NAZM · Nezam and Nazm: Iran's Concept of International Order

The past, present, and future of the International Order are recurrent subjects of exploration and studies in International Relations, Middle East Studies, and History. Yet, most of such studies fail to grasp particularities and changes across time, space, and languages. In fact, International Order is traditionally discussed as an extension of the West or understood as a purely American-led phenomenon. How can we talk and study international order without grasping particularities of the concept across different geographies and histories? Relying on a universal concept and the Eurocentric and Anglophile analyses of the international order undermine the agency of the non-Western states and societies, obscures history, and limits the scope of our knowledge production by focusing on just a few cases. Attempts to go beyond the West are also usually framed as a way to assess the risks to ‘Western’ order or policies. By focusing on the case of Iran, this action challenges the assumption that 'International Order' has the same meaning across times, spaces, languages, and cultures. The action's state-of-the-art contributions to International Relations, conceptual history, and Middle East studies are manifested in its main objective to argue for investigating not just different conceptions of the international order but also analysing various usages of concepts to make sense of and order the international. The project asks how is international order conceptualised? Where does the order come from? What distinguishes a new order from an old order? It seeks to understand origins, conceptions, and evolutions of the international order at a time when the future of the order is being debated. Through conceptual history, Iran's distinct language and religious discourse also enables us to have a better understanding of the role of religion and temporality in the international order.