httpforeign

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/15/these-25-companies-are-
more-powerful-
than-many-countries-multinational-corporate-wealth-power/
Parag Khanna
These 25 Companies Are More Powerful Than Many
Countries

Going stateless to maximize profits, multinational companies
are vying with governments for global power.
Who is winning?
FOREIGN POLICY, APRIL 15, 2016
============
At first glance, the story of Accenture reads like the archetype
of the American dream. One of the world’s
biggest consulting companies, which commands tens of billions
of dollars in annual revenues, was born in
the 1950s as a small division of accounting firm Arthur
Andersen. Its first major project was advising
General Electric to install a computer at a Kentucky facility in
order to automate payment processing.
Several decades of growth followed, and by 1989, the division
was successful enough to become its own
organization: Andersen Consulting.
Yet a deeper look at the business shows its ascent veeri ng off
the American track. This wasn’t because it
opened foreign offices in Mexico, Japan, and other countries;
international expansion is pro forma for many
U.S. companies. Rather, Andersen Consulting saw benefits—
fewer taxes, cheaper labor, less onerous
regulations — beyond borders and restructured internally to
take advantage of them. By 2001, when it went
public after adopting the name Accenture, it had morphed into a
network of franchises loosely coordinated
out of a Swiss holding company. It incorporated in Bermuda and
stayed there until 2009, when it
redomiciled in Ireland, another low-tax jurisdiction. Today,
Accenture’s roughly 373,000 employees are
scattered across more than 200 cities in 55 countries.
Consultants parachute into locations for

commissioned work but often report to offices in regional hubs,
such as Prague and Dubai, with lower tax
rates. To avoid pesky residency status, the human resources
department ensures that employees don’t spend
too much time at their project sites.
Welcome to the age of metanationals: companies that, like
Accenture, are effectively stateless. When
business and strategy experts Yves Doz, José Santos, and Peter
Williamson coined the term in a 2001 book,
metanationals were an emerging phenomenon, a divergence
from the tradition of corporations taking pride
in their national roots. (In the 1950s, General Motors President
Charles Wilson famously said, “What was
good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice
versa.”) Today, the severing of state lifelines
has become business as usual.
ExxonMobil, Unilever, BlackRock, HSBC, DHL, Visa—these
companies all choose locations for
personnel, factories, executive suites, or bank accounts based on
where regulations are friendly, resources
abundant, and connectivity seamless. Clever metanationals often
have legal domicile in one country,
corporate management in another, financial assets in a third,
and administrative staff spread over several
more. Some of the largest American-born firms — GE, IBM,
Microsoft, to name a few — collectively are
holding trillions of dollars tax-free offshore by having revenues
from overseas markets paid to holding
companies incorporated in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the
Cayman Islands, or Singapore. In a nice
illustration of the tension this trend creates with policymakers,
some observers have dubbed the money
1

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/15/these-25-companies-are-
more-powerful
“stateless income,” while U.S. President Barack Obama has
called the companies hoarding it America’s
“corporate deserters.”
It isn’t surprising, of course, when companies find new ways to

act in their own interest; it’s surprising
when they don’t. The rise of metanationals, however, isn’t just
about new ways of making money. It also
unsettles the definition of “global superpower.”
The debate over that term usually focuses on states—that is, can
any country compete with America’s
status and influence? In June 2015, the Pew Research Center
surveyed people in 40 countries and found
that a median of 48 percent thought China had or would surpass
the United States as a superpower, while
just 35 percent said it never would. Pew, however, might have
considered widening its scope of research —
for corporations are likely to overtake all states in terms of
clout.
Already, the cash that Apple has on hand exceeds the GDPs of
two-thirds of the world’s countries. Firms
are also setting the pace vis-à-vis government regulators in a
perennial game of cat-and-mouse. After the
2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank
Act to discourage banks from growing
excessively big and catastrophe-prone. Yet while the law
crushed some smaller financial institutions, the
largest banks — with operations spread across many countries
— actually became even larger, amassing
more capital and lending less. Today, the 10 biggest banks still
control almost 50 percent of assets under
management worldwide. Meanwhile, some European Union
officials, including Competition
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, are pushing for a common
tax-base policy among member states to
prevent corporations from taking advantage of preferential
rates. But if that happened (and it’s a very big
if), firms would just look beyond the continent for metanational
opportunities.

