paradigm, for its adherents, assumes the mantle, as it \ /ere, of near,if not absolute, truth.

Notes

1 This chapter is a revised version of Gill (1991a). I am grateful to Robert Coxfor highlighting the importance of Gramsci's conception of myth, and toFrank Pearce for clarifying questions relaťing to Marxist structuralism.

2 Note from Robert Cox to the author, 29 September 1990.3 I am grateful to Robert Cox for emphasising this point.4 Here we might distinguish between logical contradiction, of the type

which characterises formal logic and mathemaťics (e'g' as discrrssed inHegel,s Science of Logic) and historical contradicťions, which occur partly asa result of human collecťivities acquiring self-consciousness and a capacityto conceptualise and understand and act upon historical forces. Of course,there is thus no single or straightforward way to define or elaborate thenature of historical contradictions. To do so necessarily implies theconstruction of ontological abstractions and categories. In the preface tothis collection I made an initial sketch of the contemporary historicaldialectic of integration-disintegraťion world order, that is the historicalťransformation in world order which was being brought about by thecontradictions between the globalising thrust of internationally mobilecapital and the more territorially bounded nature of political authority andlegitimacy in the late twentieth century.

5 For an elaboration of these points, see C. Murphy and R. Tooze,'Introduc-tion' and 'Getting Beyond the "Common Sense" of the IPE Orthodoxy'(Murphy and Tooze, 199'|. I-32).

2 GRAMSCI, HEGEMONYAND INTERNATIONALRELATIONS: AN ESSAY INMETHODROBERT W. COX

Some time ago I began reading Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. In these

fragments, written in a fascist prison between 1929 and 1935, the

former leader of the Italian Communist Party was concerned with the

problem of understanding capitalist societies in the 1920s and 1930s,

and particularly with the meaning of fascism and the possibilities of

building an alternative form of state and society based on the working

class. What he had to say centred upon the state, upon the relation-

ship of civil society to the state, and upon the relationship of politics,

ethics and ideology to production. Not surprisingly, Gramsci did nothave very much to say directly about international relations. Never-theless, I found that Gramsci's thinking was helpful in understandingthe meaning of international organisation with which I was thenprincipally concerned. Particularly valuable was his concept ofhegemony, but valuable also were several related concepts which hehad worked out for himself or developed from others. This essay setsforth my understanding of what Gramsci meant by hegemony andthese related concepts, and suggests how I think they may beadapted, retaining his essential meaning, to the understanding ofproblems of world order. It does not purport to be a critical study ofGramsci's political theory but merely a derivation from it of someideas useful for a revision of current international relations theory.1

G R A M S C I A N D H E G E M O N Y

Gramsci's concepts were all derived from history - both fromhis own reflections upo., thor" periods of history which he thoughthelped to throw an explanatory light upon the present, and from hispersonal experience of political and social struggle. These includedthe workers' councils movement of the early 7920s, his participationin the Third International and his opposition to fascism. Gramsci'sideas have always to be related to his own historical context. Morethan that, he was constantly adjusting his concepts to specific

48 49

R O B E R T W . C O X

historical circumstances. The concepts cannot usefully be consideredin abstraction from their applications, for when they are so abstracteddifferent usages of the same concept appear to contain contradictionsor ambiguities.2 A concePt, in Gramsci's thought, is loose and elasticand attains precision only when brought into contact with a particularsituation which it helps to explain - a contact which also developsthe meaning of the concept. This is the strength of Gramsci'shistoricism and therein lies its explanatory Power. The term'histori-cism' is however, frequently misunderstood and criticised by thosewho seek a more abstract, systematic, universalistic and non-histori-cal form of knowledge.3

Gramsci geared his thought consistently to the practical purpose of

political action. In his prison writings, he always referred to Marxismas 'the philosophy of praxis'.a Partly at least, one may surmise, itmust have been to underline the practical revolutionary purpose ofphilosophy. Partly too, it would have been to indicate his intentionto contribute to a lively developing current of thought, given impetusby Marx but not forever circumscribed by Marx's work. Nothingcould be further from his mind than a Marxism which consists in anexegesis of the sacred texts for the purpose of refining a timeless setof categories and concepts.

O R I G I N S O F T H E C O N C E P T O F H E G E M O N Y

There are two main strands leading to the Gramscian idea of

hegemony. The first ran from the debates within the Third Inter-national concerning the strategy of the Bolshevik Revolution and thecreation of a Soviet socialist state; the second from the writings ofMachiavelli. In tracing the first strand, some commentators havesought to contrast Gramsci's thought with Lenin's by aligning Gram-sci with the idea of a hegemony of the proletariat and Lenin with a

dictatorship of the proletariat. Other commentators have underlinedtheir basic agreement.s What is important is that Lenin referred tothe Russian proletariat as both a dominant and a directing class;dominance implying dictatorship and direction implying leadershipwith the consent of allied classes (notably the peasantry)' Gramsci,in effect, took over an idea that was current in the circles of the ThirdInternational: the workers exercised hegemony over the allied classesand dictatorship over enemy classes. Yet this idea was applied by theThird International only to the working class and expressed the roleof the working class in leading an alliance of workers, peasants and

