Description
This paper critically discusses the positionality and controversies in and around the concept of New Medievalism (NM) as coined by Hedley Bull (1977) in IR literature. NM is a metaphor based on the historical analogy of the contemporary world with the European Middle Ages. It creates a future scenario in which the state system is replaced by "the system of overlapping authorities and multiple loyalties" that develop due to the consequences of globalization and neoliberalism in governance. Taking into account this conceptual complexity, there is a question: how to define NM in IR? This paper argues that NM is a liminal concept in the context of how it projects world order as well as due to NM's positionality in IR academic discourse. Namely, as the project demonstrates, NM transgresses the modern imaginaries of world politics as well as the modern underpinnings of knowledge production. That manifests in three issues: 1) the conceptualisation of the international; 2) the framing of IR subject matter; and 3) the epistemic anxieties in knowledge production associated with NM.
