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To cite this Article Morton, Adam David(2003) 'Social Forces in the Struggle over Hegemony: Neo-Gramscian Perspectives
in International Political Economy', Rethinking Marxism, 15: 2, 153 — 179
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/0893569032000113514
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0893569032000113514
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01 RMX15-2 Morton (JB/D).fm Page 153 Tuesday, September 30, 2003 9:41 AM
Introduction
1. While differences exist, the neorealist work of Kenneth Waltz, as well as that of Robert
Keohane, can be included within mainstream, problem-solving international relations
approaches to hegemony (see Waltz 1979, 1990, 1998, 1999; Keohane 1984, 1986, 1989a). The
classic critique remains that by Richard Ashley (1984).
2. The call for synthesis has been an abiding concern among many advocates of mainstream
international relations theory (see Baldwin 1993; Katzenstein, Keohane, and Krasner 1998;
Keohane 1989a, 173–4, 1989b, 1998). It can be regarded as a principal tactic in allocating the
terms of debate and settling competing ontological and epistemological claims (see Smith
1995a, 2000; Tickner 1997, 1998; Weber 1994).
154 MORTON
of Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno or, more recently, Jürgen Habermas (Cox 1995a,
32).3 Although overlaps may exist, it is specifically critical in the sense of asking how
existing social or world orders have come into being; how norms, institutions, or
social practices therefore emerge; and what forces may have the emancipatory
potential to change or transform the prevailing order. As such, a critical theory
develops a dialectical theory of history concerned not just with the past but with a
continual process of historical change and with exploring the potential for alternative
forms of development (Cox 1981, 129, 133–4). This critical theory of hegemony thus
focuses on interaction between particular processes, notably springing from the
dialectical possibilities of change within the sphere of production and the exploita-
tive character of social relations—not as unchanging, ahistorical essences but as a
continuing creation of new forms (132).
The emergence of this problematic can also be situated within a reaction to the
more scientific or positivistic currents within historical materialism. It is well known
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that Antonio Gramsci himself reacted against the crude reasoning of Nikolai Bukharin
in the “Popular Manual” that sought to establish historical materialism as a positive
science or sociology (Bukharin 1969; Gramsci 1971, 419–72). Similarly, for Cox, a
historical mode of thought was brought to bear on the study of historical change as
a reaction to the static and abstract understanding of capitalism associated with
Louis Althusser. Not unlike neorealist problem-solving approaches, Althusser sought
to design an ahistorical, systematic, and universalistic epistemology that amounted
to a “Theological Marxism” in its endeavor to reveal the inner essence of the universe
(Althusser 1969). The “scientific” character of Marxist knowledge was customarily
asserted by Althusser (1970, 132) in contrast with Cox’s divergent, historical
materialist insistence on considering the ideational and material basis of social
practices inscribed in the transformative struggles between social forces stemming
from productive processes (Cox 1981, 133; 1983, 163).
The first section of this paper therefore outlines the conceptual framework
developed by Robert Cox and what has been recognized (see Morton 2001a) as
similar, but diverse, neo-Gramscian perspectives in international political economy
that constitute a distinct critical theory route to considering hegemony, world order,
and historical change. Subsequently, attention will turn to situating the world
economic crisis of the 1970s within the more recent debates about globalization and
how this period of “structural change” has been conceptualized. Finally, various
controversies surrounding the neo-Gramscian perspectives will be traced before
elaborating in conclusion the directions along which future research might proceed.
According to Cox, patterns of production relations are the starting point for analyzing
the operation and mechanisms of hegemony. Yet, from the start, this should not be
3. For useful discussion of the contradictory strands and influences between Frankfurt School
critical theory and critical international relations theory, see Wyn Jones (2000).
01 RMX15-2 Morton (JB/D).fm Page 155 Tuesday, September 30, 2003 9:41 AM
Social
relations of production
Forms of World
state orders
Fig. 1. The dialectical relation of forces
01 RMX15-2 Morton (JB/D).fm Page 156 Tuesday, September 30, 2003 9:41 AM
156 MORTON
relations of production, operate within and across all spheres of activity. Through
the rise of contending social forces, linked to changes in production, there may occur
mutually reinforcing transformations in the forms of state and world order. There is
no unilinear relationship between the spheres of activity, and the point of departure
to explain the historical process may vary. For example, the point of departure could
equally be that of forms of state or world orders (153 n. 26). Within each of the
three main spheres it is argued that three further elements reciprocally combine to
constitute an historical structure: ideas, understood as intersubjective meanings as
well as collective images of world order; material capabilities, referring to accumu-
lated resources; and institutions, which are amalgams of the previous two elements.