The world is entering an era in which the most powerful law is
not that of sovereignty but that of supply
and demand. As scholar Gary Gereffi of Duke University has
argued, denationalization now involves
companies assembling the capacities of various locations into
their global value chains. This has birthed
success for companies, such as commodities trader Glencore
and logistics firm Archer Daniels Midland,
that don’t focus primarily on manufacturing goods, but are
experts at getting the physical ingredients of
what metanationals make wherever they’re needed.
Could businesses go a step further, shifting from stateless to
virtual? Some people think so. In 2013, Balaji
Srinivasan, now a partner at the venture-capital company
Andreessen Horowitz, gave a much debated talk
in which he claimed Silicon Valley is becoming more powerful
than Wall Street and the U.S. government.
He described “Silicon Valley’s ultimate exit,” or the creation of
“an opt-in society, ultimately outside the
U.S., run by technology.” The idea is that because social
communities increasingly exist online, businesses
and their operations might move entirely into the cloud.
Much as the notion of taxing a metanational based on its
headquarters’ location now seems painfully
antiquated, Srinivasan’s ultimate exit may ring of techie
utopianism. If stateless companies live by one rule,
however, it’s that there’s always another place to go where
profits are higher, oversight friendlier, and
opportunities more plentiful. This belief has helped nimble,
mobile, and smart corporations outgrow their
original masters, including the world’s reigning superpower.
Seen in this light, metanationals disassociating
from terrestrial restraints and harnessing the power of the cloud

is anything but far-fetched. It may even be
inevitable.
2
0 COMPANY 0 COMPANY 0 COMPANY 0 COMPANY 0
WALMART EXXON MOBIL ROYAL DUTCH SHELL APPLE
GLENCORE
BIO BI O BIO BIO BIO
RETAILER OIL AND GAS OIL ANO GAS COMPANY TECH
COMPANY COMMODITY
HEADQUARTERS COMPANY HEADQUARTERS
HEADQUARTERS TRADING AND MINING
BENTONVILLE , HEADQUARTERS THE HAGUE ,
CUPERTINO , COMPANY
ARKANSAS IRVING , TEXAS NETHERLANDS CALIFORNIA
HEADQUARTERS
ANNUAL REVENUE ANNUA L REVENUE ANNUAL
REVENUE ANNUAL REVENUE BAAR, SWITZERLAND

$486 BILLION (2015) $269 BILLION (2015) $265 BILLION
(2015) $234 BILLION (2015) ANNUAL REVENUE
$221 BILLION (2014)
COMPANY 0 COMPANY 8 COMPANY 0 COMPANY 0
COMPANY 0
SAMSUNG AMAZON MICROSOFT NESTLE ALPHABET
ELECTRONICS BI O BIO BIO BIO
BIO E-COMMERCE COMPANY TECH COMPANY FOOO
AND BEVERAGE TECH CONGLOMERATE
TECH COMPANY HEADQUARTERS HEADQUARTERS
PRODUCER HEADQUARTERS
HEADQUARTERS SEATTLE, WASHINGTON REDMOND,
HEADQUARTERS MOUNTAIN VIEW,
SUWON, SOUTH KOREA ANNUA L REVENUE
WASHINGTON VEVEY, SWITZERLAND CALIFORNIA
ANNUAL REVENUE $107 BILLION (2015) ANNUAL
REVENUE ANNUAL REVENUE ANNUAL REVENUE
(2014) $75 BILLION (2015)
COMPANY -COMPANY G) COMPANY e COMPANY 0
COMPANY G UBER HUAWEI VODAFONE ANHEUSER-
BUSCH MAERSK BIO TECHNOLOGIES BIO INBEV BIO
RIDE-HAILING SERVICE BI O TELECO HM UN ICATI ONS
BIO SHIPPING COMPANY
HEADQUARTERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROVIDER
BEVERAGE COMPANY HEADQUARTERS
SAN FRANCISCO,
COMPANY HEADQUARTERS HEADQUARTERS
COPENHAGEN,
CALIFORNIA HEADQUARTERS LONDON, ENGLAND
LEUVEN , BELGIUM DENMARK

