Neo Gramscian Perspectives

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Social Forces in the Struggle over Hegemony: Neo-Gramscian Perspectives

in International Political Economy
Adam David Morton
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in International Political Economy', Rethinking Marxism, 15: 2, 153 — 179
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RETHINKING MARXISM VOLUME 15 NUMBER 2 (APRIL 2003)
Social Forces in the Struggle over

Hegemony: Neo-Gramscian Perspectives
in International Political Economy
Adam David Morton

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Introduction
Situated within a historical materialist problematic of social transformation and

deploying many insights from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, a crucial break
with neorealist mainstream international relations approaches emerged by the 1980s
in the work of Robert Cox. In contrast to mainstream problem-solving routes to
hegemony in international relations—that develop a static theory of politics; an
abstract, ahistorical conception of the state; and an appeal to universal validity—
debate shifted toward a critical theory of hegemony, world order and historical
change.1 Rather than a problem-solving preoccupation with the maintenance of
social power relationships, a critical theory of hegemony directs attention to ques-
tioning the prevailing order of the world. It therefore “does not take institutions and
social and power relations for granted but calls them into question by concerning
itself with their origins and whether they might be in the process of changing” (Cox
1981, 129). Yet, instead of contrasting the concerns of these competing approaches,
the aim here is to pursue a critical theoretical route to questions of hegemony. This
move does not necessarily foreclose dialogue between problem-solving and critical
theory, as they are not mutually exclusive enterprises, but it does remain wary of
the assimilatory calls for synthesis that emanate from mainstream exponents.2
The critical impetus bears a less than direct affiliation to the constellation of
social thought known as the Frankfurt School represented by, among others, the work
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).
ISSN 0893-5696 print/ISSN 1475-8059 online/03/020153-27

© 2003 Association for Economic and Social Analysis
DOI: 10.1080/0893569032000113514
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
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.
A Critical Theory Route to Hegemony, World Order, and

Historical Change
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).
HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 155
taken as a move that reduces everything to production in an economistic sense:

“Production . . . is to be understood in the broadest sense. It is not confined to the
production of physical goods used or consumed. It covers the production and
reproduction of knowledge and of the social relations, morals and institutions that
are prerequisites to the production of physical goods” (Cox 1989, 39).
These patterns are referred to as modes of social relations of production, which
encapsulate configurations of social forces engaged in the process of production. By
discerning different modes of social relations of production, it is possible to consider
how changing production relations give rise to particular social forces that become
the bases of power within and across states and within a specific world order (Cox
1987, 4). The objective of outlining different modes of social relations of production
is to question what promotes the emergence of particular modes and what might
explain the way in which modes combine or undergo transformation (103). It is
argued that the reciprocal relationship between production and power is crucial. To
examine this relationship, a framework is developed that focuses on how power in

social relations of production may give rise to certain social forces, how these social
forces may become the bases of power in forms of state, and how this might shape
world order. This framework revolves around the social ontology of historical
structures.
A social ontology merely refers to the key properties that are thought to consti-
tute the social world and thus represents claims about the nature and relationship of
agents and social structures. In this case, the social ontology of historical structures
refers to “persistent social practices, made by collective human activity and trans-
formed through collective human activity” (4). An attempt is therefore made to
capture “the reciprocal relationship of structures and actors” (Cox 1995a, 33; 2000b,
55–9; Bieler and Morton 2001). Three spheres of activity thus constitute an historical
structure: the social relations of production, encompassing the totality of social
relations in material, institutional and discursive forms that engender particular
social forces; forms of state, consisting of historically contingent state/civil society
complexes; and world orders, which not only represent phases of stability and
conflict, but permit scope for thinking about how alternative forms of world order
might emerge (Cox 1981, 135–8). These are represented schematically in fig. 1 (138).
If considered dialectically, in relation to each other, then it becomes possible to
represent the historical process through the particular configuration of historical
structures. Social forces, as the main collective actors engendered by the social
Social
relations of production
Forms of World
state orders
Fig. 1. The dialectical relation of forces
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
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
1996b, 151), hence to how intersubjective meanings—shared notions about social