G R A M S C I / H E G E M O N Y A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E L A T I O N S

perhaps some other gÍoups potentially supportive of revolutionarychange.o

Gramsci's originality lies in his giving a twist to this first strand: hebegan to apply it to the bourgeoisie, to the apparatus or mechanismsof hegemony of the dominant class.T This made it possible for him todistinguish cases in which the bourgeoisie had attained a hegemonicposition of leadership over other classes from those in which it hadnot. In northern Europe, in the countries where capitalism had firstbecome established, bourgeois hegemony was most complete. Itnecessarily involved concessions to subordinate classes in return foracquiescence in bourgeois leadership, concessions which could leadultimately to forms of social democracy which preserve capitalismwhile making it more acceptable to workers and the petty bourgeois.Because their hegemony was firmly entrenched in civil society, thebourgeoisie often did not need to run the state themselves. Landedaristocrats in England, |unkers in Prussia, or a renegade pretender tothe mantle of Napoleon I in France, could do it for them so long asthese rulers recognised the hegemonic structures of civil society asthe basic limits of their political action.

This perception of hegemony led Gramsci to enlarge his definitionof the state. When the administrative, executive and coercive appa-ratus of government was in effect constrained by the hegemony ofthe leading class of a whole social formation, it became meaninglessto limit the definition of the state to those elements of governrnent.To be meaningful, the notion of the state would also have to includethe underpinnings of the political structure in civil society. Gramscithought of these in concrete historical terms - the church, theeducational system, the press, all the institutions which helped tocreate in people certain modes of behaviour and expectations con-sistent with the hegemonic social order. For example, Gramsciargued that the Masonic lodges in Italy were a bond amongst theSovernment officials who entered into the state machinery after theunification of ltaly, and therefore must be considered as part of thestate for the purpose of assessing its broader political structure. Thehegemony of a dominant class thus bridged the conventional cat-egories of state and civil society, categories which retained a certainanalytical usefulness but ceased to correspond to separable entitiesin reality.

-As noted above, the second strand leading to the Gramscian ideaof hegemony came all the way from Maihiavelli and helps tobroaden even further the potential scope of application o] theconcept. Gramsci had pondered what Machiavelli had written,

W:

51

R O B E R T W , C O X'wi

G R A M S C I / H E G E M O N Y A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E L A T I O N S

applying coercion against recalcitrant elements and building consentanong others. (This analysis was partly apposite to the period of theNew Economic Policy before coercion began to be applied on a largers6ale against the rural population.)

In Western Europe, by contrast, civil society, under bourgeoishegemony, was much more fully developed and took manifoldforms. A war of movement might conceivably, in conditions ofexceptional upheaval, enable a revolutionary vanguard to seizecontrol of the state apparatus; but because of the resiliency of civilsociety such an exploit would in the long run be doomed to failure.Gramsci described the state in Western Europe (by which we shouldread state in the limited sense of administrative, governmental andcoeÍcive apparatus and not the enlarged concept of the state men-tioned above) as 'an outer ditch, behind which there stands apowerful system of fortresses and earthworks'.

In Russia, the State was everything, civil society was primordial andgelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between Stateand civil society, and when the State trembled a sturdy structure ofcivil society was at once revealed. (Gramsci, 1971,:238)

Accordingly, Gramsci argued that the war of movement could not beeffective against the hegemonic state-societies of Western Europe.The alternative strategy is the war of position which slowly builds upthe strength of the social foundations of a new state. In WesternEurope, the struggle had to be won in civil society before an assaulton the state could achieve success. Premature attack on the state bya war of movement would only reveal the weakness of the oppositionand lead to a reimposition of bourgeois dominance as the institutionsof civil society reasserted control.

- The strategic implications of this analysis are clear but fraught withdifficulties. To build up the basis of an alternative state and societyupon the leadership of the working class means creating alternativeurstitutions and alternative intellectual resources within existingsgcietV and building bridges between workers and other subordinateclasses. It means actively building a counter-hegemony within anestablished hegemony while resisting the pressures and temptationsto. relapse into pursuit of incremental gains for subaltern groupsFfii" the framework of bourgeois hegemony. This is ttre line

letwgen war of position as a lon-g-range ievoluiionary strategy andsocial democracy as a policy of making gains within the esta6iishedorder.

especially in The Prince, concerning the problem of founding a new

státe. tr,tacrriavelli, in the fifteenth century, was concerned with

finding the leadership and the supporting social basis for a united

Italy; éramsci, in thl twentieth century, with the leadership and

supportive basis for an alternative to fascism' Where Machiavelli

tooked to the individual Prince, Gramsci looked to the Modern

Prince: the revolutionary party engaged in a continuing and devel-

oping dialogue with iti own base of support' Gramsci took over

rroďuacrriávelli the image of power as a centaur: half man, half

beast, a necessary combination of consent and coercion'8 To the

extent that the consensual aspect of power is in the forefront'

hegemony prevails. Coercion iJalways latent but is only applied in

ma"rginat, deviant cases. Hegemony is enough to e1su19 conformity

of behaviour in most people most of the time' The Machiavellian

connection frees the concept of power (and of hegemony as one

f o rmo fpowe r ) f r oma t i e t oh i s t o r i c a l l y s pe c i f i c s o c i a l c l a s s e su.,a girru, it a wider applicability to relations of dominance and

suboáination, includi''g, u' shall be suggested below, relations

of world order. It does not, however, sever pov/er relations from

their social basis (i.e., in the case of world order relations by

making them into relations among states narrowly conceived) but

directs attention towards deepening an aI /areness of this social

basis.