VALUATION SHENZHEN , CHINA ANNUAL REVENUE
ANNUAL REVENUE ANNUAL REVENUE
$62 . 5 BILLION ANNUAL REVENUE $60 BILLION (2015)
$47 BILLION (2014) $40 BILLION (2015)
(DECEMBER 2015) $60 BILLION (2015)
COMPANY 0 COMPANY G COMPANY 0 COMPANY G)
COMPANY 0
GOLDMAN SACHS HALLIBURTON ACCENTURE
MCDONALD'S EMIRATES
BIO BI O BIO BIO BIO
INVESTMENT MULTINATIONAL CONSULTING FIRM
FAST- FOOD AIRLINE
BANKING FIRM CONGLOMERATE HEADQUARTERS
RESTAURANT HEADQUARTERS
HEADQUARTERS HEADQUARTERS INCORPORATED
HEADQUARTERS DUBAI, UNITED ARAB
NEW YORK, NEW YORK HOUSTON , TEXAS IN IRELAND
OAK BROOK, ILLINOIS EMIRATES
ANNUAL REVENUE ANNUAL REVENUE ANNUAL
(2015) $25 BILLION (2015) $24 BILLION (2015)
COMPANY G COMPANY G) COMPANY -COMPANY -
COMPANY G FACEBOOK ALIBABA BLACKROCK
MCKINSEY & COMPANY TWITTER BIO BI O BIO BIO BIO
SOCIAL HEOIA COMPANY E-COMMERCE INVESTMENT
CONSULTING SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY
HEADQUARTERS COMPANY MANAGER FIRM
HEADQUARTERS
MENLO PARK , HEADQUARTERS HEADQUARTERS

HEADQUARTERS SAN FRANCISCO ,
CALIFORNIA HANGZHOU, CHINA NEW YORK , NEW
YORK N/ A CALIFORNIA
ANNUAL REVENUE ANNUAL REVENUE ANNUAL
(2014) $8 BILLION (2014) $2 .2 BILLION (2015)
Top 25 by David Francis
====
ParagKhanna(@paragkhanna)istheauthoroftheforthcomingbook
Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization.
DavidFrancis(@davidcfrancis)isaseniorreporterfor Foreign
Policy.
AversionofthisarticleoriginallyappearedintheMarch/April2016is
sueof FP under
the title “Rise of the Titans.”
3
Project 6
Project 6: Global Approaches to Cybersecurity
Start Here
As a cybersecurity professional, it is important for you to not
only understand the organizational and national human and
technical factors, but because you will encounter international
threats and concerns, it's also important to be able to recognize
threats from other countries.
This is the last of six sequential projects. In this project, you
are tasked with creating a chart that depicts your
recommendations regarding the assessment and evaluation of

the cybersecurity threats and policies that can be linked to
origins in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and other regions,
including the relevant cultural differences in global security
outlooks across these regions. You will base your findings from
the view of a consultant to an international company looking to
expand in those geographical areas. Generally, what kind of
cybersecurity climate will the company encounter?
In your research, focus on a malicious cyber technology or
capability (malware) that is specific to the global environment,
i.e., Trojans, rootkits, worms, spyware, keystroke loggers, or
advanced persistent threats (do not select botnets, as they will
be studied separately in this project). Along with your country
threat assessments, you must also assess and evaluate the
evolution of this malware and recommend how global
cybersecurity policies might be used to counter the effects.
You will review the characteristics of your chosen malware by
discussing six specific characteristics (purpose, size, attack
method, attribution, etc.) and describe how these characteristics
have emerged, changed, or evolved over the past five to 10
years. Also discuss what contributing factors may cause these
characteristics to change, and how these characteristics may
change over the next 10 years. How might these technologies be
countered by global cybersecurity policy controls (do not
describe technology controls) in the future? Support your
position with policy, security practice, theories, principles, and
recommendations based on your own thoughts, examples, and
cited references.
Finally, you will study botnets, which are a specific and
particularly pervasive type of malware. You will learn about the
global nature of botnets and the emerging security issues
associated with botnets, to include their impact on the
formulation of global cybersecurity policies.
There are 13 steps in this project. Begin with the information
below to review your project scenario.
Transcript/video