relations—shape reality. “ ‘Reality’ is not only the physical environment of human
action but also the institutional, moral and ideological context that shapes thoughts
and actions” (Cox 1997, 252). The crucial point to make, then, is that hegemony
filters through structures of society, economy, culture, gender, ethnicity, class, and
ideology. These are dimensions that escape conventional international relations
routes to hegemony that simply equate the notion with state dominance. As a result,
they conflate the two forms of power. There is a failure to acknowledge that “there
can be dominance without hegemony; [and that] hegemony is one possible form
dominance may take” (Cox 1981, 153 n. 27).
By including the intersubjective realm within a theory of hegemony, it is also
possible to begin appreciating alternative conceptions and different understandings
of the world. In this sense Cox refers to civilizations as different realms of intersub-
jectivity, although there might exist common ground or points of contact between
the distinct and separate subjectivities of different, coexisting civilizations (Cox

1996a, 2000a, 2001). Rival forms of capitalism are tied up with struggles between
different civilizations or ways of life so that the challenge is to articulate shared
ideas that can bridge the different realms of intersubjectivity (Cox 1995b, 16). This
applies as much to the maintenance of a hegemonic situation as it does to bids for
counterhegemony that aim to challenge and transform a prevailing hegemony.
Attention within this alternative route to hegemony therefore moves beyond
simply defining hegemony in state centric terms. It does so by broadening the inquiry
to include an intersubjective realm as well as encompassing a focus on the social
basis of the state. The latter key development will now be discussed in a little more
detail. This part of the discussion will also begin to indicate the role played by some
of Antonio Gramsci’s pivotal concepts.
Rather than reducing hegemony to a single dimension of dominance based on the
capabilities of states, the neo-Gramscian perspective developed by Cox broadens the
domain of hegemony. The conceptual framework outlined above considers how new
modes of social relations of production become established within distinctive forms
of state; how changes in production relations give rise to configurations of social
forces upon which state power may rest; and how world order conditions may
impinge upon these other spheres. Therefore, rather than taking the state as a given
or preconstituted institutional category, consideration is given to the historical
construction of various forms of state and the social context of political struggle.
This is accomplished by drawing upon the concept of historical bloc and widening a
theory of the state to include relations within civil society.
A historical bloc refers to the way in which leading social forces within a specific
national context establish a relationship over contending social forces. It is more
than simply a political alliance between social forces represented by classes or
fractions of classes. It indicates the integration of a variety of different class
interests that are propagated throughout society “bringing about not only a unison
of economic and political aims, but also intellectual and moral unity . . . on a
‘universal’ plane” (Gramsci 1971, 181–2). The very nature of a historical bloc, as
Anne Showstack Sassoon (1987, 123) has outlined, necessarily implies the existence
of hegemony. Indeed, the “universal plane” that Gramsci had in mind was the
158 MORTON
creation of hegemony by a fundamental social group over subordinate groups.

Hegemony would therefore be established “if the relationship between intellectuals
and people-nation, between the leaders and the led, the rulers and the ruled, is
provided by an organic cohesion . . . Only then can there take place an exchange of
individual elements between the rulers and ruled, leaders . . . and led, and can the
shared life be realized which alone is a social force—with the creation of the
‘historical bloc’ ” (Gramsci 1971, 418).
These issues are encompassed within the focus on different forms of state which,
as Cox notes, are principally distinguished by “the characteristics of their
historic[al] blocs, i.e. the configurations of social forces upon which state power
ultimately rests. A particular configuration of social forces defines in practice the
limits or parameters of state purposes, and the modus operandi of state action,
defines, in other words, the raison d’état for a particular state” (Cox 1987, 105). In
short, by considering different forms of state, it becomes possible to analyze the
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
correspond on the one hand to the function of “hegemony” which the

dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that
of “direct domination” or command exercised through the state and
“juridical” government. (Gramsci 1971, 12)
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
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.
A concept of control represents a bid for hegemony: a project for the

