While public orders existed prior to 1945, their importance grew extensively in the decades of communism and the forms it took transformed the public function of art. We invite contributions on the topic of the unions of artists, the state artists (especially specific cases of artists), the types of refusals the artists were able to engage in, as well as on the transformations of this context after 1990/1991. The main topics that can be touched upon, among others are: 
- the (creative) unions of artists (visual arts, music, theater, cinema)
- relations between the unions of artists
- the “state artists” – portraits of specific artists
- professional artists versus amateurs 
- painting the leaders – the official iconography
- types of public orders and types of patrons (factories, ministries, etc.)
- the changing roles of the unions of artists after 1990/1991
- state exhibitions

Guidelines for the articles
Those interested should send their articles until April 15, 2017 and they will be notified of the acceptance or not of their contribution, by May 15.

Manuscripts will be accepted on the understanding that their content is original and that they have not been previously published in a different form or language. No manuscript will be considered for publication if it is concurrently under consideration by another journal or press or is soon to be published elsewhere. The manuscripts submitted should be written in academic English, French or Romanian in order to be considered for review.

The manuscripts should have 8.000-9.000 words. They must include an abstract (maximum 200 words), keywords (maximum 5) and the author's short biography (200 words), current affiliation and email address.

The manuscript should be in MS Word format, and the document must be set at the A4 paper size standard. The document (including the footnotes and bibliography) will be 1 line spaced with 2.5 cm margins on all sides. A 12-point standard font such as Times New Roman should be used for all the text, including headings, notes and bibliography.

Submissions should conform to the notes and bibliography version of Studia Politica.s

Manuscripts will comply with Studia Politica style in matters of punctuation, capitalization and the like. The articles should have footnotes and conform to the following format: 
o references to books should list author(s), title, publisher, place of publication, year; 
ex.: Giovanni SARTORI, Theory of Democracy Revisited, Chatam House, Chatam NJ, 1987.
o references to journal articles should list author(s), title of article, journal name, volume, year, and inclusive pages; 
ex.: Giovanni SARTORI, “What is ‘Politics’?”, Political Theory, vol. I, no. 1, 1973, pp. 5-26
o references to works in edited volumes should list author(s), essay title, volume editor(s), volume title, publisher, place of publication, year, and inclusive pages. 
ex.: Mauro CALISE, "Presidentialization, Italian Style", Thomas POGUNTKE, Paul WEBB (eds.), The Prezidentialization of Politics, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 2005, pp. 88-106.

Manuscripts submitted for review are evaluated anonymously by two scholars, one of which will be often a member of the Advisory Board. However, the Editors alone are responsible for every final decision on publication of manuscripts. The Editors may suggest changes in the manuscript in the interest of clarity and economy of expression. Such changes are not to be made without consultation with the author(s). The authors should ensure that the manuscript is submitted in final form.

Manuscripts that do not comply with these requirements will not be accepted.