You are a consultant to GlobalOutreach, an international
company that specializes in risk mitigation, with emphasis on
cyber risk.
GlobalOutreach is currently looking to expand into the
geographical areas of the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and
other regions. The company has asked you to provide your
thoughts (based on research) on what kind of cybersecurity
climate can be expected when expanding to these areas.
Your assessment of the global environment will include the
identification of specific cyberthreats pervasive in selected
regions as well as the identification and characterization of
malware in these regions.
You decide to also focus on networked computing systems,
which are important to businesses, commerce, and education
worldwide, but may be controlled by the global governments
that vary from country to country.
Botnets, which leverage networks of computers, are a particular
global concern, and GlobalOutreach has dedicated research
funds to better understanding the propagation of botnets and
also how to eradicate them. Networked computing systems are
particularly vulnerable to botnets, which can be used in
distributed denial-of-service attacks and other malicious
purposes.
Your report will highlight cybersecurity policies in three
international regions as well as in NATO and the United
Nations, representing global alliances, and will then document
the impact of your selected malware in the three geographic
areas. It will feature the types of malicious activities most
widely observed and what they are used for, and will also
consider the role of international cybersecurity poli cies in
eradicating the malware.
A comprehensive report will show GlobalOutreach that you are
in the best position to advise about global affairs, laying the
groundwork for future consulting with the company.
Close/end of video

Transcript
Competencies
Your work will be evaluated using the competencies listed
below.
· 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or
problem under critical consideration.
· 7.2: Evaluate international cybersecurity policy.
· 8.2: Evaluate specific cybersecurity threats and the
combination of technologies and policies that can address them.
Step 1: Project Practice - SIMTRAY Cyber Policy for a Small
World: Day 1
As a consultant to a global risk mitigation company, you will
need an overview of global cybersecurity issues and related
policies. The global connections that characterize modern
cyberspace and catalyze near-instantaneous communication and
productivity are also the Achilles' heel of governments.
Cybernetworks, like their physical counterparts, are prone to
being used as instruments of sabotage, espionage, disruption,
and war. In order to familiarize yourself with these types of
global issues and relevant terminology and concepts, open the
SIMTRAY titled "Cyber Policy for a Small World." NOTE: To
view some SIMTRAY modules in this project, Flash must be
enabled in your browser. A quick internet search for “enable
flash” in IE, Edge, Chrome, Firefox, or Safari will yield
instructions if you need them.
SIMTRAY is a simulation that will give you a sense of the need
for cybersecurity personnel to maintain a global perspective.
There are no local incidents in cyberspace, but more
importantly, you will reflect on US policy on cybercrime and
cyberwarfare. Some of the issues and topics addressed in this
exercise include EMP attack, the role of state actors, and
attacks using technologies such as botnets.

The SIMTRAY will provide you with scores to give you a sense
on how well you are grasping the concepts. The sections are
timed for 30 minutes; however, you can run the SIMTRAY as
many times as you need. Record your best score and at least one
lesson learned from the exercise to include in your report at the
end of the three-day simulation.Step 2: Project Practice -
SIMTRAY Cyber Policy for a Small World: Day 2
In the previous step, you started to examine the SIMTRAY,
"Cyber Policy for a Small World.” In this step, continue to
focus on SIMTRAY, but document the specific technologies and
policies that you believe could be better addressed in the global
scene. You may encounter the following topics in this
exercise: EMP Attack, the role of state actors, and attacks using
technologies such as botnets.
many times as you need. Record your best score and at least one
lesson learned from the exercise to include in your report at the
end of the three-day simulation.Step 3: Project Practice -
SIMTRAY Cyber Policy for a Small World: Day 3
In this step, you should continue to explore the scenarios within
SIMTRAY, "Cyber Policy for a Small World." If you have not
already, you will most likely encounter the following topics in
this exercise: EMP Attack, the role of state actors, and attacks
using technologies such as botnets.
Document events that you experience in the exercise that might
affect the global cybersecurity policy. Think about threats
brought about by new technologies and how these threats are or
could be handled by global policy.
many times as you need in order to have a firm grasp of the
concepts. Compile your recorded scores, lessons learned and
documented technologies and policies into a one-page report.