conduct of public affairs and social control that aspires to be a legitimate
approximation of the general interest in the eyes of the ruling class and, at
the same time, the majority of the population, for at least a specific period.
160 MORTON
It evolves through a series of compromises in which the fractional, “special”

interests are arbitrated and synthesized. (van der Pijl 1984, 7)4
Reference to the construction of hegemony, or the propagation throughout

society of a comprehensive concept of control, may be interchangeable. In either
case, to paraphrase Gramsci (1971, 181–2), the process involves the “most purely
political phase” of struggle and occurs on a “‘universal’ plane” to result in the
forging of a historical bloc.
A historical bloc therefore implies the constitution of a radical and novel recon-
struction of the relational nature and identity of different interests within a social
formation (Nimni 1994, 107). It indicates an organic link between a diverse grouping
of interests that merge forms of class and cultural identity. The construction of a
historical bloc, Cox (1983, 168) adds, is therefore a national phenomenon and cannot
exist without a hegemonic social class. Yet the hegemony of a leading class can
manifest itself as an international phenomenon insofar as it represents the develop-

ment of a particular form of the social relations of production. Once hegemony has
been consolidated domestically, it may expand beyond a particular social order to
move outward on a world scale and insert itself through the world order (171; 1987,
149–50). By doing so it can connect social forces across different countries. “A world
hegemony is thus in its beginnings an outward expansion of the internal (national)
hegemony established by a . . . social class” (Cox 1983, 171). The outward expansion
of particular modes of social relations of production and the interests of a leading
class on a world scale can also become supported by mechanisms of international
organization. This is what Gramsci (1971, 243) referred to as the “internal and
international organizational relations of the state”: that is, movements, voluntary
associations and organizations, such as the Rotary Club, or the Roman Catholic
Church that had an “international” character though rooted within the state. Social
forces may thus achieve hegemony within a national social order as well as through
world order by ensuring the promotion and expansion of a mode of production.
Hegemony can therefore operate at two levels: by constructing a historical bloc and
establishing social cohesion within a form of state as well as by expanding a mode
of production internationally and projecting hegemony through the level of world
order. The “national” point of departure, however, remains vital. It is within a
particular historical bloc and form of state that hegemony is initially constructed.
Yet, beyond this initial consolidation, as hegemony begins to be asserted inter-
nationally, it is also within other different countries and particular forms of state that
struggles may develop as a result of the introduction of new modes of production.
For instance, in Gramsci’s time, this was born out by the expansion of Fordist
assembly plant production beyond the United States which would lead to the growing
world hegemony and power of “Americanism and Fordism” from the 1920s and 1930s.
The way in which world hegemony may consolidate itself locally within a different
national setting is illuminated by the following passage: “It is in the concept of
hegemony that those exigencies which are national in character are knotted together
4. For further perspectives developing this notion of hegemonic, or comprehensive, concepts

of control see, Overbeek (1990, 1993) or van der Pijl (1998).
. . . A class that is international in character has—in as much as it guides social strata

which are narrowly national (intellectuals), and indeed frequently even less than
national: particularistic and municipalistic (the peasants)—to ‘nationalize’ itself in
a certain sense” (241; emphasis added).
As van der Pijl (1989, 12) has noted in relation to this passage, the struggle for
hegemony therefore involves “translating” particular interests, from a particular
form of state into forms of expansion that have universal applicability across a
variety of different states. Hence the importance of the “national” point of depar-
ture. It is within this context that hegemony is initially constructed, prior to outward
expansion on a world scale, and it is within this context that struggles unfold in
contesting hegemony. “The national context remains the only place where an
historic[al] bloc can be founded, although world-economy and world-political condi-
tions materially influence the prospects for such an enterprise . . . [T]he task of
changing world order begins with the long, laborious effort to build new historic[al]
blocs within national boundaries” (Cox 1983, 174).

