Class, States and International Relations

1 Robert Cox and the origins of the neo-Gramscian perspective

 

 

 

Three decades since their publication Robert Cox's essays ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’ (1981) and ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method’ (1983) retain much of their freshness. In a world in which convention still has it that, for instance, it was America that invaded Iraq in 2003 and China that is currently enhancing its military capabilities, Cox's insistence that phenomena such as these cannot be explained by reference to state power alone and that states are terrains of conflict underpinned by the interests and actions of social forces remains compelling. Equally compelling is his introduction ...