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An increasing number of political analysts, IR theorists and international law scholars are wondering whether the present era of international relations can be called “modern” yet, or rather is something different from the Westphalian epoch of territorially sovereign states. In fact, the latter conception allows them to seize the global trends in international policy, marked by the waning of state-centric order. Since 1977, Hedley Bull’s category of “neo-medievalism” provides a useful, as well as intriguing, metaphor to explain the ongoing erosion of State sovereignty. This article aims to cast light on the explanatory power of this “neo-medieval” metaphor, assessing a scattered literature on this topic, and suggesting its new hermeneutic implications.
