Neo-Gramscian Perspective

Neo-Gramscian perspective Neo-gramscian perspective is based on

the work of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937).

Gramsci was one of the founding members of the Italian Communist Party. He was porisoned in 1926 for his political activities and spent the rest of his time in the prison and wrote “Prison Notebooks (1971)”

Why there was no communist revolution in Western Europe? The key question Gramsci dealt with

was why it was so difficult to promote revolution in Western Europe. Because, Marx had predicted that revolution and transition to socialism would occur first in the advanced capitalist countries. However, it was not Europe but comparatively bacward Russia that realized revolution.

What went wrong in Europe? Gramsci’s answer to this question revolves around his use of the concept of hegemony.

Concept of Hegemony

Hegemony is most frequently used to describe the most powerful state in the international system. But, Gramsci’s use of hegemony is related to his understanding of power, which is broader and richer than realists: a mixture of coercion and consent.

Marxist Approach to Hegemony In understanding how the prevailing

order was maintained, Marxists concentrated almost exclusively on the coercive practices and capabilities of the state. State was seen as a means of opressing one class by another. Based on this understanding, it was coercion that prevented the exploited society from rising up and changing the system that makes them suffer.

Gramsci’s Reinterpreting Hegemony Gramsci recognized that while this was true in less

developed countries like Russia, it was not the case in the Western Europe. Here the system was maintained not merely by coercion, but also through consent. Consent is created and recreated by the hegemony of the ruling elite in society.

It is hegemony that makes the political, cultural, and moral values of the dominant group to become widely dispersed throughout society and to be accepted by subordinate groups and classes as their own.

For Gramsci, dominant ideologies are institutionalized in society as they become the “common sense”.

Gramsci’s emphasis on civil society Civil society is the network of

institutions and practices in society that enjoy some autonomy from the state, and through which groups and individuals organize, represent and express themselves to each other and to the state. These include media, education system, churches, voluntary organizations, etc.

Gramsci’s focus on the Superstructure

Superstructure should be emphasized because although the structure of society may be a reflection of social relations of production in the economic base, superstructure (political and cultural practices) determines whether the society is prone to change and transform itself.

Gramsci’s Historic Bloc Historic bloc implies a relation between the

cultural and the political and the economic and also requires an organic link between people and intellectuals, governors and governed, leaders and led.

Historic bloc reflects the way in which leading social forces within a specific national context establish a relationship over contending social forces.

Historical bloc is defined as a situation in which various classes and factions of them are related and implicitly one mode of production is dominant

Counter Hegemonic Struggle If the hegemony of the ruling class is a

key element in the perpetuation of its dominance, then society can only be transformed if that hegemonic position is successfully challenged. This entails a counter-hegemonic struggle in civil society, in which the prevailing hgegemony is undermined , allowing an alternative historic bloc to be constructed.

Robert Cox and the Analysis of World Order Robert Cox introduced Gramsci to the study of world

politics. He criticized prevailing theories of international relations and International Political Economy and tried to develop an alternative framework for the analysis of world politics.

His article “Social Forces, States, and World Orders:Beyond International Relations Theory” (1981): If ideas and values are a reflection of a particular set of social relations, and are transformed as those relations themselves are transformed, then this suggests that all knowledge must reflect a certain context, a certain time and space. In other words, knowledge cannot be objective and timeless as neo-realists argue. For Cox, “theory is always for someone and for some purpose”.

How to transform the world order Realists claim to describe the world as it is, and

as it always will be, but in fact they are reinforcing the ruling hegemony in the current world order.

Cox attempts to develop an emnacipatory theoretical understanding of world order that emphasişze both the sources of stability in a given system and also the dynamics of processes of transformation.

In this context, Cox benefits from Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and transfers it to the international realm, arguing that hegemony is important for maintaining stability.

How to transform the world order Cox argues that sucessive dominant

powers in the international system have shaped a world order that suits their interests , and have done so not only as a result of their coercive capabilities, but also because they managed to generate broad consent for that order even among the disadvanted groups.

Hegemonic Idea:Free Trade The hegemons like the United Kingdom and the

United States used the hegemonic idea of free trade. Their claim that this system benefits everyone has been so widely accepted that it has attained “common sense” status. However, free trade benefits the hegemonic power as it is the most efficient producer in the global economy, and it can produce goods which are competitive in all markets. The peripheral countries do not benefit from freee trade as much as the hegemon does. As Marxists argue free trade prevents the development of the periphery.

The power of the United States is based on the hegemony of the neo-liberalism.

The hegemony of Neo-liberalism Neo-liberal policies are accepted as the norm

throughout the world. Set of policies most closely associated with the neoliberal project is: privatization, reduction of state spending, liberalization of trade and capital… these policies are also known as “Washington Consensus”

The adoption of neo-liberal policies by Third world countries: spending on health and education decreased, they were forced to rely more on the export of raw materials and import manufactured goods of developed countries.

Moreover, as third world countries devalued their currency as part of neo-liberal policies, the price of their exported raw materials decrease. When third world countries privatize their public enterprises, American or European companies buy them at relatively cheap prices.

Why? If neo-liberal policies have such negative

results, why Third world countries adopted it so widely?

Coercion: debt crisis between the Third World and the West in the 1970s and 1980s. This debt crisis resulted from excessive and unwise lending by Western Banks. Third World countries are unable to pay the interests of these debts and also the debt itself.They applied to IMF for assistance. In order to receive money from the IMF, they had to implement neo-liberal policies.

Key points Gramsci shifted the focus of Marxist

analysis towards superstructural phenomena.Gramsci explored the processes by which consent for a particular social and political system was produced through the operation of hegemony. Hegemony allows the ideas of the ruling elite to become widespread.

Cox attempted to internationalize Gramsci’s thought by transferring his concepts such as hegemony to the global context.