VYAR OF MOVEMENT AND WAR OF POS IT ION

In thinking through the first strand of his concept of

hegemony, Gramsči reflected upon the.experience of the Bolshevik

Revolution and sought to determine what lessons might be drawn

from it for the task oŤ revolution in Western Europe.9 He came to the

conclusion that the circumstances in Western Europe differed greatly

from those in Russia. To illustrate the differences in circumstances,

and the consequent differences in strategies required' - he had

recourse to the military analogy of wars of movement and wars of

position. The basic difierence between Russia and Western Europe

was in the relative strengths of state and civil society. In Russia, the

administrative and co"riirre apparatus of the state was formidable

butprovedtobevulnerable,whi leciv i lsocietywasundeveloped.Arelat ivelysmal lworkingclassledbyadiscipl inedavant.gardewasable to

-overwhelm the state in a war of movement and met no

effective resistance from the rest of civil society. The vanguard party-

could set about founding a new state through a combination of

53

R O B E R T W . C O X

PASS IVE REVOLUT ION

Not all Western Europeansocieties were bourgeois hegemon-ies. Gramsci distinguished between two kinds of society. One kindhad undergone a thorough social revolution and worked out fully itsconsequences in new modes oÍ production and social relations.England and France were cases that had gone further than mostothers in this respect. The other krrd were societies which had so tospeak imported or had thrust upon them aspects of a new ordercreated abroad, without the old order having been displaced. Theselast were caught up in a dialectic of revolution-restoration whichtended to become blocked as neither the new forces nor the old couldtriumph. In these societies, the new industrial bourgeoisie failed toachieve hegemony. The resulting stalemate with the traditionallvdominant social classes created the conditions that Gramsci called'passive revolution', the introduction of changes which did notinvolve any arousal of popular forces.10

One typical accompaniment to passive revolution in Gramsci'sanalysis is caesarism: a strong manintervenes to resolve the stalematebetween equal and opposed socialforces. Gramsci allowed that therewere both progressive and reactionary forms of caesarism: progress-ive when strong rule presides over a more orderly development of anew state, reactionary when it stabilises existing Power. Napoleon IM/as a case of progessive caesarisn, but Napoleon III, the exemplarof reactionary caesarism, v/as more representative of the kind likelyto arise in the course of passive rer,olution. Gramsci's analysis here isvirtually identical with that of Max inThe Eighteenth Brumaire af LouisBonaparte: the French bourgeoisit, unable to rule directly throughtheir own political parties, were content to develop capitalism undera political regime which had its social basis in the peasantry, aninarticulate and unorganised classwhose virtual representative Bona-parte could claim to be.

In late nineteenth-century ltaly, the northern industrial bourgeoi-sie, the class with the most to gain from the unification of Italy, wasunable to dominate the peninsula.The basis for the new state becamean alliance between the industrialbourgeoisíe of the north and thelandowners of the south - an allrlance which also provided benefitsfor petty bourgeois clients (especially from the south) who staffed thenew state bureaucracy and political parties and became the interme-diaries between the various population groups and the state' Thelack of any sustained and widespread popular participation in theunification movement explained the ,passive revolution, character oÍ

GRÁMscI/ HEGEMoNY AND INTERNATIoNAL RELATIoNs

its outcome. In the aftermath of the First World War, worker andpeasant occupations of factories and land demonstrated a strengthwhich was considerable enough to threaten yet insufficient to dis-lodge the existing state. There took place then what Gramsci called a'displacement of the basis of the state'11 towards the petty bourgeoi-sie, the only class of nation-wide extent, which became the anchor ofÍascist Power. Fascism continued the passive revolution, sustainingthe position of the old owner classes yet unable to attract the supportof worker or peasant subaltern groups.

Apart from caesarism, the second major feature of passive revolu-tion in ltaly Gramsci called trasformismo. It was exemplified in Italianpolitics by Giovanni Giolitti who sought to bring about the widestpossible coalition of interests and who dominated the political scenein the years preceding fascism. For example, he aimed to bringnorthern industrial workers into a common front with industrialiststhrough a protectionist policy. Trasformismo worked to co-opt poten-tial leaders of subaltern social groups. By extension trasformismo canserve as a strategy of assimilating and domesticating potentiallydangerous ideas by adjusting them to the policies of the dominantcoalition and can thereby obstruct the formation of class-basedorganised opposition to established social and political power. Fasc-ism continued trasformismo. Gramsci interprets the fascist state cor-poratism as an unsuccessful attempt to introduce some of the moreadvanced industrial practices of American capitalism under the aegisof the old Italian management.

-The concept of passive revolution is a counterpart to the conceptof hegemony in that it describes the condition oi a non-hegemonicsociety - one in which no dominant class has been able to establish ahegemony in Gramsci's sense of the term. Today this notion oÍpassive revolution, together with its components, caesarism andtrasformismo, is particularly apposite to industrialising Third Worldcounťries.