These again are represented schematically in fig. 2 (136).
The aim is to break down over time coherent historical structures—consisting of
different patterns of social relations of production, forms of state, and world order—
that have existed within the capitalist mode of production (Cox 1987, 396–8). In this
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sense the point of departure for Cox is that of world order, and it is at this stage
that a discrete notion of hegemony begins to play a role in the overall conceptual
framework.
Within a world order, a situation of hegemony may prevail “based on a coherent
conjunction or fit between a configuration of material power, the prevalent collec-
tive image of world order (including certain norms) and a set of institutions which
administer the order with a certain semblance of universality” (Cox 1981, 139).
Hegemony thus becomes more than simply state dominance. It appears as an
expression of broadly based consent manifest in the acceptance of ideas, supported
by material resources and institutions, which is initially established by social forces
occupying a leading role within a state but is then projected outward on a world
scale. Hegemony is therefore a form of dominance, but it refers more to a consensual
order so that “dominance by a powerful state may be a necessary but not a sufficient
condition of hegemony” (139). As Cox has put it, “hegemony is a form in which
dominance is obscured by achieving an appearance of acquiescence . . . as if it were
the natural order of things . . . [It is] an internalized coherence which has most
probably arisen from an externally imposed order but has been transformed into an
intersubjectively constituted reality” (1994: 366). Hence the importance of
incorporating an intersubjective realm within a focus on hegemony. If hegemony is
understood as an “opinion-molding activity” rather than as brute force or domi-
nance, then consideration has to turn to how a hegemonic social or world order is
based on values and understandings that permeate the nature of that order (Cox
Ideas
Material Institutions
capabilities
Fig. 2. The dialectical moment of hegemony
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158 MORTON
social basis of the state or to conceive of the historical “content” of different states.
The notion of the historical bloc aids this endeavor by directing attention to which
social forces may have been crucial in the formation of a historical bloc or particular
state; what contradictions may be contained within a historical bloc upon which a
form of state is founded; and what potential might exist for the formation of a rival
historical bloc that may transform a particular form of state (409 n. 10). A wider
theory of the state therefore emerges within this framework. Instead of underrating
state power and explaining it away, attention is given to social forces and processes
and how these relate to the development of states (Cox 1981, 128). Considering
different forms of state as the expression of particular historical blocs and thus
relations across state/civil society fulfils this objective. Overall, this relationship is
referred to as the state/civil society complex that, clearly, owes an intellectual
debt to Gramsci.
For Gramsci, the state was not simply understood as an institution limited to the
“government of the functionaries” or the “top political leaders and personalities
with direct governmental responsibilities.” The tendency to solely concentrate on
such features of the state was pejoratively termed “statolatry”: it entailed viewing
the state as a perpetual entity limited to actions within political society (Gramsci
1971, 178, 268). It could be argued that certain neorealist, state centric
approaches in international relations succumb to the tendency of “statolatry.”
However, according to Gramsci, the state presents itself in a second way, beyond
the political society of public figures and top leaders: “the state is the entire
complex of practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only
justifies and maintains its dominance, but manages to win the active consent of
those over whom it rules” (244). This second aspect of the state is referred to as
civil society. The realms of political and civil society within modern states were
inseparable so that, taken together, they combine to produce a notion of the
integral state.
What we can do . . . is to fix two major . . . “levels”: the one that can be
called “civil society,” that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called
“private,” and that of “political society” or “the state.” These two levels
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The state should be understood, then, not just as the apparatus of government
operating within the “public” sphere (government, political parties, military) but
also as part of the “private” sphere of civil society (church, media, education)
through which hegemony functions (261). It can therefore be argued that the state
in this conception is understood as a social relation. The state is not unquestioningly
taken as a distinct institutional category, or thing in itself, but conceived as a form
of social relations through which capitalism and hegemony are expressed (Poulantzas
1978). At an analytical level, then, “the general notion of the state includes
elements which need to be referred back to the notion of civil society (in the sense
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that one might say that state = political society + civil society, in other words
hegemony protected by the armour of coercion)” (Gramsci 1971, 263). It is this
combination of political and civil society that is referred to as the integral state
through which ruling classes organize intellectual and moral functions as part of the
political and cultural struggle for hegemony in the effort to establish an “ethical”
state (258, 271).
