[Theory II] Gramscian Internationalism

The following is taken from a paper I wrote on International Relations Theory. While Gramsci was particularly concerned with the class struggle on a domestic level, his theory could very well be applicable in the international setting.

The revolution is coming. It may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen nonetheless. It may start in a local context, but its repercussions will be global. What this revolution will look like, and [...click on link below to expand to full post] whether or not it will be marked by a hegemonic order, is not yet certain. As such, it is the task of the intellectual – the organic, critically thinking intellectual – to help conceive of what a new world order might look like, and how we might go about achieving it.

Such has been the focus of intellectuals Antonio Gramsci and Robert W. Cox. Gramsci focused on domestic revolution, while Cox expanded upon the core of Gramsci’s ideas and applied them to the international arena. The resurrection of Gramscianism within the field of international relations has provided an authentic and respectable theoretical model for neo-Marxists in the academy to follow. Indeed, Gramsci’s work contributed to ‘historical materialism’ what Kenneth N. Waltz contributed to realism. That is, they both made their respective theories ‘prettier’. Yet in contrast to the parsimonious nature of neorealism, what makes Gramsci’s work beautiful is the way he highlighted simple relationships –between civil society and the state, between coercive governments and consenting masses – and demonstrated how the nature of these relationships hold the key to major social transformations and even genuine emancipation. In this review, I build upon Cox’s writings on Gramsci, and – in good neo-Gramscian form – I go further to suggest the contemporary possibilities of a new world order and posit where this might take place.

First it is important to locate our current geopolitical arena and identify the existing world order. Cox starts this process by dividing the last century and a half into distinct periods. Cox saw the first period (1845-1975) as the classic era of pax britanica. The rise of “free trade, the gold standard and free movement of capital and persons” across the globe were maintained both by informal conventions and the coercive power of the British navy (Cox, 60, 223). The second period (1975-1945) witnessed the demise of the previous order, as well as chaos and war between great powers and the elimination of international ‘consent’ for the old order of imperialism. The third period (1945-1965) witnessed a return to a hegemonic order, with the United States using the Bretton Woods trio and Keynesian economics as the formal institutions which helped maintain international consent for the new pax americana. The final period (1965 to the time of Cox’s writing) sees the demise of Keynesianism and the rise of neoliberalism in its stead. Cox does not explicitly state whether the current neoliberal order is hegemonic or whether it is witnessing the emergence of a new counter-hegemonic bloc. He does imply that it is a period of potential transformation and suggests three possibilities for the future: Either a new hegemonic order “based upon the global structure of social power generated by the internationalizing of production”; or a non-hegemonic order marked by the emergence of multiple and conflicting “power centers”; or a counter-hegemonic order based on a “coalition” of developing countries that confront the dominance of the core countries and attempt to bring an end to traditional core-periphery inequalities (Cox, 237-238). This latter possibility is currently showing promise. Below, I will further explain how the world is indeed witnessing the emergence of a counter-hegemonic bloc as Cox anticipated more than two decades ago.

It is important, however, not to confuse the Gramscian notion of ‘hegemony’ (and thus ‘counter-hegemony’) with the neorealist terminology. In the realm of international relations, the Gramscian interpretation of ‘hegemony’ helps us to understand why the United States may be incapable of achieving a level of global stability despite its preponderance of power. In contrast, the neorealist can only account for a state’s capabilities, and as such fails to see the contingent power of institutions and conventions that are required to help maintain an order (Cox, 223). The political ramifications are severe. In essence, the neorealist advisor calls for increased military budgets and suspicion towards the intentions of other states (including suspicion towards multilateralism). The critical theorist advisor (if such a thing were to exist) would not only demonstrate how institutions and conventions help maintain hegemony, but would further seek to push for a world that is more fair and egalitarian. Put succinctly by Cox, neorealists fail to recognize that “dominance by a powerful state may be a necessary but not a sufficient condition of hegemony” (Cox, 223. Emphasis added). With this reinforced notion of ‘hegemony’ we are better able to appreciate the reasons for the decline of the American empire, which has taken place since the years of the OPEC crisis and the original conception of a New International Economic Order.

Most interesting, however, is that the latter part of this non-hegemonic period has witnessed the emergence of a counter-hegemonic bloc, one that is growing every day, and one that has the potential to capture the hearts and minds of global civil society. Where is this taking place? This reviewer has witnessed a counter-hegemonic bloc, Gramscian style, emerging in Latin America. Latin Americanists have begun to express how the so-called ‘Washington consensus’ (neoliberalism) is being vehemently rejected in parts of Latin America and continues to be questioned in the realms of state and civil society. Polities with functional civil societies have grown wary of what American neoliberalism has thus far offered to them. In recent years, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Mexico (and of course Cuba) have either elected leaders or spawned massive social movements that fall into this counter-hegemonic bloc. Even traditional intellectuals are taking note, as noticeable in the title of next year’s conference for the Latin American Studies Association (made up of 5000 academics throughout the hemisphere): After the Washington Consensus: Collaborative Scholarship for a New América.

