Skip to ContentSkip to Navigation
Research The Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG) Research Research centres Centre for International Relations Research (CIRR) Chair Group on History and Theory of International Relations Research themes

Periodization and the Medieval/Modern Divide in International Relations

Historical Epistemology | Modes of Reasoning

This project analyses periodization in International Relations, focusing particularly on the medieval-to-modern transition. The main goal is to question the fundamental break between the Middle Ages and modernity and to highlight the problems such an assumption represents for our understanding of international politics. In so doing, the project aims at broadening the theoretical horizon or IR, exposing some of the problematic assumptions which rest on temporal ruptures as a way to theorize international politics. Instead, it intends to work out a direction for a more contextual theorizing, one which acknowledges the extent to which the “modern” state emerged as a form quite indistinct from its predecessors, and which takes into account the historical diversity of organizational forms of political life rather than their assumed similarity .

To this end, the project involves 17 academics including both Medieval and Early Modern historians and IR scholars from a variety of theoretical orientations. This project has been funded by a Catalytic Research Workshop Grant from the International Studies Association.

RUG investigators involved: Dr. Julia Costa Lopez | Dr. Xavier Guillaume (as of August 2016)

Research themes: Historical Epistemology | Modes of Reasoning | Research Network

Last modified:22 February 2017 2.03 p.m.