Class, States and International Relations

4 Marxism, Gramsci and International Relations

 

 

 

My enthusiasm for the emergent Gramscian research program is tempered by a sense of caution. In attempting to work within this new tendency, I have been struck by the absence of an explicit interpretation of the relationship of Gramsci to Marx.

(Rupert 1995: 15)

This chapter is written in the spirit of Rupert's comments and of his attempt to address the absence to which he refers, expressed in Cox's argument that we do not need to swallow the whole Marxist package (Cox 1996a: 27). It mobilizes the arguments of classical Marxism, including those of Gramsci himself, to present an alternative understanding of the dynamics of the world system, and therefore a critique of core aspects of the neo-Gramscian ...