As indicated above, world hegemony can be attained when international institu-
tions and mechanisms support a dominant mode of production and disseminate
universal norms and ideas, involving the intersubjective realm, in a move to trans-
form various state structures. In particular, international organizations can play a
key role in adjusting subordinate interests while facilitating the expansion of the
dominant economic and social forces (172–3). With this emphasis, three successive
stages of world order are outlined by Cox within which the hegemonic relationship
between ideas, institutions, and material capabilities varied, and during which
different forms of state and patterns of production relations prevailed. These are
the liberal international economy (1789–1873); the era of rival imperialisms
(1873–1945); and the neoliberal world order (post-World War II) (Cox 1987, 109).
Concentrating on the third era, known as pax Americana it is contended that a
United States-led hegemonic world order prevailed that was maintained through the
Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates and institutions like the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These institutions, along with the Group of Seven
(G-7) industrialized countries, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Devel-
opment, and the Bank for International Settlements, have been collectively referred
to as the “G-7 nexus” (Gill 1995a, 86). They have established mechanisms of
surveillance to ensure the harmonization of national policies in the attempt to
reconcile domestic social pressures with the requirements of a world economy (Cox
1981, 145). In the countries of advanced capitalism, the prevailing form of state was
based on principles of “embedded liberalism” (Ruggie 1982). There was a compro-
mise between certain domestic social groups (i.e., established labor seeking stability
and protection from economic and political vulnerabilities) and the interests of
multilateral institutions in the “G-7 nexus” with the aim of encouraging comparative
advantage, tariff reductions and international free trade, and increasing the inter-
national division of labor through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT). Within this form of state of “embedded liberalism,” Keynesian demand
management was promoted alongside Fordist techniques of mass production (Gill and
Law 1988, 79–80). The role of the state was to act as a mediator between the policy
priorities of the world economy and domestic groups. This was generally maintained
162 MORTON
through social relations of production known as tripartite corporatism involving

government-business-labor coalitions. Such arrangements lent priority to central
agencies of government that maintained links between the national and the world
economy—to wit, finance ministries, foreign trade and investment agencies, and the
office of presidents or prime ministers (Cox 1987, 219–30).5 This situation was
eventually accentuated following the world economic crisis of the 1970s and the
collapse of the Bretton Woods system during a period of “structural change” in the
world economy.
Elsewhere in the emerging global political economy, in countries of peripheral
capitalism, the form of state during the post-World War II period of United States-
led hegemony was generally based on principles of neomercantilist development.
This entailed more state-directed leadership that sought autonomy over the national
economy and growth through a model of import substitution industrialization. This
form of state was characterized by state corporatist social relations of production.
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.
Structural Change, Alternative Forms of State, and

Production Relations
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.”
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
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
164 MORTON
referring to the way transnational processes of consensus formation, underpinned by

the internationalization of production and the thrust of globalization, have been
transmitted through the policy-making channels of governments.6 The network of
control that has maintained the structural power of capital has also been supported
by an “axis of influence” consisting of institutions within the G-7 nexus (see above).
These institutions, along with the Trilateral Commission and other forums, have
ensured the ideological osmosis and dissemination of policies in favor of the
perceived exigencies of the global political economy. As a result, those state
agencies in close contact with the global economy—offices of presidents and prime
ministers, treasuries, central banks—have gained precedence over those agencies
closest to domestic public policy—ministries of labor and industry or planning offices
(Cox 1992, 31). It has been argued that this tendency in the transformation of the
state and the role of transnational elites (or a nébuleuse) in forging consensus
remains to be fully deciphered and needs much more study (30–1). Indeed, the
overall argument concerning the internationalization of the state was based on a