H I S T O R I C B L O C ( B L O C C O S T O R I C O )

Gramsci attributed the source of his notion of the historicbloc (blocco storico) to Georges Sorel, though Sorel never used thea,:..*-o. any other in precisely the sense Gramsci gave to it.12 Soreldid, however, interprét revolutionary action in terms of social myths:1o-ugh which people engaged in action perceived a confrontation oftotalities - in which they saw a new ordei chailengrng an establishedorder. In the course of a cataclysmic event, the old order would be

rwl

55

R O B E R T W . C O X

overthrou/n as a whole and the new be freed to unfold.l3 WhileGramsci did not share the subjectivism of this vision, he did sharethe view that state and society together constituted a solid structureand that revolution implied the development within it of anotherstructure strong enough to replace the first. Echoing Marx, hethought this could come about only when the first had exhausted itsfull potential. Whether dominant or emergent, such a structure iswhat Gramsci called an historic bloc.

For Sorel, social myth, a powerful form of collective subjectivity,would obstruct reformist tendencies. These might otherwise attractworkers away from revolutionary syndicalism into incrementalisttrade unionism or reformist party politics. The myth was a weaPonin struggle as well as a tool for analysis. For Gramsci, the historicbloc similarly had a revolutionary orientation through its stress onthe unity and coherence of socio-political orders. It was an intellectualdefence against co-optation by trasformismo.

The historic bloc is a dialectical concept in the sense that itsinteracting elements create a larger unity. Gramsci expressed theseinteracting elements sometimes as the subjective and the obiective,sometimes as superstructure and structure.

Structures and superstrucfures from an 'historic bloc'. That is to saythe complex contradictory and discordant ensemble of the superstruc-tures is the reflection oÍ the ensernble of the social relations ofproduction. (Gramsci, 1971,: 366)

The juxtaposition and reciprocal relationships of the political, ethicaland ideological spheres of activity with the economic sphere avoidsreductionism. It avoids reducing everything either to economics(economism) or to ideas (idealism). In Gramsci's historical material-ism (which he was careful to distinguish from what he called'historical economism' or a narrowly economic interpretation ofhistory), ideas and material conditions are always bound together,mutually influencing one another, and not reducible one to the other.Ideas have to be understood in relation to material circumstances'Material circumstances include both the social relations and thephysical means of production. Superstructures of ideology andpoiiticat organisation shape the development of both aspects oÍproduction and are shaped by them.

An historic bloc cannot exist without a hegemonic social class'Where the hegemonic class is the dominant class in a country orsocial formation, the state (in Gramsci's enlarged concept) maintainscohesion and identity within the bloc through the propagation of a

cR4 l4s ! ! r ryEGEMONy AND TNTERNATTONAL RELATTONS.coÍnmon culture. A new bloc is formed when a subordinate class(e.g., the workers) establishes its hegemony over other subordinategÍoups (e.g., small farmers, marginals). This process requires inten-sive dialogue between leaders and followers within the would-behegemonic class. Gramsci may have concurred in the Leninist idea of6n avant-garde parťy which takes upon itself the responsibility forleadíng an immafure working class, but only as an aspect of a war ofÍnovement. Because a war of position strategy was required in thewestern countries, as he saw it, the role of the party should be tolead, intensify and develop dialogue within the working class andbetween the working class and other subordinate classes which couldbe brought into alliance with it. The 'mass line' as a mobilisationtechnique developed by the Chinese Communist party is consistentwith Gramsci's thinking in this respect.

Intellectuals play a key role in the building of an historic bloc.lntellectuals are not a distinct and relatively classless social stratum.Gramsci saw them as organically connected with a social class. Theyperform the function of developing and sustaining the mentalimages, technologies and organisations which bind together themembers of a class and of an historic bloc into u commo.t identity.Bourgeois intellectuals did this for a whole society in which thebourgeoisie was hegemonic. The organic intellectuaÉ of the workingclass would perform a similar role in the creation of a new historic!lo. ,t.,d". working class hegemony within that society. To do thisthey would have to evolve clearly distinctive culture, organisationand technique and do so in constant interaction with the members offhe -gmergent block. Everyone, for Gramsci, is in some part anintellectual, although only some perform full-time the social functionof an intellectual. In this task, the party was, in his conception, a'collective

intellectual,In the movement towards hegemony and the creation of an historic

bloc, Gramsci distinguished three levlb of consciousness: thb econ-omico-corporative, which is aware of the specific interests of aparticular group; the solidarity or class consciousness, which extendsto a whole social class but remains at a purely economic level; andthe hegemonic, which brings the interesis of the leading class intoÍurmony with those of subordinate classes and incorpoiates theseother interests into an ideology expressed in universal iu.-, (Gram-sci, 1971: 180-95). The movement towards hegemony, G.amsci suys,ls a 'passage from the structure to the ,phe."