Submit your report for feedback.Submission for Cyber Policy
for a Small World Simtray ReportPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Drop files here, or click below.
Bottom of FormStep 4: Review Malicious Cyber Technology
Now that you have practiced the SIMTRAY to familiarize
yourself with global issues, you will focus on a specific
malicious cyber technology or capability (malware) that is
specific to the global environment. Select one technology or
capability and post a brief description on the discussion board
of the technology, its intended use, and how it is being used
maliciously. Include a brief discussion of how your selected
technology has evolved and how global cybersecurity policies
might be used to counter its effects.
Possible choices include, but are not limited to: Trojans,
rootkits, worms, spyware, keystroke loggers, or advanced
persistent threats (APTs). Do not select botnets.Step 5: Review
International Cybersecurity Threats
Due to the vast differences in culture, leadership, laws, and
policies of countries around the globe, cybersecurity threats are
handled differently. These differences result in various
approaches to cybersecurity economic issues, different
tolerances for cybersecurity cultural issues, and different
responses to cyberterrorism. Ultimately, global perspectives
on international cybersecurity legal issues have broad impact as
different nations attempt to both thrive in the global economic
environment and survive in light of global cyberthreats.
Organizations that desire to expand into foreign nations must
consider these differences, particularly when they are not
relevant when operating in the United States.
For this step, you will evaluate global cybersecurity
threats coming from a minimum of three different regions; for
example, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Russia, or other
regions. More specifically, think about networked computing
systems being critical to businesses, commerce, education, and

governments. Keeping them secure is no longer solely the
concern of corporate entities and the relevant regulatory
environments. Global governments must also work to ensure the
security of their networks. Also consider your selected
technology from the previous step.
Complete the International Cybersecurity Threat Matrix for at
least three countries or regions, aside from the United States
and North America.Step 6: Review NATO and United Nations
Complete the Andrew Bowers NATO Intern eLearning
Module for an overview of the NATO cybersecurity stance.
NOTE: To view some modules in this project, Flash must be
Evaluate its effectiveness as well as the effectiveness of the
United Nations cybersecurity stance in helping to contribute
to cybersecurity international policy over the next decade. For
more information, read about international cybersecurity
approaches.
Update the International Cybersecurity Threat Matrix from the
previous step, based on your findings in this step. Submit your
matrix for feedback. This matrix will be included in your final
report.Submission for International Cybersecurity Threat
MatrixPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of FormStep 7: Compile International Cybersecurity
Environmental Scan Findings
Compile all of the information you found in the previous two
steps and write a two-page summary. Use the International
Cybersecurity Environmental Scan Template to guide your
summary, which should include descriptions of the regions and
of the cybersecurity threats prevalent in the regions selected.
Address the role of international bodies (NATO and United
Nations) in influencing and contributing to international

cybersecurity policies.
Submit your summary for feedback. This summary will be
included in your final report.Submission for International
Cybersecurity Environmental Scan SummaryPrevious
submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of FormStep 8: Create Regional Fact Sheet on
Identification and Implication of Cybersecurity Threats
To illustrate the impact of cybersecurity threats, develop a one-
page fact sheet using one of the regions from your matrix.
Explain the cybersecurity threat experienced in one region, the
evolution of the associated malware, the implications (e.g.,
economic, political, national security, etc.) of it to that regi on
and how global cybersecurity policies might be used to counter
the effects.
You will discuss six specific characteristics (purpose, size,
attack method, attribution, etc.) of the malware and describe
how these characteristics have emerged, changed, or evolved
over the past five to 10 years. Also discuss what contributing
factors may cause these characteristics to change, and how these
characteristics may change over the next 10 years. How might
these technologies be countered by global cybersecurity poli cy
controls (do not describe technology controls) in the future?
Support your position with policy, security practice, theories,
principles, and recommendations based on your own thoughts,
examples, and cited references.
Submit your regional fact sheet for feedback.Submission for
Regional Fact SheetPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of FormStep 9: Review Global Cybersecurity Threats:
Deep Dive on Botnets
A botnet is a particular type of cyberthreat in which a network