series of linked hypotheses suggestive for empirical investigation (Cox 1996d, 276).
Nevertheless, across the different forms of state in countries of advanced and
peripheral capitalism, the general depiction is that the state became a transmission
belt for neoliberalism and the logic of capitalist competition from global to local
spheres (Cox 1992, 31).
Although the thesis of the internationalization of the state has received much
recent criticism, the work of Stephen Gill has greatly contributed to understanding
this process as part of the changing character of United States-centered hegemony
in the global political economy, notably in his detailed analysis of the role of the
Trilateral Commission (Gill 1990). Similar to Cox, the global restructuring of produc-
tion along post-Fordist lines is located within a context of structural change in the
1970s. It was in this period that there was a transition from what Gill recognizes as
an international historical bloc of social forces, established in the post-World War
II period and centered in the United States but expanding on a world scale. This bloc
brought together fractions of productive and financial capital and elements within
state apparatuses to form a transatlantic political community. Since the 1970s,
conditions have emerged for the consolidation of a transnational historical bloc,
forging links and a synthesis of interests and identities not only beyond national
boundaries and classes but also creating the conditions for the hegemony of tran-
snational capital. While there is reluctance to presume that transnational hegemony
has thus been attained, it is added that certain social forces have become prominent
and have attempted to achieve transnational hegemony.
Yet Gill departs from Gramsci to assert that a historical bloc “may at times have
the potential to become hegemonic,” implying that hegemony need not prevail for
a historical bloc to emerge (Gill 1993, 40). The case of the European Economic and
Monetary Union is analyzed within the terms of a transnational historical bloc (Gill
2001, 54–5). Elsewhere it is added that the consolidation of neoliberalism within such
a bloc is based on supremacy rather than hegemony. Again drawing in principle from
Gramsci, it is argued that supremacy prevails when a situation of hegemony is not
6. For a similar, but competing, interpretation, see Picciotto (1991).

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
development by disseminating the notion of market civilization based on an ideology

of capitalist progress and exclusionary or hierarchical patterns of social relations
(1995b, 399). Within the global political economy, mechanisms of surveillance have
supported the market civilization of new constitutionalism in something tentatively
likened to a global “panopticon” of surveillance (1995c). Overall, it is argued by Gill
that these features of new constitutionalism, disciplinary neoliberalism, and market
civilization are supported by the politics of supremacy rather than hegemony.
The overarching concept of supremacy has also been used to develop an under-
standing of the construction of U.S. foreign policy toward the “Third World” and how
challenges were mounted against the US in the 1970s through the New International
Economic Order (Augelli and Murphy 1988). It is argued that the ideological promo-
tion of American liberalism, based on individualism and free trade, assured American
supremacy through the 1970s and was reconstructed in the 1980s. Yet this projection
of supremacy did not simply unfold through domination. Rather than simply equating
supremacy with dominance, Augelli and Murphy argue that supremacy can be main-
tained through domination or hegemony (132). As Murphy (1994, 295 n. 8) outlines
in a separate study of industrial change and international organization, supremacy
defines the position of a leading class within a historical bloc and can be secured by
hegemony as well as through domination. As Gramsci himself states, “the supremacy
of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as ‘domination’ and as ‘intellectual
and moral leadership’ ” (1971, 57). Where the former strain of supremacy involves
subjugation by force, the latter involves leading allied groups. In sum, just as
hegemony itself should not be equated with domination, neither should the notion
of supremacy suffer the same fate.
In addition to the neo-Gramscian perspectives discussed so far, there also exists
a diverse array of similar perspectives analyzing hegemony in the global political
economy. This includes, among others, an account of the historically specific way in
which mass production was institutionalized in the United States and how this
propelled forms of American-centered leadership and world hegemony in the post-
World War II period (Rupert 1995a). Extending this analysis, there has also been
7. The same argument is also apparent in Gill (1998).

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
democracy, is therefore analyzed as an adjunct of U.S. hegemony through institu-

tions such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National
Endowment for Democracy in the particular countries of the Philippines, Chile,
Nicaragua, and Haiti, and tentatively extended with reference to the former Soviet
bloc and South Africa. Other recent research has similarly focused on the promotion
of “democracy” in Southern Africa (Taylor 2001) as well as the construction and
contestation of hegemony in Mexico (Morton 2002, 2003a, 2003b). Furthermore,
aspects of neoliberalism and cultural hegemony have been dealt with in a study of
mass communications scholarship in Chile (Davies 1999). There are clearly a variety
of neo-Gramscian perspectives dealing with a diversity of issues linked to the analysis
of hegemony in the global political economy. The next section outlines some of the
criticisms leveled against such perspectives and indicates in what direction current
research is proceeding.
Welcome Debate: Controversies Surrounding