-of *r"

"o-piu*superstructures', by which he means purri.rg from the specificurterests of a group or class to the buitaing-or institutions and

R O B E R T W . C O Xrw G R A M S C I , H E G E M O N Y A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E L A T I O N S

v/ould now call dependency. What happened in ltaly he knew wasmarkedly influenced by external powers. At the purely foreign policylevel, great powers have relative freedom to determine their foreignpolicies in response to domestic interests; smaller pov/ers have lessautonomy (Gramsci, 1977: 264). The economic life of subordinatenations is penetrated by and intertwined with that of powerfulnations. This is further complicated by the existence within countriesoÍ structurally diverse regions which have distinctive patterns ofrelationship to external forces (Gramsci, 7971,:182).

At an even deeper level, those states which are powerful areprecisely those which have undergone a profound social and econ-omic revolution and have most fully worked out the consequences ofthis revolution in the form of state and of social relations. The FrenchRevolution was the case Gramsci reflected upon, but we can think ofthe development of US and Soviet por /er in the same M/ay. Thesewere all nation-based developments which spilled over nationalboundaries to become internationally expansive phenomena. Othercountries have received the impact of these developments in a morepassive vÝ'ay/ an instance of what Gramsci described at the nationallevel as a passive revolution. This effect comes when the impetus tochange does not arise out of 'a vast local economic development . . .but is instead the reflection of international developments whichtransmit their ideological currents to the periphery' (Gramsci, 1971:116).

The group which is the bearer of the new ideas, in such circum-stances, is not an indigenous social group which is actively engagedin building a new economic base with a ne\ / structure of socialrelations. It is an intellectual stratum which picks up ideas originatingfrom a prior foreign economic and social revolution. Consequently,the thought of this group takes an idealistic shape ungrounáed in adomestic economic development; and its conception of ihe state takesthe form of 'a rational ibsolute' (Gramsci, 1971.: 777). Gramscicriticised the thought of Benedetto Croce, the dominant figure of theItalian intellectual-establishment of his own time, for expržssing thiskina of distortion.

H E G E M O N Y A N D W O R L D O R D E R

! _ Is the Gramscian concept of hegemony applicable at thehternational or world level? Before attempting to suggest how thisrnight be done, it is well to rule out some usages of tÍu t".. whichflte common in international relations studies. Very often'hegemony'

elaboration of ideologies. If they reflect a hegemony' these -insti-tutions and ideologieš will be universal in form' i.e., they will not

aPpear as those ofá partic':lar class, and will give som; satisfaction

to trre subordinate groups while not undermining the leadership or

vital interests of the hegemonic class'

HEGEMONY AND INTERNAT IONAL RELAT IONS

Wecannowmakethet rans i t ion f romwhatGramsc isa idabout hegemony and related concepts to the implications of these

conceptslor iniernational relations. First, however, it is useful to

look át what little Gramsci himself had to say about international

relations. Let us begin with this passage:

Do international relations precede or follow (logically) fundamentalsocial relations? There can be no doubt that they follow. Any

organic innovation in the social structure, through its technical-military expressions, modifies organically absglte ,and relativerelationsintheinternationalf ieldtoo'(Gramsci, l97l:176)

By ,organic, Gramsci meant that which is structural, long-term or

,"tuti.,ěty permanent, as opposed to the short-term or ,conjunctural,'

He was suyi"g that basic changes in international power relations or

world order, *t i.tr are observed as changes in the military-strategic

and geo-political balance, can be traced to fundamental changes in

social relations.G r amsc i d i dno t i n anywayby -pa s s t he s t a t eo rd im i n i s h i t s

importance. The state remained for him the basic entity in inter-

national relations and the place where social conflicts take place - the

place also, therefore, where hegemonies of social classes can be built'

in these hegemonies of social ..íu,,",, the particular characteristics of

nations combine in unique and original ways. The working class'

which might be considered to be international in an abstract sense/

nationalisés itself in the process of building its hegemony. The

emergence of new worker-led blocs at the national level would, in

this line of reasoning, precede any basic restructuring of international

relations. However, the state, which remains the primary tocus or

social struggle and the basic entity of international relations, is the

en1arged siáte which includes its own social basis. This view sets

aside a narrov/ or superficial view of the state which reduces it, for

instance, to the foreign policy bureaucracy or the state's military

capabilities..From his Italian perspective, Gramsci had a keen sense of \^/hat \ďe

ROBERT W. COX

is used to mean the dominance of one country over others, therebyťying the usage to a relationship strictly among states. Sometimes'hegemony' is used as a euphemism for imperialism. When Chinesepolitical leaders accuse the Soviet Union of 'hegemonism' they seemto have in mind some combination of these two. These meaningsďffer so much from the Gramscian sense of the term that it is better,for purposes of clarity in this paper, to use the term 'dominance' toreplace them.

In applying the concept of hegemony to world order, it becomesimportant to determine when a period of hegemony begins andwhen it ends. A period in which a world hegemony has beenestablished can be called hegemonic and one in which dominance ofa non-hegemonic kind prevails, non-hegemonic. To illustrate, let usconsider the past century and a half as falling into four distinguish-able periods, roughly, 1845-1875,1875-1945,1945-1965 and 1965 tothe present.la

The first period (1845-75) was hegemonic: there was a worldeconomy with Britain as its centre. Economic doctrines consistentwith British supremacy but universal in form - comparative advan-tage, free trade and the gold standard _ spread graduďly ouťwardfrom Britain. Coercive strength underr,rrrote this order. Britain heldthe balance of power in Europe, thereby preventing any challenge tohegemony from a land-based PoweÍ. Britain ruled supreme at seaand had the capacity to enforce obedience by peripheral countries tothe rules of the market.

