An international politics of Czech architecture; or, reviving the international in international political sociology

Abstract

Politics was long overlooked in analyses of architecture. International politics still is. Yet one of the sub-fields of International Relations seemingly best equipped to address this oversight, ‘International Political Sociology’ (IPS), is at a crossroads with leading scholars bemoaning the dominance of Sociology over the political and the international. They concur on the need revive the political, but some advocate abandoning the international. Instead, I argue that IPS scholars should embrace the international and suggest a particular way to do so via Rosenberg’s concept of Multiplicity. This transforms the international from the object of analysis into an analytical and heuristic lens through which to examine the constitutive effects on, (e.g.) architecture, of (international) societal co-existence, interaction, combination, difference, and dialectical change. Using examples from the late Habsburg period to the present, I sketch an international politics of ‘Czech’ architecture and show the value of ‘the international’ in and beyond IPS.