Neo-Gramscian Perspectives
Since the challenge of neo-Gramscian perspectives to mainstream problem-solving

approaches in international relations, a more recent period of intellectual and
political ferment has arisen. This has involved closer scrutiny of the neo-Gramscian
perspectives themselves from a variety of viewpoints. Yet, there has been rare
engagement with such criticisms. Beneath the surface impression of claims to
openness, therefore, it seems that, in relation to criticisms, a politics of forgetting
has persisted. Yet, as Steve Smith (1995b) has forewarned, it is incumbent upon such
perspectives to remain self-reflective about possible weaknesses. This section will
therefore outline a series of criticisms made against the perspectives as well as
highlight issues of disagreement with such criticisms.
In broad outline, neo-Gramscian perspectives have been criticized as too unfash-
ionably marxisant or, alternatively, as too lacking in Marxist rigor. They are seen as
unfashionable because many retain an essentially historical materialist position as
central to analysis—focusing on the “decisive nucleus of economic activity” (Gramsci
1971, 161)—but without succumbing to expressions of economism. Hence the

accusation that analysis remains caught within modernist assumptions that take as
foundational the structures of historical processes determining the realms of the
possible (Ashley 1989, 275). However, rather than succumbing to this problem, the
fallibility of all knowledge claims is accepted across neo-Gramscian perspectives,
which leads to a degree of diffidence about the foundations for knowledge (see
Neufeld 1995). A minimal foundationalism is therefore implied, based on a cautious,
contingent, and transitory universalism that combines dialogue between universal
values and local definitions within historically specific circumstances (Booth 1995;
Cox 1995b, 14; Cox 2000b, 46; Linklater 1998, 4–5, 101, 106–7; Rengger and Hoffman
1996).8 Elsewhere, other commentators have alternatively decried the lack of
historical materialist rigor within neo-Gramscian perspectives.
According to Peter Burnham (1991), the neo-Gramscian treatment of hegemony
amounts to a “pluralist empiricism” that fails to recognize the central importance
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
8. These issues are usefully surveyed in George (1994).

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
motion of capital” as absolute knowledge rather than as hypotheses (Cox 1996c,

176). Rather than upholding a fixed notion of historical materialism, the point is to
follow the spirit of Raymond Williams (1977, 3–4) and remain open to a body of
thinking that is active, developing, and unfinished. Therefore, though neo-Gramscian
perspectives cannot be separated from historical materialism, they may be distin-
guished within it (Smith 1996).
A different series of criticisms have separately centered on the thesis of globali-
zation and the internationalization of the state proposed by neo-Gramscian perspec-
tives. In particular, Leo Panitch has argued that an account unfolds which is too top-
down in its expression of power relations, assuming that globalization is a process
that proceeds from the global to the national or the outside-in. The point that
globalization is authored by states is thus overlooked by developing the metaphor of
a transmission belt from the global to the national within the thesis of the inter-
nationalization of the state (Panitch 1994, 2000). It has been added that this is a
one-way view of internationalization that respectively overlooks reciprocal inter-
action between the global and the local; overlooks mutually reinforcing social
relations within the global political economy; or ignores class conflict within national
social formations (Ling 1996; Baker 1999; Moran 1998). The role of the state,
following Panitch’s (1994, 74) argument, is still determined by struggles among social
forces located within particular social formations, even though social forces may be
implicated in transnational structures. Instead, it is argued that neo-Gramscian
perspectives fail to identify and engage with these contradictions of capitalism. Yet,
these issues are not necessarily beyond the scope of a neo-Gramscian conceptual
framework.
It will be recalled from the above discussion that the point of departure within
such an approach could equally be changing social relations of production within
forms of state or world order (Cox 1981, 153 n. 26). Indeed, Cox’s focus has been
on historical blocs underpinning particular states and how these are connected
through the mutual interests of social classes in different countries. Further,
following Cox, the national context is the only place where a historical bloc can be
founded and where the task of building new historical blocs, as the basis for
counterhegemony to change world order, must begin. Alternatively, though Gill
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
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).
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
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)
Moreover, Gramsci himself discussed features of world hegemony and made