In the second period (1875-1945), all these features were reversed.Other countries challenged British supremacy. The balance of ,power

in Europe became destabilised, leading to two world wars. Free tradewas superseded by protectionism; the Gold Standard was ultimatelyabandonedi and the world economy fragmented into economic blocs'This was a non-hegemonic period.

In the third period, following the Second World War (1945-65),the United States founded a new hegemonic world order similar inbasic structure to that dominated by Britain in mid nineteenth centurybut with institutions and doctrines adjusted to a more complex worldeconomy and to national societies more sensitive to the politicalrepercussions of economic crises.

Sometime from the later 1960s through the early 1970s it becameevident that this US-based world order was no longer working well'During the uncertain times which followed, three possibilities ofstrucfural transformation of world order opened up: a reconstructionof hegemony with a broadening of political management on the lines

GRAMSCI / HEGEMONY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

r as a torerunner.

r be conceived in inter-state terms alone, for this would likelvto the fore oppositions of state interests. It would most likelv

prominence to opportunities for the forces of civil societv toLte on the world scale (or on the scale of the sphere within '"Í'i.n

saged by the Trilateral Commission; increased fragmentation ofworld economy around big-power-centred econňmic spheres;the possible assertion of a Third-world-based counter-heg'emony. the concerted demand for the New International Economic

on the basis of this tentative notation, it would appear that,storically, to become hegemonic, a state would have to iound and

t a world order which was universal in conception, i.e., not anin which one state directly exploits others but an order whichother states (or at least those within reach of the hegemony)find compatible with their interests' Such an orde"r *o.'íá

y prevails). The hegemonic concept of world order isnot only upon the regulation of inter-state conflict but also

a globally-conceived civil society, i.e., a mode of production ofextent which brings about links among social ilasses of theies encompassed by it.orically, hegemonies of this kind are founded by powerfulwhich have undergone a thorough social and economic revo_. The revolution not only modifies the internal economic and

institutions, the culture, the technology associated with thisď hegemony become patterns for emdátion abroad. Such anive hegemony impinges on the more peripheral countries as a: revolution. These countries have not undergone the same

'ough social revolution, nor have their economieš developed in:"-" Y1y, but they try to incorporate elements from thď hege-ic model without disturbing old power structures. l4/hile periitr-countries may adopt some economic and cultural aspectJ of ihermonic core, they are less well able to adopt its political models.as fascism became the form of passive revolution in the Italy of

inter-war period, so various forms of military-bureaucratic r"gi-"ervise passive revolution in today,s peripheries. In the wčrld-monic model, hegemony is more intense and consistent at theand more laden with contradictions at the periphery.

Hegemony at the international level is thus not merely an order

i

ical structures of the state in question but also unleashes energiesh expand beyond the state's boundaries. A world hegemonj, isin its beginnings an outward expansion of the internai(national)

y established by a dominant social class. The economic and

6'J.

ROBERT W. COX

among states. It is an order within a world economy with a dominantmode of production which penetrates into all countries and links intoother subordinate modes of production. It is also a complex ofinternational social relationships which connect the social classes ofthe different countries. World hegemony is describable as a socialstructure, an economic structure, and a political strucfure; and itcannot be simply one of these things but must be all three. Worldhegemony, furthermore, is expressed in universal norms, institutionsand mechanisms which lay down general rules of behaviour forstates and for those forces of civil society that act across nationalboundaries - rules which support the dominant mode of production

THE MECHAN ISMS OF HEGEMONY : INTERNAT IONAL

ORGANISAT IONS

One mechanism through which the universal norms of aworld hegemony are expressed is the international organisation.Indeed, international organisation functions as the Process throughwhich the institutions of hegemony and its ideology are developed.Among the features of international organisation which express itshegemonic role are the following: (1) they embody the rules whichfaďitate the expansion of hegemonic world orders; (2) they arethemselves the product of the hegemonic world order; (3) theyideologically legitimate the norms of the world order; (4) they co-optthe elites from peripheral countries and (5) they absorb counter-hegemonic ideas.

International institutions embody rules which facilitate the expan-sion of the dominant economic and social forces but which at thesame tirne permit adjustments to be made by subordinated interestswith a minimum of pain. The rules governing world monetary andtrade relations are particularly significant. They are framed primarilyto promote economic expansion. At the same time they allow for

exceptions and derogations to take care of problem situations. Theycan be revised in the light of changed circumstances. The BrettonWoods institutions pto,rided more safeguards for domestic socialconceÍns like unemployment than did the Gold Standard, on con-dition that national policies were consistent with the goal of a liberalworld economy. The current system of floating exchange rates also

gives scope foi national actions while maintaining the principle of a

!rio, "o-*itment to harmonise national policies in the interests of a

liberal world economy.International institutions and rules are generally initiated by the

AMSCI / HEGEMONY AND INTERNATIONAL RBLATIONS

which establishes the hegemony. At the very least they mustthat state's support. The dominant state takes care to secure the