of computers is infected with malware and then co-opted and
controlled by one entity. Botnets are globally pervasive and
used in many modern-day cyber intrusions. It's important to
understand how they operate and their impact to global security.
Review the learning content modules listed below and create
notes using the Botnet Research Template.
Learning Content Modules:
· Botnets Creating Profit
· Global Botnets and Emerging Issues
· Botnet Attack at Westwood Mutual
NOTE: To view some modules in this project, Flash must be
The notes in the research template will be used for your
evaluation of the international concerns of botnets in the next
step.Submission for Botnet EvaluationPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of FormStep 10: Evaluate Botnets
Evaluate the issues associated with botnets and with
formulating global cybersecurity policy. Identify the
characteristics of botnets, and how they have evolved over the
past five to 10 years. Research the key technical features
of botnets and determine the factors that contribute to botnet
characteristics to change. Your Botnet Evaluation should be
one-and-a-half to two pages in length.
Submit your Botnet Evaluation for feedback.Submission for
Botnet EvaluationPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of FormStep 11: Discuss Botnets
In a two-page document,
· Discuss six specific characteristics of the global nature

of botnets (such as purpose, size, attack method, attribution,
etc.).
· Describe how these characteristics have emerged, changed, or
evolved over the past five to 10 years.
· Describe the key technical features of six example botnets.
· Discuss what contributing factors may cause botnet
characteristics to change, and how these characteristics may
change over the next 10 years.
Submit your Botnet Discussion for feedback.Submission for
Botnet DiscussionPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of FormStep 12: Consider the Future of Botnets
Create a one-page document that answers the following
questions, taking into consideration your country research and
botnet reviews.
· How might future botnets be countered by global
cybersecurity policy controls (do not describe technology
controls) in the future?
· What impact could global cybersecurity policies have on the
eradication of botnets?
Submit your Botnet Conclusion for feedback.Submission for
Botnet ConclusionPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of FormStep 13: Compose Global Cybersecurity
Environment Report
Throughout this project, you have researched and considered
global cybersecurity issues, technologies, and related policies.
You have evaluated various countries and international
organizations. It is now time to compose your consultant's
report to GlobalOutreach documenting your findings. Refer to
the instruction for the Global Cybersecurity Environment
Report for additional guidelines.

Submit your completed report.Check Your Evaluation Criteria
Before you submit your assignment, review the competencies
below, which your instructor will use to evaluate your work. A
good practice would be to use each competency as a self-check
to confirm you have incorporated all of them. To view the
complete grading rubric, click My Tools, select Assignments
from the drop-down menu, and then click the project title.
· 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or
problem under critical consideration.
· 7.2: Evaluate international cybersecurity policy.
· 8.2: Evaluate specific cybersecurity threats and the
combination of technologies and policies that can address
them.Submission for Global Cybersecurity Environment
ReportPrevious submissions
0
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
What to post on project 6 discussion forum
Malicious Cyber Technology
Please select a technology or capability and post a brief
description, its intended use, and how it is being used
maliciously. (Do not select botnets.)

-
-
Theory Talks
Presents
THEORY TALK #37
ROBERT COX ON WORLD ORDERS, HISTORICAL
CHANGE, AND THE PURPOSE OF THEORY IN
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Theory Talks
is an interactive forum for discussion of debates in International
Relations with an emphasis of the underlying theoretical issues.
By
frequently inviting cutting edge specialists in the field to
elucidate
their work and to explain current developments both in IR

theory and
real world politics, Theory Talks aims to offer both scholars and
students a comprehensive view of the field and its most
important
protagonists.
Citation: Schouten, P. (2009) ‘Theory Talk #37: Robert Cox on
World Orders, Historical Change,
and the Purpose of Theory in International Relations’, Theory
Talks, http://www.theory-
talks.org/2010/03/theory-talk-37.html (12-03-2010)
https://talks.org/2010/03/theory-talk-37.html
http://www.theory
WWW.THEORY‐ TALKS.ORG 
ROBERT COX ON WORLD ORDERS, HISTORICAL
CHANGE, AND THE PURPOSE OF THEORY IN
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
 
 
Realism in International Relations (IR)
has never been challenged as eloquently
as by Robert W. Cox in his seminal article
S o c i a l F o r c e s , S t a t e s , a n d W o r l d O r d e r s .

