From margins to mastery: international relations and the future of political science

This article undertakes a critical yet constructive reassessment of political science as a discipline considering the growing relevance of International Relations (IR). It argues that the conventional frameworks of political science—particularly its state-centric focus, methodological compartmentalization, and limited engagement with transnational dynamics—are increasingly challenged by the complexity of contemporary global realities. Far from remaining a subordinate field, IR has evolved into a more integrative and conceptually expansive discipline capable of addressing the interplay between the local and the global, the material and the normative. The article explores how IRs theoretical and methodological pluralism, its normative commitments, and its capacity to engage with planetary challenges such as climate change, digital governance, and transnational identity formation provide a more adequate basis for analyzing the political today. By tracing the intellectual history of IR and highlighting its divergence from and complementarity to political science, the paper demonstrates how IR has moved beyond classical realist paradigms to incorporate ethical, sociological, and constructivist perspectives. It also introduces the concept of planetarity as a forward-looking analytical framework that challenges the anthropocentric and territorial assumptions of traditional political science. Ultimately, the article does not propose the replacement of political science, but rather its reorientation: one that embraces the contributions of IR to renew its relevance and capacity for meaningful inquiry in an interconnected world.