Policies, Politics, and the Wellbeing of Rural People and Places
Special Issue of Rural Sociology

Special Issue Editors:
Shannon Monnat (Syracuse University) and Tim Slack (Louisiana State University)

The wellbeing of rural people and places in the United States and around the world is shaped deeply by policy decisions across numerous domains made at multiple levels of government. Yet rural perspectives are frequently absent from policy design, and the effects of policies on rural communities sometimes differ from their intended outcomes. At the same time, political dynamics, including polarization, shifting ideological landscapes, and growing divergence of policy regimes across regions and jurisdictions are transforming the contexts in which rural families and communities navigate daily life. These dynamics intersect with ongoing demographic shifts—population loss and aging in some places, diversification and growth in others—to shape rural wellbeing. But rural people are not passive recipients of these forces. Communities respond, adapt, and push back, and what happens in rural areas reverberates well beyond their borders.

Rural Sociology will publish a special issue focused on policies, politics, and the wellbeing of rural people and places. We invite submissions that examine how policies and politics shape rural wellbeing—whether in the United States or in other national and cross-national contexts—and how rural communities respond to, resist, and reshape the political forces acting upon them. We welcome contributions that focus solely on rural areas or that explicitly compare outcomes across rural-urban continuums. We conceive of wellbeing broadly and welcome empirical, methodological, and theoretical contributions that address multiple dimensions of wellbeing, including but not limited to economic wellbeing, livelihoods, education, families, health and longevity, housing, food security, social belonging and relationships, crime, civic engagement, environmental quality and sustainability, and community cohesion. We also welcome papers that consider how policies and politics intersect with demographic trends to influence wellbeing.

Papers may address one or more of the following topics, as well as other relevant topics not listed here:

Policy Impacts on Rural Wellbeing

• Effects of federal, state, and/or local policies—in domains such as agriculture, criminal justice, education, energy, environment, health, housing, infrastructure, immigration, labor, natural resources, and the social safety net—on rural wellbeing outcomes and trends.
• Policy effects across different types of rural places and different rural population subgroups.
• Policies that have benefited rural people and/or places.
• How growing divergence of U.S. state policy regimes shapes geographic inequalities in wellbeing.
• Comparative analyses of different states' or countries' policy approaches and resulting rural outcomes.

Institutional Capacity, Resistance, and Adaptation

• How variation in local government capacity—staffing, fiscal resources, and administrative infrastructure—shapes rural communities' ability to access and deploy federal and state programs.
• The role of social and civic infrastructure, nonprofit networks, and community organizations in moderating the effects of policies on rural wellbeing.
• Community-driven development models and their implications for policy design and rural wellbeing.
• How rural communities respond to, resist, and reshape policies.

Political Dynamics and Rural Life

• Consequences of partisan polarization for rural institutions, social cohesion, and/or population wellbeing outcomes.
• The role of political identity and context in shaping rural residents' responses to policy interventions.
• How rural politics reverberate beyond rural borders to influence outcomes beyond rural areas.

Data, Methods, and Measurement

• Advances in measuring policy contexts and/or political environments at spatial scales relevant to rural populations.
• Methodological approaches for capturing cumulative, life course, or intergenerational exposures to policies and/or political contexts in rural settings.
• Comparative assessments of rural wellbeing indicators.

Prospective contributors should submit an abstract (up to two pages, single spaced) describing their study along with up to two pages of supporting material (e.g., tables, figures, etc.) no later than 5 PM ET on May 1, 2026 via the RSS website portal at: https://ruralsociology.org/rural-sociology-special-issue-abstract-submission/. Only abstracts submitted through this portal will be considered.

We will consider two types of submissions: research articles and research notes. Review the Rural Sociology Author Guidelines for descriptions of each. Specify in your abstract which type of paper you plan to submit if invited for full paper submission. All submissions must be original work that has not been previously published.

The special issue editors will review abstracts and extend invitations for full paper submissions by May 20, 2026. Papers invited for full submission must adhere to Rural Sociology’s author guidelines and must be submitted via the journal’s website by November 1, 2026. Additional instructions for full paper submission will be provided at the full paper invitation stage. All papers

will undergo the journal’s peer review process. The special issue will include approximately 12-15 papers.

Timeline

May 1, 2026 Abstract proposals due
May 20, 2026 Selected abstracts invited for full paper submission
Nov 1, 2026 Full papers due
Dec 31, 2026 Peer reviews completed
Feb 28, 2027 First revisions due
April 15, 2027 Second review completed (if necessary)
May 31, 2027 Final revisions due
August 2027 Full special issue published

Questions about abstracts and/or the special issue should be directed to Shannon Monnat (smmonnat@syr.edu) and Tim Slack (slack@lsu.edu).