:ence of other states according to a hierarchy of powersthe inter-state strucfure of hegemony. Some second-rank

are consulted first and their support is secured. The consentleast some of the more peripheral countries is solicited. Formal

may be weighted in favour of the dominant powers aslnternational Monetary Fund and World Bank, or it may be on

ne-vote basis as in most other maior international. There is an inÍormal structure of influence reflecting the

levels of real politicď and economic power which underliesformal procedures for decisions.

institutions perform an ideological role as well. Theydefine poliry guidelines for states and to legitimate certaintions and practices at the national level. They reflect orienta-favourable to the dominant social and economic forces. The

lD, in recommending monetarism, endorsed a dominant consen-of policy thinking in the core countries and strengthened thosewere determined to combat inflation this way against otherswere moÍe concerned about unemployment. The ILo, byting tripartism, legitimates the social relations evolved in the

countries as the desirable model for emulation.talent from peripheral countries is co-opted into international

in the manner oÍ trasformisltto. Inďviduals from periph.countries, though they may come to international institutionsthe idea of working from within to change the system, are

to work within the structures of passive revolution. Atthey will help transfer elements of 'modernisation' to the

ies but only as these are consistent with the interests oÍlocal powers. Hegemony is like a pillow: it absorbs blows

sooner or later the would-be assailant will find it comfortable touPon. Only where representation in international institutions is

based upon an articulate social and political challenge toy - upon a nascent historic bloc and counter-hegemony -

participation pose a real threat. The co-optation of outstandingfrom the peripheries renders this less likely.

ismo also absorbs potentially counter-hegemonic ideas andthese ideas consistent with hegemonic doctrine. The notion of

for example, began as a challenge to the world economyvocating endogenously determined autonomous development.

P term has now been transformed to mean support by the agenciesthe world economy for do-it-yourself welfare programmeJ in the

ROBERT \ ,V . COX G R A M S C I H E G E M O N Y A N D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E L A T I O N S

peripheral countries. These programmes aim to enable the ruralpopul4tions to achieve self-sufficiency, to stem the rural exodus tothe cities, and to achieve thereby a greater degree of social andpolitical stability amongst populations which the world economy isincapable of integrating. Self-reliance in its transformed meaningbecomes complementary to and supportive of hegemonic goals forthe world economy.

Thus, one tactic for bringing about change in the structure of worldorder can be ruled out as a total illusion. There is very little likelihoodof a war of movement at the international level through whichradicals would seize control of the superstructure of internationalinstitutions. Daniel Patrick Moynihan notwithstanding, Third Worldradicals do not control international institutions. Even if they did,they could achieve nothing by it. These superstructures are inad-equately connected with any popular political base. They are conn-ected with the national hegemonic classes in the core countries and,through the intermediacy of these classes, have a broader base inthese countries. In the peripheries, they connect only with thepassive revolution.

THE PROSPECTS FOR COUNTER -HEGEMONY

World orders - to return to Gramsci's statement cited earlierin this essay - are grounded in social relations. A significant structuralchange in world order is, accordingly, likely to be traceable to somefundamental change in social relations and in the national politicalorders which correspond to national structures of social relations. InGramsci's thinking, this would come about with the emergence of anew historic bloc.

We must shift the problem of changing world order back frominternational institutions to national societies. Gramsci's analysis ofItaly is even more valid when applied to the world order: only a warof position can, in the long run, bring about structural changes, anda war of position involves building up the socio-political base forchange tfuough the creation of new historic blocs. The nationalcontext remains the only place where an historic bloc can be founded,although world-economy and world-political conditions materiallyinfluence the prospects for such an enterprise.

The prolonged crisis in the world economy (the beginning of whichcan be traced to the late 1960s and early 1970s) is propitious for somedevelopments which could lead to a counter-hegemonic challenge'In the core countries, those policies which cut into transfer Payments

to deprived social groups and generate high unemployment open thePTosp'".' of a.broad alliance of the disadvantaged agáinst the sectorsof capital and labour which find commo'. g'o.'.'ď in internationalgrody;tio1.and the monopoly-liberal world order. The policy basisÍor this alliance would most likely be post-Keynesian u,.á .'"o-mercantilist. In peripheral countries, some states are vulnerable torevolutionary action, as events from Iran to Central America suggest.Political preparation of the population in sufficient depth ma not,ho'ever, be able to keep pace with revolutionary opportunity andthis diminishes the prospect for a new historic utoi. en effecuvepolitical organisation (Gramsci's Modern prince) would be requiredin order to rally the new working classes generated by internationalproduction and build a bridge to peasants and urban marginars.Without this, we can only envisage a Process where local páhticalelites, even some which are the product of abortively revolutio.,aryupheavels, would entrench their power within a rnonopoly-liberalworld order. A reconstructed monopoly{iberal hegemony would bequite capable of practising trasformismo by adjusting to -u.ty varietiesof national institutions and practices, including nutio.,alisation ofindustries. The rhetoric of nationalism and sociálism could then bebrought into line with the restoration of passive revolution undernew guise in the periphery.

In short, the task of changing world order begins with the rong,Iaborious efÍort to build new historic blocš within nationalboundaries.

