Whither IR? Multiplicity, relations, and the paradox of International Relations

ABSTRACT

Justin Rosenberg rightly highlights the paucity of International Relations’ (IR) influence in other disciplines, and selected works in historical sociology demonstrate the significance of the international to others whilst also revealing problematic understandings of the international itself. In this regard, Rosenberg’s intervention is welcome. However, in staking the disciplinary credentials of IR on ‘societal multiplicity’, Rosenberg inadvertently exposes IR as part of a wider convergence on the ontological importance of relations (rather than substances) across the social sciences. Historical sociology scholarship also reveals the international to be but one part of an interconnected, multi-scalar social world that is shaped by multiplicity across all scales; multiplicity and relations permeate social scales. By exploring the Czechoslovak Corps in the Russian Revolution, the article broadens Rosenberg’s multiplicity whilst also revealing the paradox of a multiplicitous IR: the more IR acknowledges multi-scalar relations, the less distinguishable it becomes from the other social sciences.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiplicity
• historical sociology
• relational sociology
• International Relations
• ontology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Brieg Powel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7103-8637

Notes

1 Thanks to one of the anonymous reviewers for making this point.

2 Again, thanks to an anonymous reviewer for making this point.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brieg Powel

Brieg Powel is a Lecturer in International Security and Strategy/International Relations at the Strategy and Security Institute and Department of Politics, the University of Exeter, in the UK. He is currently co-convenor of the British International Studies Association’s working group on Historical Sociology and International Relations. His work has appeared in Review of International Studies, Democratization, International Relations, Perspectives on Politics, the Journal of Historical Sociology, and the Journal of North Africa Studies.