Robert W. Cox

Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory

Academic conventions divide the seamless web of the real social world into separate spheres, each with its own theorizing; this is a necessary and practical way of gaining understanding. Contemplation of undivided totality may lead to profound abstractions or mystical revelations, but practical knowledge (that which can be put to work through action) is always partial or fragmentary in origin. Whether the parts remain as limited, separated objects of knowledge, or become the basis for constructing a structured and dynamic view of larger wholes, is a major question of method and purpose. Either way, the starting point is some initial subdivision of reality, usually dictated by convention. It is wise to bear in mind that such a conventional cutting up of reality is at best just a convenience of the mind. These segments, however, derive indirectly from reality insofar as they are the result of practices, that is to say, the responses of consciousness to the pressures of reality. Subdivisions of social knowledge thus may roughly correspond to the ways in which human affairs are organized in particular times and places. They may, accordingly, appear to be increasingly arbitrary when practices change. International relations is a case in point. It is an area of study concerned with the interrelationships among states in an epoch in which states, and most commonly nation-states, are the principal aggregations of political power.

Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations : An Essay in Method

Some time ago I began reading Gramscis Prison Notebooks . In these fragments, written in a fascist prison between 1929 and 1935, the former leader of the Italian Communist Party was concerned with the problem of understanding capitalist societies in the 1920s and 1930s, and particularly with the meaning of fascism and the possibilities of building an alternative form of state and society based on the working class. What he had to say centred upon the state, upon the relationship of civil society to the state, and upon the relationship of politics, ethics and ideology to production. Not surprisingly, Gramsci did not have very much to say directly about international relations. Nevertheless, I found that Gramscis thinking was helpful in understanding the meaning of international organisation with which I was then principally concerned. Particularly valuable was his concept of hegemony, but valuable also were several related concepts which he had worked out for himself or developed from others. This essay sets forth my understanding of what Gramsci meant by hegemony and these related concepts, and suggests how I think they may be adapted, retaining his essential meaning, to the understanding of problems of world order. It does not purport to be a critical study of Gramscis political theory but merely a derivation from it of some ideas useful for a revision of current international relations theory.

Education for Development

The relationship between international organization and developing countries is one of interdependence: developing countries place hope in disinterested help through international agencies; and the needs of the developing world provide stimulus to the expansion of international organization. Yet these two contemporaneous processes of political development—the growth of international organization and nation building in developing areas—may not always be in step. Education is a convenient viewpoint from which to examine this relationship, with its element of discord and of convergence of interest. Education is a prominent aspiration of governments and people in developing countries and is widely considered to be a most efficacious instrument for modernization. This subject-matter limitation also makes it possible to focus on two international organizations: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the agency primarily responsible for educational systems; and the International Labor Organization (ILO) because of its recent emphasis both on training in occupational skills and on the relevancy of the manpower factor for educational policy.

Civil society at the turn of the millenium: prospects for an alternative world order

The meaning of ‘civil society’ has evolved considerably since its use in the context of the 18th century European Enlightenment. Then it signified the realm of private interests, in practice the realm of the bourgeoisie, distinct from the state. While one current of thought retains that meaning and its implications, others view civil society rather as the emancipatory activity of social forces distinct from both state and capital. Antonio Gramscis thought embraced both meanings: civil society was the ground that sustained the hegemony of the bourgeoisie but also that on which an emancipatory counterhegemony could be constructed. Is civil society today in the latter sense, a surrogate for revolution that seems a remote possibility towards the attainment of an alternative social and world order? It is useful to test this proposition by examining the potential for civil society in different parts of the world.

Multilateralism and world order

‘World order’ has become a current catchphrase of political discourse and journalism. ‘Multilateralism’ has become something of a growth sector in academic studies. What current events have brought into prominence, scholarship has an obligation to subject to critical analysis. This article raises some of the questions that should be probed in this analysis.

Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: reflections on some recent literature

mally dated from the Algiers conference of the Non-Aligned countries in 1973 and which has been pursued with the backing of these countries in the United Nations and other international instances, has precipitated a reconsideration of the structure and processes of world political economy among all the principal interests. This has resulted in a large and growing literature that to date, if it has not entirely clarified the problems and issues besetting the world political economy, has at least made it possible to identify certain salient currents of thought about them, each setting forth a mode of analysis and a strategy of action. This review article attempts to survey some of this literature. I take my stand not in some conception of objective science from which to allocate merits and demerits to particular authors, but rather as an observer of the confrontations of ideas, considering the role of ideas in relation to the positions of conflicting forces. The survey cannot claim to be comprehensive, though it does aim to be representative of different perspectives. A list of the books and documents covered is appended at the end, and references will be made by principal author and page number in the body of the text. Ideological analysis is, of course, a critics weapon and one most effectively used against the prevailing orthodoxies which, when stripped of their putative universality, become seen as special pleading for historically transient but presently entrenched interests. Social science is never neutral. It is,

The Executive Head: An Essay on Leadership in International Organization

The quality of executive leadership may prove to be the most critical single determinant of the growth in scope and authority of international organization. Now sufficiently long and varied to allow a comparative approach, the history of international organization may provide elements for a theory of leadership. This essay is but a preliminary effort in that direction. It is concerned not only with how the executive head protects and develops his position as top man but also with how, by doing so, he may be the creator of a new (if yet slender) world power base.

International political economy : understanding global disorder

The international political economy of the future, Bjorn Hettne emerging trends in political economy and international relations theory, Robert W. Cox Distant proximities - the dynamics and dialectics of globalization, James N. Rosenau democratization, social movements and world order, Yoshikazu Sakamoto the second glorious revolution - globalizing elites and historical change, Kees van der Pijl Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations, Stephen Gill.

Beyond empire and terror: critical reflections on the political economy of world order

The 10th anniversary is a significant marker in the history of this Centre, the more so since both the study of political economy and the world it contemplates have been undergoing major changes during that decade. I mark the revival of the idea of political economy from the appearance of the late Susan Strange’s article ‘International Economics and International Relations: A Case of Mutual Neglect’ published in International Affairs in April 1970. It began the process of breaking down disciplinary boundaries by challenging people from two entrenched disciplines to learn from each other. Encouraged by the response, particularly from international relations and political science specialists—who are perhaps less secure in the conviction of the self-sufficiency of their own discipline than were the economists—Susan carried the attack further by proclaiming that IPE, international political economy, should be an ‘open field’ ready to explore the findings of people working from the whole range of disciplines concerned with the nature and dynamics of societies. It led, in her words, to the rejection of ‘the comfort of separatist specialization in the social sciences’ and towards ‘the attempt at ... synthesis and blending, imperfect as we know the results are bound to be’. Her advice turned out to be a prediction. The ‘new political economy’, if I may borrow the name of your journal, has come to absorb the perspectives of ecology, gender, cultures and civilisations. There are no bounds to its quest to understand and explain present and emerging realities. The narrow explanatory capacity of positivistic ‘neorealism’ in international relations studies has been outstripped by the comprehensive ‘new realism’ embraced by Susan Strange. Now from within the discipline of economics there is emerging a movement towards a broader explanation of economic phenomena by incorporating political, cultural and ethical factors. This expansion of the scope of political economy was not an inspiration coming from theory itself. It was impelled forward by change in the real world. As Hegel said: ‘The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk’. Theory follows reflection on what happens in the world; and there

Approaches to world order: Beyond international relations theory: Robert W. Cox and approaches to world order

Robert W. Coxs work stands outside the usual parameters of international relations theory. Strongly historical in perspective, Coxs method of understanding global change represents a challenge to conventional ontological assumptions about international relations. These assumptions, the central of which is that states are the major actors whose interaction is to be explained, are qualified by Cox based on his observation that the major driving forces of world order change, albeit slowly, over time. Rather than discuss “the state,” Coxs focus has been on forms of state and how these change under pressure from forces from above (world order) and from below (civil society). Cox considers states to be focal terrains of conflict and institutional means of action internationally and nationally. In Coxs worldview the future represents an opportunity to break with the structures of the past and thus the potential to escape the strictures that bind human potential. This essay is intended to provide the reader with an introduction to Robert W. Coxs approach to the study of international relations. It has four sections in which this is pursued. In the first part, the importance of Coxs work is established by reference to the changing nature of world order and the critical stance of his work. Unlike other approaches, it is argued, Coxs intellectual stance makes change a central feature of the understanding of international relations. This gives it an advantage over status quo perspectives in a world order characterized by transformation.