Class, States and International Relations

5 Production, Power, and World Order

A critique

 

 

 

Introduction

In outlining a Marxist theorization of world order dynamics in the last chapter I questioned the capacity of the neo-Gramscians to provide convincing explanations for world order change without a historicized mode of production approach. However, abstracted from concrete social reality this sort of theoretical critique is neither particularly convincing nor productive and the real test of any theory is not whether it is consistent with an esoteric canon but whether it is able to explain real-world developments. In this chapter, I concretize my critique of Cox by exploring aspects of the historical record from the period covered by Production, Power, and World Order for which his ...