Description
Political research suffers from intradisciplinary fragmentation (Aris, 2020). Particularly, it applies to International Relations (IR) which scope is entangled in ever-increasing number of agendas and designs (Baele and Bettiza, 2020) which makes finding the common ground for IR scholars impossible (Sylvester, 2007; 2013). A solution to this issue is proposed by the idea of multiplicity (Rosenberg, 2016) that as an ontological claim calls for re-grounding IR to release it from political science and, also, to provide better empirical grounding for ‘the international’ as the basic concept of the area. That is necessary due to the domination of state-based political relations in IR agenda which limits its true potential. (Rosenberg, 2016). This article aims at accelerating the debate on IR disciplinary status and ontological entanglement through analyzing another puzzling idea – new medievalism – against multiplicity. Namely, multiplicity is accused of ‘break into the past’ (Peltonen, 2018), embodied by the state-based Westphalian model, while new medievalism indeed uses ‘historical analogy’ to capture the heterogeneity of actors in contemporary world politics (Bull, 2002). Methodologically, the analysis is based on critical exchange between chosen ideas. Basing on findings, the paper elaborates the scenario of re-grounding IR to ensure that it will be well-equipped in the face of global challenges.