Once again, the notion of hegemony is therefore extended and more fully
developed than in conventional approaches in international relations. Hegemony is
understood, as Overbeek (1994) has added, as a form of class rule, not primarily as
a hierarchy of states. For Cox, class is viewed as a historical category and employed
in a heuristic way rather than as a static analytical category (Cox 1987, 355–7, 1996e,
57). This means that class identity emerges within and through historical processes
of economic exploitation. “Bring back exploitation as the hallmark of class, and at
once class struggle is in the forefront, as it should be” (Ste. Croix 1981, 57). As such,
class-consciousness emerges, as E. P. Thompson (1968, 8–9; 1978) has argued, out
of particular historical contexts of struggle rather than mechanically deriving from
objective determinations that have an automatic place in production relations.
Hence class identity is captured within the broader notion of social forces. Class
identity is inscribed in social forces, but those are not reducible to class. Other forms
of identity are included within the rubric of social forces—ethnic, nationalist,
religious, gender, sexual—with the aim of addressing how, like class, these derive
from a common material basis linked to relations of exploitation (Cox 1992, 35).
The construction of hegemony, from a neo-Gramscian perspective, therefore
occurs when a leading class transcends its particular economic-corporate interests
and is capable of binding and cohering the diverse aspirations and general interests
of various social forces. Within some neo-Gramscian perspectives, the construction
of hegemony is sometimes referred to as a comprehensive concept of control.
160 MORTON
162 MORTON
Yet, due to foreign penetration of the national economy, such production relations
did not encompass the whole economy. There would therefore be overlaps between
different modes, including enterprise and tripartite corporatism as well as subsist-
ence agricultural production, organized within a hierarchical arrangement (230–4).
In the “embedded liberal” and “neomercantilist” forms of state, however, it is
argued that the forms and functions of United States-led hegemony began to alter
during a phase of “structural change” in the 1970s (see Morton 2003b). This conten-
tion is based around twin propositions linked to the internationalization of the state
and the internationalization of production. It is commonly argued that these devel-
opments precipitated moves toward the phenomenon that is now recognized as
globalization.
The world economic crisis of 1973–4 followed the abandonment of the U.S. dollar/
gold standard link and signaled a move away from the Bretton Woods system of fixed
exchange rates to more flexible adjustment measures. The crisis involved oil price
rises initiated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and
heightened inflation and indebtedness within the countries of advanced capitalism.
The post-World War II “embedded liberal” world order based on Keynesian demand
management and Fordist industrialism, involving tripartite, corporatist-type rela-
tions between government-business-labor, gave way to a restructuring of the social
relations of production. This involved the encouragement of social relations of
production based on enterprise corporatism, leading a shift in the coalitional basis
of various states away from a secure, unionized state sector toward the promotion
5. It is worth noting that though the state form of “embedded liberalism” is referred to by Cox
as the “neoliberal state,” this precedent is not followed. This is because confusion can result
when using his term and distinguishing it from the more conventional understanding of
neoliberalism related to processes in the late 1970s and 1980s, which he calls “hyper-
liberalism.”