Ever since, his work has inspired critical
students of IR and International Political
Economy (IPE) to think beyond the
boundaries of conventional theorizing
and to investigate the premises that
underpin and link international politics
and academic reflection on it. Recognized
by many as one of the world’s most
important thinkers in both IR and IPE,
Cox assembles impressive and complex
thinking stemming from history,
philosophy, and geopolitics, to illuminate
how politics can never be separated from
economics, how theory is always linked to practice, and how
material relations and ideas
are inextricably intertwined to co-produce world orders. In this
seminal T a l k , Cox,
amongst others, discusses possible futures we now face in terms
of world order; reiterates
what it means that theory is always for someone and for some
purpose; shows how the
distinction between critical and problem-solving theory
illuminates the problem of
climate change.
What is, according to you, the biggest challenge or principal
debate in current IR/IPE?
What is your position or answer to this challenge or in this
debate?
I do not have a grand theory of where the world is going. I think
in terms of dialectics, that is,
contradictions, which may or may not be overcome. We are
living in a time of gradual
disintegration of a historical structure, which not so long ago

seemed to be approaching what
Francis Fukuyama once called ‘the end of history’.
As a critical theorist, I see two future scenarios. As things are
right now, there is a prevailing
historical structure, yet there are social forces working towards
an alternative historical
configuration of forces, a rival historical structure. One is that
the relative decline of American
power gives way to a more plural world with several centers of
world power that would be in
continuous negotiation for a constantly adjustable modus
vivendi, much akin to the European
19th-century balance of power system, but now on world scale.
One common threat would hang
over this process of negotiation for the adjustment of power
relations, and that is the problem of
global warming and the fragility of the biosphere, which puts
pressures on all of us to achieve
successes in coordinating particular interests towards the
common interest of saving the planet.
1 
 
WWW.THEORY-TALKS.ORG�

Another scenario is also emerging: a continuation of the
struggle for global domination, I think a
prevailing term on the American side is ‘full spectrum
dominance’, pitting US led forces against
the potential consolidation of Eurasian power. This is the old
geopolitical vision of Halford
Mackinder: a heartland consisting of Eurasia, the world island,
encircled by the now American-
led periphery. The war on terror, first started by the Bush
administration and now continued by
Obama, renews the American imperative for world dominance.
This leads logically to a coming
together of the continent of Eurasia, to confront what Eurasians
perceive as the attempt of the
US to achieve world dominance by encirclment. The conflicts
that now exist in the Middle
East—Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan—are symptomatic of this,
including the growing reservations of
some European countries to the role of the periphery’s military
alliance, NATO. There is an
alternative organization, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, linking Russia, China, and the
Central Asian Republics, which in effect would join together
Eurasia as a potential
counterbalance to NATO.
I think the biggest challenge is the relative decline of the US in
relation to the rest of the world
and whether and how America will adjust to a world in which it
can no longer presume to lead. I
think this is extremely difficult for American society and
American politicians. The role of
developing this new historical structure, by the actors within it,

is to build a context for action
which shapes thinking about what is possible for those living
through it. This engenders a
‘common sense’ about reality that can endure for a long time, as
previous historical structures
have shown. This is what Fernand Braudel called the ‘longue
durée’. A historical structure in the
minds of historical actors may seem fixed, but the historian can
subsequently see it as being in
mutation, gradually sometimes or more suddenly in others.
So probably the biggest challenge is the challenge to America.
The rest of the world is showing
some ability to understand and to be party to an adjustment to a
new world order—but will
America understand? That’s the big problem, because the rest of
the world is ready to adapt
provided the US takes a lead towards understanding its role as
that of one great power amongst
others. The moment Obama got elected was a moment that
represented the possibility of such a
change in American society, yet one year later, in terms of
international relations, he has
appointed all the people associated with the previous
administration. So while there is now,
because of Obama, a difference in the mode of expression of
American power (Obama is much
more sympathetic to the rest of the world than the rather
aggressively dominant Bush/Cheney
presidency), that power is directed in the same way as before.
The US still has over seven
hundred military bases around the world which seem to the rest
of the world as encirclement.
Now compare this to Britain’s position after the Second World
War. Britain was no longer able

to sustain its position as a world leader and adopted a policy of
withdrawal. It could do so
because of the idea of a ‘special relationship’ with the US,
which effectively meant turning over
problems of international security to the United States. So in
structural terms, nothing changed
much at that moment in terms of dominance in world order, but
Britain managed to adopt to its
new role. Now back to the present: with Obama, many people
expected an international politics
of withdrawal: a big part of his support came from the idea that
he was the anti-war candidate—
he even received the Nobel Peace Prize. But, in accepting his
prize, he somewhat apologetically
defended fighting his wars. And this straitjacket of war in which
Obama finds himself, this
seeming determinism regarding the role of the US in the
contemporary world order, has major
implications for domestic social forces and is called into
question by the crisis in the world
economy.
2 
 

