A Critical Theory Route to Hegemony, World Order and Historical Change

Abstract

Situated within a historical materialist problematic of social transformation and deploying many insights from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, a crucial break with mainstream International Relations (IR) approaches emerged by the 1980s in the work of Robert Cox. In contrast to mainstream routes to hegemony in IR, which develop a static theory of politics, an abstract ahistorical conception of the state and an appeal to universal validity (e.g. Keohane, 1984, 1989; Waltz, 1979), debate shifted towards a critical theory of hegemony, world order and historical change (for the classic critique, see Ashley, 1984). Rather than a problem-solving preoccupation with the maintenance of social power relationships, a critical theory of hegemony directs attention to questioning the prevailing order of the world. It ‘does not take institutions and social and power relations for granted but calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and whether they might be in the process of changing’ (Cox, 1981, p. 129). Thus, it is specifically critical in the sense of asking how existing social or world orders have come into being, how norms, institutions or practices therefore emerge, and what forces may have the emancipatory potential to change or transform the prevailing order.