01 RMX15-2 Morton (JB/D).fm Page 163 Tuesday, September 30, 2003 9:41 AM
of private business interests and the creation of favorable conditions for internation-
ally and transnationally oriented business (Cox 1987, chap. 8). Hence a period of
structural change unfolded in the 1970s during which there was a tendency to
encourage, through different state/civil society relations, the consolidation of new
priorities. However, the ongoing changes stemming from the context of 1970s
structural change have been far from uniform. Nevertheless, the rising priorities of
enterprise corporatism—among others, monetarism, supply-side economics, and the
logic of competitiveness—began increasingly to establish, albeit alongside prolonged
social struggle, a “hegemonic aura” throughout the world order during the 1980s and
1990s often referred to as the Reagan-Thatcher model of capitalism (Cox 1991/1996,
196). As Craig Murphy has noted, “adjustment to the crisis occurred at different rates
in different regions, but in each case it resulted in a ‘neo-liberal’ shift in govern-
mental economic policy and the increasing prominence of financial capital” (1998a,
159). During this period of structural change in the 1970s, then, the social basis
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across many forms of state altered as the logic of capitalist market relations created
a crisis of authority in established institutions and modes of governance (see Morton
2003b). This overall crisis, both of the world economy and of social power within
various forms of state, has been explained as the result of two particular tendencies:
the internationalization of production and the internationalization of the state that
led the thrust toward globalization.
Since the erosion of pax Americana principles of world order in the 1970s, there
has been an increasing internationalization of production and finance driven, at the
apex of an emerging global class structure, by a “transnational managerial class”
(Cox 1981, 147). Taking advantage of differences between countries, there has been
an integration of production processes on a transnational scale with transnational
corporations promoting the operation of different elements of a single process in
different territorial locations. Besides the transnational managerial class, other
elements of productive capital (involved in manufacturing and extraction), including
small- and medium-sized businesses acting as contractors and suppliers and import/
export businesses, as well as elements of financial capital (involved in banking
insurance and finance) have been supportive of this internationalization of produc-
tion. Hence there has been a rise in the structural power of internationally mobile
capital supported and promoted by forms of elite interaction that have forged
common perspectives among business, state officials, and representatives of inter-
national organizations favoring the logic of capitalist market relations (Gill and Law
1989, 484). While some have championed such changes as the “retreat of the state”
(Strange 1996) or the emergence of a “borderless world” (Ohmae 1990, 1996), and
others have decried the global proportions of such changes in production (Hirst and
Thompson 1996; Weiss 1998), it is argued here that the internationalization of
production has profoundly restructured—but not eroded—the role of the state. After
all, “the state as an institutional and social entity . . . creates the possibility for the
limitation of such structural power, partly because of the political goods and services
which it supplies to capitalists and the institutional autonomy it possesses. The
stance of the state towards freedom of enterprise . . . is at the heart of this issue”
(Gill and Law 1989, 480).
The notion of the internationalization of the state captures this dynamic by
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164 MORTON
apparent and when dominance is exercised through a historical bloc over fragmented
opposition. It is therefore argued that dominant forces within the contemporary
transnational historical bloc of neoliberalism practice a politics of supremacy (Gill
1995b, 400, 402, 412).7 This politics of supremacy is organized through two key
processes, the new constitutionalism of disciplinary neoliberalism, and the concom-
itant spread of market civilization.
According to Gill, new constitutionalism involves the narrowing of the social basis
of popular participation within the world order of disciplinary neoliberalism. It
involves the hollowing out of democracy and the affirmation, in matters of political
economy, of a set of macroeconomic policies such as market efficiency, discipline
and confidence, policy credibility and competitiveness. It is “the move towards
construction of legal or constitutional devices to remove or insulate substantially the
new economic institutions from popular scrutiny or democratic accountability” (Gill
1991; 1992, 165). It results in an attempt to make neoliberalism the sole model of
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166 MORTON
consideration of struggles between social forces in the United States over the North
American Free Trade Agreement and globalization (Rupert 1995b, 2000). There have
also been analyses of European integration within the context of globalization and
the role of transnational classes within European governance (Bieler 2000; Bieler and
Morton 2001b; van Apeldoorn 2000; Holman and van der Pijl 1996; Holman, Over-
beek, and Ryner 1998; Shields 2001, 2003); the internationalization and democratiz-
ation of Southern Europe, particularly Spain, within the global political economy
(Holman 1996); and analysis of international organizations, including the role of
gender and women’s movements (Lee 1995; Stienstra 1994; Whitworth 1994). There
has also been a recent return to understanding forms of U.S. foreign policy interven-
tion within countries of peripheral capitalism. This has included analyzing the
promotion of polyarchy defined as “a system in which a small group actually rules
and mass participation in decision-making is confined to leadership choice in elec-
tions carefully managed by elites” (Robinson 1996, 49). Polyarchy, or low-intensity
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of the capital relation and is therefore preoccupied with the articulation of ideology.
