Theory in the Interregnum

Theory in the Interregnum

Which International Relations Theory Explains What in a World of Fraying Rules
By Naim Tahir Baig

The liberal international order is fraying, and every school of International Relations claims to have seen it coming. Theory in the Interregnum asks a sharper question: which theory explains what? Dr Naim Tahir Baig argues that no new grand theory has displaced the classics, and that explanatory power has instead fragmented by type of question.

Five families of theory each have a defensible home territory. Realism and its rationalist relatives explain how coercive and economic power is distributed and used. Liberal, constructivist, English School and critical approaches explain what survives of rules, norms and legitimacy. Multiplexity explains the plurality of arenas, with Global South theory as an independent source. Neo-royalism explains who decides when authority is personalised. Evolutionary approaches explain how institutions persist and change.

What sets the book apart is its method. It commits in advance to five scope hypotheses saying which lens should govern which kind of question, registers predictions before reviewing evidence, and subjects them to a blind test. Predictions for events before a fixed cut-off are derived by scholar panels from each school's published work. The book also deposits dated forecasts for 2027–2031. It then reports where its own rules fail.

The tests run on four contemporary cases: US–China technology and economic statecraft, Russia, Ukraine and European security, the Middle East and its cross-regional linkages, and BRICS+ and the Global South, alongside a long-run institutional panel. A transparent scorecard compares the lenses under stated rules, and the revised framework is then validated on cases the scorecard never saw.

Written as a scholarly monograph in four parts, the book gives scholars, graduate students and policy analysts a decision procedure for combining theories without sliding into eclecticism, and a clear account of what each tradition can and cannot tell us in a world of fraying rules.