reference to the “hegemony of the United States” and “American global hegemony”
while also discussing identity movements, voluntary associations, and international

public and private organizations that had an “international” character while main-
taining a presence within the “national” realm (Gramsci 1977, 79–82, 89–93; 1992,
167–70, 291, 354–5; 1996, 269–71, 282, 318–20). Therefore, rather than an unduly
narrow and restrictive reading of Gramsci, it is better to appreciate that the point
of departure for Gramsci was “national” which involved a focus on how social forces
within this realm were intertwined and shaped by the dialectic of global and local
social forces (Murphy 1998b; Rupert 1998). After all, Gramsci commented on the
dynamic of hegemony and treated “both the Renaissance state system and politics
within the twentieth-century within the same framework and with the same
concepts” (Augelli and Murphy 1993, 127).
Conclusion
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
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.
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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RETHINKING MARXISM VOLUME 15 NUMBER 2 (APRIL 2003)

Social Forces in the Struggle over

Adam David Morton

Situated within a historical materialist problematic of social transformation and

ISSN 0893-5696 print/ISSN 1475-8059 online/03/020153-27

A Critical Theory Route to Hegemony, World Order, and

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 155

taken as a move that reduces everything to production in an economistic sense:

examine this relationship, a framework is developed that focuses on how power in

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 157

1996b, 151), hence to how intersubjective meanings—shared notions about social

the distinct and separate subjectivities of different, coexisting civilizations (Cox

creation of hegemony by a fundamental social group over subordinate groups.

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 159

correspond on the one hand to the function of “hegemony” which the

A concept of control represents a bid for hegemony: a project for the

It evolves through a series of compromises in which the fractional, “special”

Reference to the construction of hegemony, or the propagation throughout

manifest itself as an international phenomenon insofar as it represents the develop-

4. For further perspectives developing this notion of hegemonic, or comprehensive, concepts

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 161

. . . A class that is international in character has—in as much as it guides social strata

blocs within national boundaries” (Cox 1983, 174).

through social relations of production known as tripartite corporatism involving

Structural Change, Alternative Forms of State, and

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 163

referring to the way transnational processes of consensus formation, underpinned by

overall argument concerning the internationalization of the state was based on a

6. For a similar, but competing, interpretation, see Picciotto (1991).

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 165

development by disseminating the notion of market civilization based on an ideology

7. The same argument is also apparent in Gill (1998).

democracy, is therefore analyzed as an adjunct of U.S. hegemony through institu-

Welcome Debate: Controversies Surrounding

Since the challenge of neo-Gramscian perspectives to mainstream problem-solving

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 167

1971, 161)—but without succumbing to expressions of economism. Hence the

8. These issues are usefully surveyed in George (1994).

motion of capital” as absolute knowledge rather than as hypotheses (Cox 1996c,

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 169

Moreover, Gramsci himself discussed features of world hegemony and made

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 171

while also discussing identity movements, voluntary associations, and international

Althusser, L. 1969. For Marx. Trans. B. Brewster. London: Allen Lane.

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 173

Review of International Political Economy 6 (1): 79–100.

Buttigieg, J. A. 1986. The legacy of Antonio Gramsci. Boundary 2 14 (3): 1–17.

Miliband and L. Panitch. London: Merlin Press.

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 175

Gareau, F. H. 1993. A Gramscian analysis of the social sciences. International Social

and the study of world politics. International Organization 52 (4): 645–85.

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 177

Showstack Sassoon, A. 1987. Gramsci’s politics. 2d ed. Minneapolis: University of

HEGEMONY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 179

Waltz, K. N. 1979. Theory of international politics. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Williams, R. 1977. Marxism and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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