The IR version of Gramscianism helps a great deal in explaining this rise of dissent in Latin America. In contrast, neoliberals will have you believe that America needs to turn its attention to evil-minded despots in the Middle East or Asia and that the end of history can be achieved through enforcing free markets and democracy upon the world. Neorealists are warning of the impending emergence of India and China as new superpowers. Yet this oversight on behalf of the Bush administration’s "neorealiberalist" advisors has allowed the counter-hegemonic bloc to grow and flourish without the same kind of successful trasformismo that has been characterized throughout Latin American history, which has taken place in the name of the 1823 Monroe doctrine. It has been American policy to either passively co-opt or outright intervene coercively to ensure the continuance of ‘consent’ amongst Latin American peoples; Hence the countless examples of American overt and covert interventions throughout the region both during the Cold War (in the name of anticommunism) and during the previous imperial era (in the name of liberalism). Thus, while the United States is mired in conflicts in other parts of the globe, a Gramscian type of passive revolution is made possible in Latin America. Cox describes passive revolution as “the introduction of changes which did not involve any arousal of popular forces” (Cox, 54). It would be a fallacy to suggest that the so-called “shift to the left” in Latin America has gone without the arousal of American or opposition forces. However, the traditional response, the response that America has touted in previous world orders, is now different, and it has been deemphasized while the U.S. is mired in other regional conflicts.

Passive revolution does present some potential dangers. Gramsci and Cox warn of the possibility of ceaserism. This may be what the world is witnessing in the public bravado of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Nevertheless, as Cox points-out, caeserism does not always have to be reactionary; it can also be progressive. As noted above, another danger is presented by trasformismo, which Gramsci identified as a process of co-opting potential revolutionary leaders, specifically the “assimilating and domesticating [of] potentially dangerous ideas by adjusting them to the policies of the dominant coalition.” (Cox, 55) In the Latin American context, this is most prominently witnessed in America’s ability force nations that are antithetical to the Washington consensus into unilateral trade deals with the United States. A statement symptomatic of trasformismo was made by recently-elected Nicaraguan leftist Daniel Ortega, who went to great lengths to indicate that his regime would not work against the interests of foreign big business. The history of American-led wars in Latin America has certainly left a legacy of fear in the hearts of all Latin Americans, and this fear has worked in favor of the anti-revolutionary force of trasformismo. Put simply, previous examples of coercion have now led to a certain measure of consent.

However, we know that Gramsci saw state and society forming a solid structure, and that revolution required a new structure emerge within this relationship, overturning the old order. According to him, a blocco storico emerges “when a subordinate class (e.g., the workers) establishes its hegemony over other subordinate groups (e.g., small farmers, marginals)” (Cox, 56). This blocco storico is necessary for the achievement of a war of position, a revolutionary transformation which can take place as a result of changing social conventions more so than resulting from coercion. I argue that this is what is being witnessed in Latin America. The ability of Chavez, Morales and Lula (all of whom were previously members of the working class), to establish their hegemony over other subordinate groups is indicative of the localized change which will soon lead to global revolution.

[Theory I] Neorealiberalism

The following is taken from a paper I wrote on International Relations Theory. Those who have learned the basics of IR theory know that "realism" and "liberalism" are the two mainstream IR schools of thought. However, while these two theories have continued to gain credence in the academy and particularly within the US State Department, some theorists have observed that neo-realism and neo-liberalism are becoming more and more intertwined. It is important for me to expose these theories as being two sides of the same coin, because countries that push for neoliberal economic policies within the international arena (particularly G8 countries) seem to be doing it for reasons of political self-interest. The outcome is what I am calling a "neorealiberalist" state - one which calls for international economic integration as a political tool for securing national interests. This may seem banal, but in reality neorealiberalist states are hypercapitalist countries which have a maniacal alertness for national security, which guides them to enact protectionism for "their" corporations and ultimately launch wars against "rogue" states (because they now interpret states which don't want to participate in a global free market as challenging their national security). This seems to explain the United States' international behaviour, and increasingly - Canada's too.

The evidence is in and [... click on link below to expand to full post] the results are clear: Despite what the academy will have you believe, liberalism and realism are not antithetical to one another. On the contrary, these two theoretical perspectives have often been conjoined by scholars and political advisers intending to legitimize imperialist policy. The reemergence of idealist literature in the last few decades only aims at further solidifying what I call the ‘neorealiberal’ thesis.

Oddly, one of the sources of realist and liberal reconciliation can be found in the work of Immanuel Kant. A careful reading of Kant – a theorist often drawn-upon by liberals extolling the ‘timeless wisdom’ of liberalism – reveals that he was in fact a human nature realist in as much as he was a democratic peace theorist. Kant saw the world (back in 18th century) as “a savage state of nature in which war… constantly recurs… spring[ing] not from the nature of the state but from the nature of man”. If Kant can thus be assumed to be a human nature realist, his famous “Perpetual Peace” essay is a solution to the problem of continual warfare, which he takes to be a given. Kant is thus a realist in conceiving of a world that is naturally forced into conflict, but he is equally an idealist in his vision of how cooperation between republics and non-republics might some day overcome this problem. Recalling the historical context of the international and domestic settings in which Kant wrote, we can assume his writings in Perpetual Peace to be revolutionary in constructing a different world, a normatively better world that defied the contemporary status quo order and challenged the traditional and dominant structure defined by authoritarian absolutism and monarchical despotism.

