Q:

Aggressive stalling of a publication: how do I publish?

I am unable to advance three papers written while I was a postdoc, even to submission. Two coauthors constantly stall. They send 'additional rounds' of edits, pre-submission, with minor changes, stall for months, and create nonexistant parts of the academic process (ex. asking me to send a document containing all relevant passages from all cited works and defending their inclusion). Recently, they have also begun harassing other coauthors who support moving the work forward.  One has withdrawn from the paper, calling us 'dysfunctional'. He is correct. On the first paper alone, I have over 100 pages of email correspondence and no path to submission.
The reason is straightforward: they were my advisers. I left my postdoc against their wishes, but with eight months notice, and obtained a faculty position without their support. One explicitly told me he would keep me from publishing my work. He also funded the work, and created the dataset it was drawn from, which in my discipline means authorship.
So, how do I prevail? Publishing is consent based. My primary goal: publish these three works. Secondary goal: keep them from removing me and publishing my work themselves.

A:

I'll provide a different perspective. You do say that they are engaged in the process, ask for things and make changes. That doesn't look to me like they're actively trying to prevent you from publishing. Why would they spend time on the paper at all if their goal is to not have it published?
So, to me it sounds like the problem might at least partially be with you. So be constructive:

Draw up a list of things you still want to change on the manuscripts
Ask them what they still want to change
Create a timeline for this to happen

You're unlikely going to get anywhere by being antagonistic, and you need the papers for your career. So relax your stance, be pragmatic and flexible, and see whether you can elucidate what their concerns are and how they can be overcome through a concrete set of steps everyone can agree upon.

A:

You could also wonder: if you already have a faculty position, how helpful will it be to have these papers published (you'd be first author, not last, I assume), and consequently, how much of your time should you invest in moving this forward?

