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1. My new article out this week "Nature and the International. Towards a materialist understanding of societal multiplicity" in @GlobalizationsJ argues IR needs to re-include nature, while global environmentalism needs a stronger grasp of the international https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2019.1676587
2 I argue the modern discipline of IR as it formed ejected geography (geopolitics) and any strong notion of the natural world, becoming 'radically sociological': structures, institutions, norms, identities. Nature came back in the 80s but externally to IR as an issue: environment
3 Meanwhile modern environmentalism emerged through globalist politics and sciences that treated the world as one single space, obscuring the fragmentation and unevenness of the international. We were told to 'think locally, act globally' - but not to 'think internationally'!
4. New Materialist IR brings matter back in by emphasising the non-human, complexity and embeddedness. But with hybridism and assemblage thinking and a weak notion of what 'the international' is Anthropocene ideas and Planet Politics give up on geopolitics & the international.
5. Justin Rosenberg has put forward a strong notion of the international going beyond 'bit of politics outside the state': IR should adopt 'consequences of societal multiplicity' as core object. This brings domestic and non-politics aspects under IR - but it stays anthropocentric
6. For old materialists 'society' necessarily emerged from a metabolism with nature. BUT this happens with multiple coexisting societies. With a materialist notion of 'societal', societal multiplicity may allow human-natural and international dynamics to be grasped together.
7. Thus, climate change for example is not a problem arising exogenously to the international, but emerges through international dynamics, and reciprocally affects the units, structure and processes of the international itself. Changing boundaries, modes of power, strategies etc.
8. The article is part of a Special Issue "Multiplicity: A New Common Ground for International Relations?" soon out in @GlobalizationsJ. Special thanks to editors Justin Rosenberg and @Kurki_m building on an earlier forum in International Relations /ENDS https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ireb/32/2
