Conceptual History of International Order

The project seeks to understand origins, conceptions, and evolutions of the international order at a time when the future of the order is being debated. In doing so, it will make sense of not just different conceptions of the international order but also analysing various usages of concepts to make sense of and order the international.

The project aims to highlight the plurality and diversity of orders, societies, and concepts in international relations by focusing on the conceptual history of international order and on Iranian history. It breaks the binary of treating international order as unitary or just through the prisms of great powers. Conceptual history enables an understanding of how international order is embedded in time and enables various alternative ways for the past, present, and future to be represented socially and imagined politically. The project analyses the constructs addressing where the order originates, alongside philological modes and translation that make debating the international order possible. It also investigates modes and procedures producing religious knowledge of the universe and history.