Neo-Gramscianism

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Neo-Gramscianism is a

Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault are cited as major sources within the critical theory of IR.[1]

Origins of the neo-Gramscian perspective

The beginning of the neo-Gramscian perspective can be traced to

Dinge an sich
.

However, Cox disavows the label neo-Gramscian despite the fact that in a follow-up article he showed how Gramsci's thought can be used to analyze power structures within the GPE. Particularly Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony, vastly different from the realists' conception of hegemony, appears fruitful. Gramsci's state theory, his conception of "historic blocs"—dominant configurations of material capabilities, ideologies and institutions as determining frames for individual and collective action—and of élites acting as "organic intellectuals" forging historic blocs, is also deemed useful.

The neo-Gramscian approach has also been developed along somewhat different lines by Cox's colleague,

VU University Amsterdam) and individual researchers in Germany, notably in Düsseldorf, Kassel and Marburg as well as at the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world, have adopted the neo-Gramscian critical method. Christoph Scherrer at the University of Kassel is one of the leading neo-Gramscian theorists in Germany who introduced the concept of "double hegemony". He represents the critical global political economy approach in Germany.[3]

Basics of the neo-Gramscian perspective

In the mainstream approaches to international or global political economy, the ontological centrality of the state is not in question. In contrast, neo-Gramscianism, using an approach which Henk Overbeek, Professor of International Relations at the VU University Amsterdam, calls transnational historical materialism, "identifies state formation and interstate politics as moments of the transnational dynamics of capital accumulation and class formation".[4]

Neo-Gramscianism perceives state sovereignty as subjugated to a global economic system marked by the emergence of a transnational financial system and a corresponding transnational system of production. The major players in these systems, multinational corporations and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, have evolved into a "transnational historic bloc" that exercises global hegemony (in contrast to the realist view of hegemony as the "predominant power of a state or a group of states").[5] The historic bloc acquires its authority through the tacit consent of the governed population gained through coercive techniques of intellectual and cultural persuasion, largely absent violence. It links itself to other social groups that have been involved in political struggles[6] to expand its influence and seeks to solidify its power through the standardization and liberalization of national economies, creating a single regulatory regime (e.g. World Trade Organization).

There are powerful forces opposing the progress of this historic bloc who may form counterhegemonies to challenge it as part of an open-ended class struggle. These might include

lesser developed countries, or identitarian and environmentalist movements in the industrialized West.[7] If a counterhegemony grows large enough, it is able to subsume and replace the historic bloc it was born in. Neo-Gramscians use the Machiavellian terms "war of position" and "war of movement" to explain how this is possible. In a war of position, a counterhegemonic movement attempts through persuasion or propaganda to increase the number of people who share its view on the hegemonic order whereas in a war of movement the counterhegemonic tendencies which have grown large enough to overthrow, violently or democratically, the current hegemony and establish themselves as a new historic bloc.[8]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-00658-3
    .
  2. ^ "A. Claire Cutler". University of Victoria.
  3. ISBN 978-3-8329-0320-6.[page needed
    ]
  4. ISBN 9780415694117
    .
  5. ISBN 9780367512507
    .
  6. ^ Emre, Iseri (2007). "Neo-Gramscian Analysis of US Hegemony Today". In-Spire: Journal of Politics, International Relations and the Environment. 2 (1).
  7. ISBN 9780203440162
    .
  8. S2CID 143091690
    .

External links
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