By granting equal weight to ideas and material capabilities, it is argued, the
contradictions of the capital relation are blurred, resulting in “a slide towards an
idealist account of the determination of economic policy” (81). Hence there is an
inability to grapple with the dynamics of globalization because the categories of
state and market are regarded as opposed forms of social organization that operate
separately, in external relationship to one another. This leads to a supposed reifica-
tion of the state as a “thing” in itself standing outside the relationship between
capital and labor (Burnham 1997, 1999, 2000). Instead, it is recommended that a
“totalizing” theory, rooted in central organizing principles, be developed that is
attentive to the relations between labor, capital, and the state. To what extent this
“totalizing” approach results in a unified view of labor and a heroic vision of the
working class as an undifferentiated mass is, however, an open question.
In specific response to these criticisms, it was outlined earlier in the paper how
the social relations of production are taken as the starting point for thinking about
world order and the way they engender configurations of social forces. By thus asking
which modes of social relations of production within capitalism have been prevalent
in particular historical circumstances, the state is not treated as an unquestioned
category. Indeed, rather closer to Burnham’s own position than he might admit, the
state is treated as an aspect of the social relations of production so that questions
about the apparent separation of politics and economics or states and markets within
capitalism are promoted (see Burnham 1994). Although a fully developed theory of
the state is not evident, there clearly exists a set of at least implicit assumptions
about the state as a form of social relations through which capitalism and hegemony
are expressed. Therefore, akin to arguments elsewhere, it is possible from within a
neo-Gramscian perspective to raise questions about how different forms of state are
established and how—through the contradictions of capital—the functions of the
state are revised and supplemented (Holloway and Picciotto 1977).
Additionally, Burnham (1991, 76) argues that the account of hegemony developed
across neo-Gramscian perspectives “is barely distinguishable from a sophisticated
168 MORTON
neo-realist account.” Yet this undervalues a critical theory route to hegemony and
the insistence on an ethical dimension to analysis in which “questions of justice,
legitimacy and moral credibility are integrated sociologically into the whole and into
many . . . key concepts” (Gill 1993, 24). Ideas are accepted as part of the global
political economy itself, which facilitates recognition of the ideology and normative
element underpinning a perspective. The production of intersubjective meanings
within this theory of hegemony is therefore also undervalued. While Burnham’s
critique does rightly point to the danger of overstating the role of ideas within neo-
Gramscian perspectives (Bieler 1996), the function of intellectual activity across
state/civil society relations and the role of consent as a necessary form of hegemony
should not be overlooked. After all, “ideologies are anything but arbitrary; they are
real historical facts which must be combated and their nature as instruments of
domination exposed” (Gramsci 1995, 395). The point is therefore not to take the
position of “Theological Marxists” who focus on the “law of value” and the “law of
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tends to take a different tack on the application of notions such as historical bloc
and supremacy, he is still interested in analyzing attempts to constitutionalize
neoliberalism at the domestic, regional, and global levels. As Gill puts it, “there is
a growing contradiction between the tendency towards the globality and universality
of capital in the neoliberal form and the particularity of the legitimation and
enforcement of its key exploitative relations by the state. Whereas capital tends
towards universality, it cannot operate outside of or beyond the political context,
and involves, planning, legitimation, and the use of coercive capacities by the state”
(1995b, 422).
Therefore, the emphasis should not be misunderstood. Like attempts elsewhere
to grapple with globalization (Radice 1998, 1999, 2000), there is a focus on trans-
national networks of production and how national governments have lost much
autonomy in policymaking, but also how states are still an integral part of this
process. The overall position adopted on the relationship between the global and
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the national, or between hegemony and historical bloc, may differ from one neo-
Gramscian perspective to the next, but it is usually driven by the purpose and
empirical context of the research. Yet, noting the above concerns, the peculiarities
of history within specific national historical and cultural contexts should not be
overlooked. It is therefore perhaps important to admit the significance of taking a
“national” point of departure—following Gramsci—that involves focusing on the
intertwined relationship between “international” forces and “national” relations
within state/civil society relations that react both passively and actively to the
mediation of global and regional forces (Showstack Sassoon 2001).
