Abstract: The key research focus of this article is the emergence and further development of the multipolarity concept in international relations academic discourse in the United States, Western Europe, Russia and China. Initially, the term was rooted in Western IR school, and was elaborated as an attempt to counter-balance USSR in the context of bipolar world. The article also covers the modern practice of using multipolarity discourse in Western international political science. Particular attention is paid to the formation of the concept of multipolarity in the Russian Federation and in the PRC in the post-bipolar world. Academic discourse of multipolarity is presented in close link to the practical dimension of the foreign policy concepts of the countries mentioned in this study. The re-emergence of multipolarity was closely associated with changes in the balance of power and an attempt to overestimate the role of superpowers in the world. The consistent development of the theoretical basis of the concept was carried out until the end of the Cold War in the framework of the Western school of IR. In Russian and Chinese studies, multipolarity mostly acts as an image of the desired world order. In recent years, a number of Western scholars have recognized the objective nature of a multipolar world and the need for strategic adaptation to its realities.