Academic presses can kill controversial manuscripts when invited peer reviewers accept and then decline after seeing the content, leaving editors to cite lack of reviews or 'controversy' to terminate contracts. This procedural non‑engagement functions as de facto censorship without a public ban or rebuttal.
— It exposes a subtle gatekeeping mechanism in scholarly publishing that shapes which ideas reach the public and the historical record.
Kristin McTiernan
2026.01.16
85% relevant
The article documents the same phenomenon in trade fiction that the existing idea identifies in academic publishing: gatekeeping operates not only by explicit bans but by procedural non‑engagement and credential bars (Big Five deals, review coverage) that functionally exclude voices; the author’s examples (indie authors still chasing reviews, awards and Big‑5 status) are a cultural mirror of 'refusal‑to‑review' dynamics.
Tyler Cowen
2026.01.15
48% relevant
The RBC story is a different mechanism of idea suppression than academic peer‑review refusal, but it connects to the same phenomenon: procedural or institutional mechanisms (here, state curriculum control) are being used to keep certain perspectives out of the public record and classroom instruction.
Ted Gioia
2026.01.14
78% relevant
Gioia chronicles how editorial economics and upstream gatekeeping narrow which manuscripts get a shot — directly connecting to the existing idea that procedural non‑engagement and conservative acquisition norms cull controversial or risky work before it reaches readers.
Robin Hanson
2026.01.13
55% relevant
Hanson’s bottleneck argument intersects with the documented practice where gatekeepers (peer reviewers, editors) can de facto silence manuscripts; both pieces show how small, upstream procedural or social chokepoints shape which ideas reach publics and therefore which norms can change.
Eric Kaufmann
2026.01.13
82% relevant
Kaufmann’s database is a direct institutional response to the gatekeeping problem described by 'Refusal‑to‑Review Silences Books'—it aims to collect and promote work that mainstream peer‑review channels or presses marginalize, providing an alternative route for contested manuscripts and ideas.
Isegoria
2026.01.11
76% relevant
Both describe procedural mechanisms that function as de‑facto governance of public discourse: the article’s 'autopoietic' institutions neutralize external correction through internal procedures (e.g., grants, panels, compliance), just as the 'refusal‑to‑review' idea documents procedural non‑engagement that suppresses ideas without public debate.
Ben Sixsmith
2026.01.11
48% relevant
Although the piece is not about peer review, its objections to 'lived experience' gating and the social policing of who can speak echo the documented mechanism where procedural non‑engagement (refusal to review) functions as de facto censorship in cultural institutions — both are forms of gatekeeping that remove voices rather than engaging them.
Helen Dale
2026.01.10
78% relevant
Helen Dale’s account maps directly to the existing idea about procedural non‑engagement functioning as de facto censorship: the article documents festival organisers and sponsor policies effectively forcing cancellations and authors to withdraw, the same mechanism identified in the idea (invited reviewers/hosts declining or institutions invoking controversy to kill events). Actor: Randa Abdel‑Fattah; events: Bendigo and Adelaide Writers’ Week.
Trenton
2026.01.07
90% relevant
Del Arroz’ account of being ejected from conventions and de‑platformed by Kickstarter/Indiegogo maps directly onto the existing idea about subtle procedural and platformed mechanisms (refusal, delisting, mass reporting) that function as de facto censorship in publishing; the article supplies an independent, practitioner example (WorldCon ejection; crowdfund removals) of that pattern.
Nicholas Carr
2026.01.07
65% relevant
The article laments the disappearance of a public literary conversation and traditional gatekeepers; this aligns with the documented mechanism where publishing gatekeeping and upstream de‑selection (reviewer refusal, editorial preemption) functionally censor or marginalize books and voices, accelerating the cultural decline Tamargo describes.
Arnold Kling
2026.01.06
72% relevant
Kling’s piece underscores the same institutional gatekeeping that the Refusal‑to‑Review idea describes: Field privileges academy‑grade credentials and academic networks when assessing conservative thinkers, which helps explain why right‑of‑center voices have trouble reaching mainstream scholarly attention and why editors/reviewers function as powerful selectors of which ideas surface.
