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Historical sociological studies in IR face a challenge similar to that discussed by Martin Wight in ‘Why is There no International Theory?’ Classical social theorists conceptualized ‘society’ in the ontological singular, leaving their successors with a ‘domestic analogy’ problem which has dogged attempts to provide a social theory of International Relations. Overcoming this problem requires an expansion of the premises of social theory to incorporate those general features of social reality which generate the phenomenon of ‘the international’. This expansion can be achieved using Leon Trotsky's idea of ‘uneven and combined development’. Specifically, the existence of ‘the international’ arises ultimately from the ‘unevenness’ of human sociohistorical existence; its distinctive characteristics can be derived from analysis of the resultant condition of ‘combined development’; and its significance, thus sociologically redefined, entails a reconceptualization of ‘development’ itself — one which removes the source of the ‘domestic analogy’ problem for historical sociology.

In recent decades, the discipline of International Relations has experienced both dramatic institutional growth and unprecedented intellectual enrichment. And yet, unlike neighbouring disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, History and Comparative Literature, it has still not generated any big ideas that have impacted across the human sciences. Why is this? And what can be done about it? This article provides an answer in three steps. First, it traces the problem to )R s enduring definition as a subfield of Political Science. Second, it argues that IR should be re-grounded in its own disciplinary problematique: the consequences of (societal) multiplicity. And finally, it shows how this re-grounding unlocks the trans-disciplinary potential of IR. Specifically, uneven and combined development provides an example of an IR big idea that could travel to other disciplines: for by operationalizing the consequences of multiplicity, it reveals the causal and constitutive significance of the international for the social world as a whole.

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