Notes

l This essay was originally pubtished in Milrennium, (19g3) 12 (2):J,62-7s. rrefer in citation to GramJci G97L), herafter cited as serectioni. The fullcritical edition is Gramsci (lgTS), hereafter cited as euaderni.2 This seems to be the problem underlying Anderson (1976_77) which- PuťPorts to find inconsistencies in Gramsci,s concepts.3 on this point see Thompson (rg7g), which contrasts a historicist positionanalogous to Gramsci,s with the abstract philosophical structuráfism ofAlthusser. see 'Marxism is not Historicism', in Althusser and Balibar(197e\.4 It is said that this u/as to avoid conÍiscation of his notes by the prison

" ::.:oj,*lo, if this is true, must have been particularly slow_witted.

" l".l-Y|":!1Tann (1975) places Gramsci square|y in the Leninist ťradition.rortelli (7972) and Macciocci (1923) both contrast Gramsci and Lenin.Buci-Glucksmann's work seems to me to be more fuly thought through.See also Mouffe (1979) and Showstack-Sassoon (19g2).

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6 This notion fitted \.4/ell with Gramsci's assessment of the situation in Italyin the early 1920s; the working class was by itself too weak to carry thefull burden of revolution and could only bring about the founding of anew state by an alliance with the peasantry and some petty bourgeoiselements. In fact, Gramsci considered the workers' council movement asa school for leadership of such a coalition and his efforts prior to hisimprisonment were directed toward building this coalition.

7 See Buci-Glucksmann (L975:63\8 Machiavelli (1977: 49-50); Gramsci (1971: 169-90).9 The term 'Western Europe' refers here to the Britain, France, Germany

and Italy of the 1920s and 1930s.10 Gramsci borrowed the term 'passive revolution' from the Neapolitan

historian Vincenzo Cuocco (1770-1823) who was active in the early stagesof the Risorgimento. In Cuocco's interpretation Napoleon's armies hadbrought passive revolution to Italy.

11 Buci-Glucksmann (1975 1.2I).12 Gramsci, Quaderni (1975: 2,632).13 See Sorel's discussion of myth and the 'Napoleonic battle' in the letter to

Daniel Halevy (in Sorel, 1961).14 The dating is tentaťive and would have to be refined by enquiry into the

structural features proper to each period as well as into factors deemedto constitute the breaking points between one period and another. Theseare offered here as mere notations for a revision of historical scholarshipto raise some questions about hegemony and its attendant structures andmechanisms.

Imperialism, which has taken different forms in these periods, is aclosely related question. In the Íirst, Pax Britannica, although someterritories were directly administered, control of colonies seems to havebeen incidental rather than necessary to economic expansion. Argentina,a formally independent country, had essentially the same relationship tothe British economy as Canada, a former colony. This, as GeorgeLichtheim noted, may be called the phase of 'liberal imperialism'. In thesecond period, the so-called 'new imperialism' brought more emphasison direct political controls. It also saw the growth of capital exports andof the finance capital identified by Lenin as the very essence of imperial-ism. In the third period, which might be called that of the neo-liberal ormonopolyJiberal imperialism, the internationalising of productionemerged as the pre-eminent form, supported also by new forms offinance capital (multinational banks and consortia). There seems littlepoint in trying to define some unchanging essense of imperialism but itwould be more useful to describe the structural characteristics of theimperialisms which correspond to successive hegemonic and non-hege-monic world orders. For a further discussion of this as regards PnxBritannica anď Pax Americana, see Cox (1983).

3 ALIENATION, CAPITALISMAND THE INTER-STATESYSTEM: TOWARDS AMARXIAN/GRAMSCIANCRITIQUEMARK RUPERT

This chapter presents an interpretation of the radicalised historicalontology characteristic of Marx and Gramsci, and argues that it ispossible to understand both the system of sovereign states and thecapitalist world economy in non-reductionist ways if the theory ofIR/IPE is reconstructed on the basis of a Marxian/Gramscian socialontology. Building upon such a foundation, I will suggest an inter-pretation of the political relations which underlie the capitalist organ-isation of production, as well as the inter-state system, and whichallow us to understand the historical construction of these relationswithout a priori reducing one to the other. Viewed from such aperspective, relations among sovereign states can be critically under-stood as relations of alienation, historically constructed among politi-cal communities (states/societies) which are themselves constructedon the basis of relations of alienation (i.e., the corresponding separa-tions of the producer from the means of production, of political fromeconomic relations, etc.).

Marx and Gramsci may be said to have shared a common politícalcommitment which permeated their practices of social inquiry andwhich constitutes, for me, their primary legacy. Both werďengagedin a practice oÍ critique which aime,d at uniovering and *át.i"gexplicit a social ontology - a process of social self-creation - whichunderlies and makes possible the capitalist mode of production, butwhich is systematically distorted ánd hidden from view by thecharacteristic institutional forms and social practices of capitalism. Inthe process of constructing this critique oi capitalist social reality,ontology itself is radicalized; no longer viewed a priori, i.e., as priorto and constitutive of the reality -hi.n we can know, it becomesinstead an ongoing social product, historically concrete and contest-able.t This contrasts, therefore with the dominant discourse in NorthAmerican studies of IPE/IR, neo-realism.2

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