Further criticisms have also focused on how the hegemony of transnational
capital has been overestimated and how the possibility for transformation within
world order is thereby diminished by neo-Gramscian perspectives (Drainville 1995).
Analysis, notes André Drainville, “must give way to more active sorties against
transnational neoliberalism, and the analysis of concepts of control must beget
original concepts of resistance” (1994, 125). It is therefore important, as Paul
Cammack (1999) has added, to avoid overstating the coherence of neoliberalism and
to identify materially grounded opportunities for counterhegemonic action. All too
often, a host of questions related to counterhegemonic forms of resistance are left
for future research. Hence the importance of focusing on movements of resistance
and addressing strategies of structural transformation that may be seen as the
formation and basis of counterhegemony (Morton 2002).9 The demonstrations during
the “Carnival Against Capitalism” (London, June 1999), mobilizations against the
World Trade Organization (Seattle, November 1999), protests against the Inter-
national Monetary Fund and World Bank (Washington, April 2000, and Prague,
September 2000), and “riots” during the European Union summit at Nice (December
2000), as well as the G-8 meeting at Genoa (July 2001), would all seemingly further
expose the imperative of analyzing globalization as a set of highly contested social
relations. Such demonstrations might even precipitate the realization that globaliz-
ation is class struggle.
9. For further initial attempts to deal with issues of resistance, see Cox (1999) and Gill (2000,
2001). A version of the former is available in Spanish; see Cox (1998).
01 RMX15-2 Morton (JB/D).fm Page 170 Tuesday, September 30, 2003 9:41 AM
170 MORTON
The final and most recent criticisms arise from the call for a much needed
engagement by neo-Gramscian perspectives with the writings of Gramsci and thus
the complex methodological, ontological, epistemological, and contextual issues
that embroiled the Italian thinker (Germain and Kenny 1998). This emphasis was
presaged in an earlier argument warning that the incorporation of Gramscian insights
into international relations and international political economy ran “the risk of
denuding the borrowed concepts of the theoretical significance in which they
cohere” (Smith 1994, 147). To commit the latter error could reduce scholars to
“searching for gems” in the Prison Notebooks in order to “save” international
political economy from pervasive economism (Gareau 1993, 301; see also Gareau
1996). To be sure, such criticisms and warnings have rightly drawn attention to the
importance of remaining engaged with Gramsci’s own writings. Germain and Kenny
also rightly call for greater sensitivity to the problems of meaning and understanding
in the history of ideas when appropriating Gramsci for contemporary application. In
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such ways, then, the demand to remain (re)engaged with Gramsci’s thought and
practice was a necessary one to make and well overdue. However, once such tasks
are undertaken, it is clear that problems do arise with some of the key claims made
by Germain and Kenny (Morton 2003c). In particular, they have asked whether the
concept of hegemony can sustain explanatory power beyond the national context
and thus withstand the way hegemony has been “internationalized” within a neo-
Gramscian framework (Germain and Kenny 1998, 17). Also, they have claimed that
concepts such as hegemony, civil society, and historical bloc “were used exclusively”
in the grounding of national social formations by Gramsci (20). Yet, once the demand
to historicize and develop a wider theoretical and practical reading of Gramsci is
taken seriously, these claims are revealed to be somewhat hollow.
Once again the pivotal issue is the “national” point of departure. The notion of
historical bloc, as argued above, was certainly limited to “relations within society”—
involving the development of productive forces, the level of coercion, or relations
between political parties that constitute “hegemonic systems within the state.” Yet
constant references were made by Gramsci to hegemony based on “relations
between international forces”—involving the requisites of great powers, sovereignty
and independence that constitute “the combinations of states in hegemonic
systems” (Gramsci 1971, 176). Indeed, within Gramsci’s “national” point of depar-
ture there was a constant and dialectical juxtaposition between the national and
international realms.
