American Behavioral Scientist (ABS), is a peer-reviewed journal and published fourteen times a year. It provides in-depth perspectives on intriguing contemporary topics throughout the social and behavioral sciences. Each issue is guest edited. For more information about American Behavioral Scientist see https://journals.sagepub.com/home/abs
We are surveying 1960-70s military networks that serviced, COINTELPRO (US); CHAOS (US); CORDS & Phoenix (Vietnam); Condor (in South America); ORDEN (El Salvador); Jakarta (Indonesia) and OBAN (Brazil) for a theme issue of American Behavioral Scientist entitled, "Survey of a Cluster of Pre-Internet Networks". This is a survey of networked societies prior to the advent of the Internet.These experimental networks shared characteristics of two-part programs that promoted neoliberal and austerity programs while aiding police in neutralizing dissidents. Potential areas of focus include: the communication equipment that supported these operations, from how evident or non-evident they were; to their staffing and hardware; the operations' contributions to social and financial inequality and political polarization in the populations they monitored; and works that pertain to the theoretical or methodological approaches applied to the findings. The survey aims to be an unclassified, one-of-a-kind, historical-comparative, resource for media scholars, media users, social scientists and everyone who depends on the Internet.
This survey focuses on networked communities under military authority that linked and fueled certain economic policies, ways of life, and worldviews that are normalized today (neoliberalism, various polarizations, surveillance and datafication, etc.). Research touches on many aspects of the pre-history of the Internet, during the Cold War, and involves a variety of contexts.
Lead editor Noel Packard
and
Dr. Bradley Simpson, Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at University of Connecticut (history.uconn.edu/person/bradley-simpson). He authored, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford 2008) which chronicles how U.S. anti-Communist assistance in Indonesia helped bend the government and civilian population towards neoliberal economic policies while neutralizing most of the members of the Indonesian Communist Party. He is re-visiting, and re-thinking, the history, political and legal ramifications of what US foreign relations and international politics refer to as, 'self-determination' of countries and has books in progress. They are entitled, 'The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of post-1941 International Relations'; Indonesia's New Order and the U.S. and the World Community, 1966-1998 and The Routledge History of Human Rights co-authored with Jen Quataert. He is founder and director of a project of the National Security Archive to declassify U.S. government documents about Indonesia and East Timor during the reign of General Suharto (1966-1998).
If interested, please submit an abstract of 500 words or less in English and a bio-statement to Noel Packard at: npac825@aucklanduni.ac.nz. or through the CFP abstract portal.
Deadline for abstracts is 1 October, 2025.
Tentative Timeline:
Deadline for submission of new abstracts open until the final deadline of 1 October, 2025.
Target publication timeline for paper publication - December 2025 and into early 2026.
For more information, please send questions and abstracts to:
Noel Packard PhD, BA Honors, MA, MPA, BA & MRSNZ
(pronounced Noelle she/her from birth)
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6589-3362
Email: npac825@aucklanduni.ac.nz
Noel Packard