Paul Bloom
2026.01.05
65% relevant
Bloom describes faculty-level gatekeeping and procedural resistance (dismissing MOOCs, rejecting innovation) that mirrors the existing idea about academic procedural non‑engagement as a form of de facto censorship or conservative status preservation; both diagnose how institutional procedures can block dissemination and change.
2026.01.05
60% relevant
The piece discusses how academic fashions and gatekeeping (theory‑driven norms) exclude dissenting views; that links to the existing idea about procedural scholarly gatekeeping that functions as de facto censorship.
2026.01.04
85% relevant
Both describe procedural or coercive mechanisms that prevent scientific dissent from entering the record: Lysenkoism forced the sidelining and persecution of geneticists, analogous to how peer‑review refusal can function as upstream censorship; the article documents state‑level suppression of Mendelian genetics and punishment of opponents.
Robin Hanson
2026.01.04
78% relevant
Hanson’s claim that academics cluster in dense topic 'cities' and that gatekeeping (peer review, tenure, funding) prevents attention to outlying, high‑value topics maps to the documented mechanism where invited reviewers simply decline to engage and publishers kill projects — both are institutional refusal modes that narrow which ideas survive academic vetting.
Razib Khan
2026.01.01
60% relevant
Khan highlights Ullica Segerstråle’s account of the sociobiology fights—where organized academic opposition and gatekeeping shaped which ideas survived public circulation—and explicitly compares that episode to modern ‘woke’ campus expulsions and cancellations (e.g., the Hooven case). That links the article directly to the existing idea about procedural gatekeeping in scholarly publishing and academic life.
David Josef Volodzko
2025.12.31
62% relevant
Volodzko’s piece documents how elite cultural institutions and publications curate which voices and incidents are amplified or suppressed (e.g., coverage choices around violent events and controversial writers), which parallels the existing idea about procedural gatekeeping in publishing and how review‑stage decisions operate as de‑facto censorship.
Johann Kurtz
2025.12.31
40% relevant
Kurtz explicitly frames cultural patronage, curated events and selective investment in art and education as means to shape taste and elite networks; this is an instance of organized gatekeeping and private cultural curation akin to the way publishing gatekeeping can de facto censor or filter which ideas reach the public.
Carl Rollyson
2025.12.30
48% relevant
While the piece focuses on biography rather than peer review, it highlights a related gatekeeping mechanism: subjects and institutions can shape a book’s fate (cooperation, withdrawal, pressure) and biographers worry about institutional responses — a sibling phenomenon to reviewers declining controversial manuscripts and thereby silencing work.
James Hankins
2025.12.29
65% relevant
The author reports an informal admissions protocol that excluded high‑performing white males—an example of procedural gatekeeping and tacit exclusion that matches the existing idea about non‑engagement and procedural mechanisms functioning as de facto censorship or selection controls.
Robin Hanson
2025.12.28
65% relevant
The existing idea documents how gatekeeping (reviewer refusal) functions as hidden censorship in publishing; Hanson attributes modernism’s spread to analogous professional gatekeeping (curators, critics, museums) that lets specialist judgments override popular taste, so the article supplies a parallel institutional example in the arts.
BeauHD
2025.12.01
68% relevant
Both cases show institutional actors using procedural levers to suppress unwelcome voices without an open public rebuttal: the abbey’s conditional offer (quit Instagram, cease press contact, forgo legal counsel, bar helpers) functions like the peer‑review refusal that quietly prevents contested ideas from reaching audiences—a de facto censorship through process rather than formal adjudication.
Aporia
2025.12.01
75% relevant
Noah Carl documents 81 petitions that use collective academic signatures to delegitimize colleagues and press for sanctions (disinvitations, retractions). That mechanism is the same structural phenomenon described in the 'Refusal‑to‑Review' idea: procedural or coordination tactics among academics functioning as de‑facto gatekeeping and censorship.
Jesse Singal
2025.11.30
72% relevant
Singal describes a cultural mechanism—dismissal by non‑engagement—that parallels the academic phenomenon where reviewers or editors decline to engage with controversial work and thereby functionally censor it; both are procedural, non‑evidentiary ways of narrowing which ideas reach publics.
Susan Pickard
2025.10.01
100% relevant
The press sent the Beauvoir manuscript to 26 reviewers; most backed out after seeing it, only one review arrived, and the 2025 contract was cancelled as 'too controversial.'