[T]he internal relations of any nation are the result of a combination which
is “original” and (in a certain sense) unique: these relations must be
understood and conceived in their originality and uniqueness if one wishes
to dominate them and direct them. To be sure, the line of development is
towards internationalism, but the point of departure is “national”—and it
is from this point of departure that one must begin. Yet the perspective is
international and cannot be otherwise. (Ibid.: 240)
Conclusion
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To summarize, this argument has pursued a critical theory route to hegemony that
provides a distinctive alternative to mainstream international relations theory as
well as so-called structural Marxism that has little practical applicability to concrete
problems. Notably, a case was made for a critical theory of hegemony that directs
attention to relations between social interests in the struggle for consensual lead-
ership rather than concentrating solely on state dominance, by demonstrating how
various neo-Gramscian perspectives have developed a particular historical materi-
alist focus on and critique of capitalism.
As a result, it was argued that the conceptual framework developed by such neo-
Gramscian perspectives rethinks prevalent ontological assumptions in international
relations due to a theory of hegemony that focuses on social forces engendered by
changes in the social relations of production, forms of state and world order. It was
highlighted how this route to hegemony opens up questions about the social
processes that create and transform different forms of state. Attention is thus drawn
towards the raison d’état or the basis of state power, including the social basis of
hegemony or the configuration of social forces upon which power rests across the
terrain of state/civil society relations. With an appreciation of how ideas, institu-
tions, and material capabilities interact in the construction and contestation of
hegemony, it was also possible to pay attention to issues of intersubjectivity.
Therefore, a critical theory of hegemony was developed that was not equated with
dominance and thus went beyond a theory of the state-as-force. Finally, by recog-
nizing the different social purpose behind a critical theory committed to historical
change, this route to hegemony poses an epistemological challenge to knowledge
claims associated with positivist social science.
In a separate section, the thesis of the internationalization of the state and the
internationalization of production was outlined within which, it was argued, the
forms of world hegemony were altered in a period of structural change in the
emerging global political economy of the 1970s. Subsequently, a series of criticisms
was also outlined concerning the neo-Gramscian perspectives. Analysis can be
pushed into further theoretical and empirical areas by addressing some of these
criticisms. For example, in terms of further research directions, benefit could be
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172 MORTON
gained by directly considering the role of organized labor in contesting the latest
agenda of neoliberal globalization (Bieler 2003).10 It is also important to problema-
tize the tactics and strategies of resistances to neoliberalism by giving further
thought to autonomous forms of peasant mobilization in Latin America, such as the
Movimento (dos Trabalhadores Rurais) Sem Terra (MST: Movement of Landless Rural
Workers) in Brazil and the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN: Zapatista
Army of National Liberation) in Chiapas, Mexico (Morton 2002). At a more explicitly
theoretical level, additional work could also be conducted in revealing Gramsci’s
theory of the state and then situating this within a wider discussion of state theory
(Bieler and Morton 2003).
The overall theoretical and political consequences of such research can be
ascertained from two angles. First, there is a rejection of objectivist or empiricist
claims to value-free social enquiry dominant throughout the academy. This means
that, however controversial it may be, there is an emancipatory basis to research.
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Second, linked to the rejection of such empiricist and positivist knowledge claims,
greater emphasis is also accorded the principle of theoretical reflexivity. This entails
reflection on the process of theorizing itself and includes three traits: self-
awareness, as much as possible, about underlying premises; recognition of the
inherently politico-normative dimension of analysis; and an affirmation that judg-
ments about the merits of contending perspectives can be made in the absence of
“objective” criteria (Neufeld 1995, 40–1). The advantage of theoretical reflexivity
is that an opportunity is left to explain the emergence and social purpose of a
particular perspective and one’s own political position. However, though theory is
itself a form of political practice, it is not sufficient—hence the importance of instilling
a greater degree of invigorated social engagement within and beyond the practice of
theory to encompass the realm of everyday life. What ultimately matters, then, “is
the way in which Gramsci’s legacy gets interpreted, transmitted and used so that it
[can] remain an effective tool not only for the critical analysis of hegemony but also
for the development of an alternative politics and culture” (Buttigieg 1986, 15).
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Andreas Bieler, Joseph Buttigieg, David Ruccio, and the
anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting on previous versions of this
paper. The financial support of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Postdoctoral Fellowship is also acknowledged (Ref.: T026271041).
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political action within new workers’ organizations known as Factory Councils in Turin during
the biennio rosso (1919–20), can be found in Gramsci (1977, 1978, 1994). Also see the engaging
discussion in Schecter (1991).
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