The Journal of Economic Studies and Policy (JESP) embarks on a new era with a decisive strategic pivot and a redefined mission. Our immediate goal is not to present a ready-made economic doctrine, but to cultivate a disciplined platform for the fundamental, comparative, and critical examination of economic schools of thought, all oriented toward the horizon of a "Networked Tawhidi Synthesis." This shift is a conscious step onto the path charted by the visionary jurist and founder of Mofid University, the late Grand Ayatollah Musavi Ardebili.
To ensure this deep inquiry proceeds with coherence and purpose, the criteria for manuscript acceptance will henceforth be governed by five strategic pillars. These pillars act as a compass for researchers, defining the scope and direction of all acceptable scholarship and shaping the journal's thematic distribution. Every submission must define itself in relation to one or a combination of these pillars:
Pillar I: Deconstructing Ontological and Anthropological Foundations
This pillar seeks articles that penetrate the deep, often invisible, substrata of each school of thought. Guiding questions include:
§ What conception of "ultimate reality" and the "human being" is embedded in this school?
§ Does it view the cosmos as material, random, and devoid of meaning, or as teleological and possessing a hierarchy of existence?
§ Is "economic man" a calculating pleasure-seeker, a social being, or a bearer of a divine, innate disposition (fitrah) enmeshed in a network of responsibilities?
Articles under this pillar, through profound, anatomizing philosophical and theological inquiries, lay bare the ontological presuppositions embedded within formal models and theories.
Pillar II: Interrogating Methodological and Epistemological Commitments
This pillar seeks articles that challenge the validity of each school's tools of cognition and claims to truth. Guiding questions include:
§ What are the sources of knowledge: calculative reason, empirical experience, intuition, or revelation?
§ Does this school claim to be a "value-free positive science," or does it rest on explicit normative foundations?
§ Is the analysis built on methodological individualism, holism, or a nascent network-based approach?
Articles in this category serve as critical-logical assessments of methods and lay the epistemological groundwork for a Tawhidi synthesis.
Pillar III: Analyzing Ethical and Legal Normative Frameworks
This pillar targets the value systems and legal structures embedded in each school. Guiding questions include:
§ What is the origin of rights, particularly property rights and freedom, in this framework?
§ What is the ultimate criterion for valuation: pleasure, utility, labor, virtue, or something else entirely?
§ Is "justice" a hollow, subjective concept, or an objective social imperative? Is it procedural or substantive?
§ How is the relationship between positive law, natural rights, and ethics configured?
Pillar IV: Contextualizing Historically and Socio-Politically
This pillar welcomes articles that examine each school as a historical phenomenon situated within a network of power. Guiding questions include:
§ In response to which crises, class conflicts, or technological shifts was this school born?
§ What dialectical relationship exists between its theories and the prevailing structures of political and economic power?
§ The interests of which social groups are justified and solidified under the banner of this school's "scientific truth"?
§ What has been the historical experience of implementing policies derived from this school?
Pillar V: Integrating Toward a Networked Tawhidi Synthesis
This pillar is the strategic heart of the journal and defines the ultimate trajectory of all research. Articles under this pillar, building on the insights of the previous four or working independently, actively engage in the process of synthesis. Guiding questions include:
§ Which elements unearthed by the deconstruction process can be redefined and integrated into a Tawhidi conceptual network, and which must be fundamentally rejected?
§ How can we avoid the dual trap of "eclecticism" and "superficial syncretism"? What are the methodological foundations of a genuine synthesis?
§ How can we design a "mediating language" to network concepts like spontaneous order, social justice, rights and duties, and efficiency within the light of Islamic philosophy and wisdom?
Call for Papers
We invite submissions from scholars in economics, philosophy, law, ethics, history, and theology. Articles should focus on one of the four major schools of thought (Classical and its roots, Austrian, Institutional, and Marxian) or other instructive heterodox traditions, and be explicitly framed by one or a combination of these five pillars.
We are actively seeking papers that, rather than offering premature answers, formulate ever-more-precise fundamental questions. These papers must allow the dissected bodies of thought to speak, while simultaneously holding the horizon of a Tawhidi synthesis as the ultimate analytical guide.
Our approach is a conscious and humble step onto a path leading to an "economic doctrine compatible with human dignity and free from the hegemony of capital."