Unfortunately, the new literature on Kant has failed to recall the context in which he wrote. As such, his work has been misappropriated to add credence to neorealiberalism. While the convergence of neoliberalism and neorealism has been identified by previous scholars, perhaps it is appropriate to review here the political implications of this unseemly marriage. Reading between the lines of Michael Doyle and Charles Kegley Jr.’s work, one notices how the neoliberal synthesis is merely a policy prescription designed to overcome the international conflicts anticipated by neorealists. That is, the preconceptions and assumptions made by neorealists and neoliberals are the same: The assume that the world is anarchical, that states are the main actors, and that states are forced to act in their national interest. Further, neoliberal solutions are framed within a neorealist lens. For example, Doyle draws from Kant in order to justify American aggression against non-liberal states while Charles Kegley Jr. seeks to place this aggression within the accepted realm of ‘self-help’. If neorealism is America’s academic justification for pursuing the national interest, then neoliberalism is America’s academic justification for enforcing the free market and democratic model upon the rest of the world. Neorealiberalism, then, calls for states to be aggressive proponents of the global enforcement of democracy and free markets upon other states, all within the name of the national interest.

Kegley, the former president of the International Studies Association, provides a concrete example of neorealiberalism in the academy. Despite his claims that the field is witnessing the emergence of a “neoidealist moment”, he fails to suggest how this moment will fundamentally challenge the dominance of realism within the discipline. After extolling the Wilsonian vision of liberal internationalism, Kegley then leads us back to the same dead-end conclusion that Robert Keohane came up with a decade earlier in “Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond” (1982). Kegley writes that there is a “need, not for the complete replacement of realism with a liberalist approach, but for a melding of the two”. Within this admission Kegley is merely reiterating an old argument (made by John Herz in 1951) that international “cooperation was advantageous and served the national interests”. Reframing the argument in the contemporary era, Kegley is thus asserting that a prudent policy of self-help would actually involve the enforcement of free markets and democracy upon as many states in the world as possible. In this way Kegley expresses the essence of neorealiberalism.

Neorealiberals further find much fodder in the groundbreaking work by Michael Doyle (1983 and thereafter). Doyle brought to liberalism what Waltz brought to realism: the prestige of tradition and a scientific, positivist methodology. Whereas realists call upon the work of Thucydides and Machiavelli to show the long tradition of realism, Doyle calls upon the canonical work of Kant into the picture for liberals to display a different but equally impressive tradition. Whereas Waltz used microeconomic theory and Durkheimian structuralism to put realism on a scientific footing, Doyle uses the father of the enlightenment to bring liberalism into the realm of scientific enquiry. However, just as the realist appropriation of Thucydides and Machiavelli is suspect, the liberal appropriation of Kant is also questionable. The problem with Doyle’s pioneering work, as noted by John MacMillan in Millennium, is that it is both an inaccurate reading and that it is used for unethical purposes. Indeed, MacMillan shows how the misappropriation of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace” by liberal scholars such as Doyle, David Forsythe, Francis Fukuyama, Jack Levy, Bruce Russett, and George Sørensen are merely designed to add credence to their theoretical [read ideological] bias. Further, MacMillan demonstrates how the liberal interpretation of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace” has been misused by liberals to justify warmongering policies from liberal states towards non-liberal states. At its core, then, Doyle’s work serves to blur the distinction between the national interest and the pursuance of so-called liberal virtues such as democracy and free markets.

Despite the obvious convergence of neorealism and neoliberalism, students of international relations are told that in fact a ‘neo-neo debate’ is taking place. One of the current neoliberal agendas is espoused by Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis (1989), which claims that global peace and stability could be achieved if all states adhere to the liberal democratic capitalist model. In contrast, the contemporary neorealist rebuttal is found in Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis (1993), which warns of the potential for a future global war that would be based on civilization-oriented alliances between and among states. Yet are these two theories necessarily antithetical? No, they are not: We see the pessimistic view of Huntington reconciled with the hope of Fukuyama’s policy prescriptions. The result is neorealiberalism: If states do not follow the liberal democratic capitalist model, the world will experience a clash of civilizations, if states do follow the model, however, the world will witness the end of history. In this view, both neorealism and neoliberalism play a crucial role in justifying American (and increasingly, Canadian) foreign policy. Neorealism tells us about a horrible situation that the world might soon find itself in - thus justifying a policy of self-help. Neoliberalism explains that this horrible world projected by the neorealists can only be overcome if every state adopts a liberal capitalist democracy, yet again justifying a policy of interventionism in rogue states to help spread of neoliberal economic policies such as privatization and free trade.