lol people know that ‘blind peer review’ is often not actually 'blind’ (anonymous), right?
once you’ve reached a point where you’re publishing in niche academic journals on niche subfields of knowledge, there are only so many people in the world who devote their careers to the same thing as you, and even fewer once you take into account language barriers and the exclusion of many global south academics from global north academic journals and discourse. a journal you’ve submitted a paper to might, realistically, be choosing from a pool of like 5-10 people, if that many, who can read and comment on your work at a specialist level. you probably know who all of these people are, both from reading their work, and from like, rubbing shoulders with them at conferences. you have probably, by this point, presented earlier versions of your work to them at those conferences, so they likely know who you are as well. on top of that, if you’ve done your job well, you probably cited every single one of these people in the paper that needs reviewing, in your literature section if nowhere else. 'blind’ review is a fiction lol
& yes this means that, no matter how scrupulous any individual might perceive themself as being, there is p much always an incentive 1) for junior scholars to cite established scholars in positive / flattering ways, and 2) for those established scholars to then reward those papers with the positive peer review that gets them published in high-ranked journals. this is one of the phenomena being alluded to when people say that modern academic discourse, like its medieval counterparts, runs on patronage relationships