Networks in International Politics – where do they come from where should they go?

International Relations as an academic subdiscipline has a long tradition of transforming the language and metaphors of actors in international politics into abstract and supposedly timeless theoretical concepts. Whether the Balance of Power or the European Family of States, there are many examples of historical political rhetoric diffusing into analytical theories. In a similar vein, the political language of globalization with its emphasis on the interconnectedness of the world corresponds to a proliferation of network concepts as analytical tools in contemporary academic research. This paper focuses on this analytical shift towards networks within the discipline of International Relations. It pursues two connected research questions: First, how does the proliferation of analytical network-concepts relate to the political language of globalization? Second, if these concepts are reactions to a specific historical context, are they necessarily bound to “their time”? To answer the first question, the paper will assess the hopes and promises associated with network concepts within International Relations. Which problems are these concepts supposed to solve? Here, the paper will argue that network concepts are utilized in two ways which relate directly to political phenomena associated with the language/phenomena of globalization: Firstly, they are used to make sense of supposedly new kinds of network-actors – multinational corporations, clandestine terror networks and activist movements – which are widely perceived as political, economic and cultural manifestations of globalization. Secondly, social network analysis (SNA) is used to assess and measure network-structures, thereby offering a way to account for the increased interconnectedness and the weakening of boundaries of social structures. This assessment leads to the second question of the paper: If these concepts are a direct reaction to a specific historical context – the globalized 21st century – are they bound to this context? Although (within international relations) analytical theories derived from a specific historical background are generally at risk to become outdated in the future, they are also often used to reassess the past. As new concepts, they tend to highlight certain, formerly underemphasized aspects of political realities. Alike to the Reassessments of common historical narratives in the “global history” literature (e.g. Osterhammel 2009; Reinhardt 2016) network heuristics can be brought to the “classical” past of IR. Here the paper will look at the period of the cold war, which has within the discipline heretofore mostly been studied through the lens of the “orderly” interactions of sovereign states. I will argue that network heuristics can be utilized to reframe our understanding of the underlying state-under-anarchy model of international politics, thereby allowing for a reintegration of the literature on empires back into the fold of the discipline of IR.