How did you arrive at where you currently are in IR?
I grew up in Canada, and early on I realized that Canada is not
just a single entity, but is also an
assemblage of communities. I had to come to terms quite early
with the fact that states, the
homogeneous entities that form the point of departure for
thinking about international politics,
are in fact made up of combinations of ethnic/religious and
social forces, which more often than
not have conflicting interests and aspirations. After that, based
in Switzerland for 25 years, I
traveled the world while working for the International Labor
Organization (ILO). At that time, I
was no longer identified primarily as a Canadian but rather as
an international civil servant— not
as a cosmopolitan in the sense of having overcome local
identification, but rather could I identify
with many different peoples in distinct places. From this
experience, I came to understand that all
these different peoples ought to be respected in their
differences. I thoroughly rejected the idea
that the aim should be that everyone would ultimately be the
same: difference is healthy, it is
interesting, and it would be awfully boring if everyone were the
same. So I discovered that not
only Canada, but the rest of the world too, was made up of
different and conflicting social and
political forces, which functioned in alliances that crossed state
borders. I saw shared interests
with similar groups across borders as well as solidarities within
states.

My thinking is furthermore influenced by my tendency, in
earlier years, to think about things in
historical terms. And not just history in the sense of what
happened in the past, but rather history
as a way of understanding processes that go on in the world. I
read R.G. Collingwood, usually
thought of as an idealist in British philosophy, yet whom I
found compatible with my own sense
of historical materialism. Collingwood spoke about the ‘inside’
as well as the ‘outside’ of historical
events. When the positivist looks at what happens by classi fying
and collecting events and
drawing inferences from them, he sees the outside;
Collingwood’s emphasis on the inside of
events was to understand the meaning of things in terms of the
thought-processes of the people
who were acting, and their understa nding of the structure of
relationships within which they
lived. To understand history in those terms is what gives
meaning to events.
Although I am not a Marxist, I believe much is to be learned
from Marxist thinking. Marxist ideas
on the tension between capital and labor, and the attempts to
institutionalize these relations on
state-level and the international level in order to advance
material interests, helped me understand
the world in a distinct way. I have identified my approach as
‘historical materialism’, yet I have
linked it not so much with Marx as with Giambattista Vico
(download his main work The New
Science here, pdf), the 18th-century critic of Descartes and the
north European Enlightenment who
lived in Naples .and later with the 20th century Italian
Communist leader Antonio Gramsci.

In Vico’s times, Naples was under the rule of the Spanish
inquisition, and while he always
proclaimed himself to be a devout Catholic, Vico’s vision of the
world was quite an antithesis to
the orthodox idea of a unilinear history leading to the Kingdom
of God on earth. Vico thought in
terms of cycles of rise and decline and the possibility of
creative new beginnings. Among the
Marxists, Gramsci continued the Vichian tradition. He made a
distinction between a deterministic
and positivist historical economism and historical materialism,
in which the realm of ideas is an
autonomous force. He recognized the relative autonomy of
cultures and ideas and their intimate
relationship with material conditions.
Within his historical context, Vico was what we would call a
realist, rejecting the Enlightenment
belief in a progressive historical process which echoed the
Christian teleology. He took a more
pessimistic view than that of Enlightenment thinkers; he
thought in terms of the rise and decline
of what would be called social systems in the terms we use now.
3 
 

That linear vision of history characteristic of the Enlightenment
is persistent up until our days in
American thought, especially American political or historical
philosophy—I mentioned Francis
Fukuyama, who talked about the end of history which we’re
moving towards, and we’re almost
there. As if history is a finite process which necessarily has to
lead towards a definite goal.
Fukuyama, I understand, abandoned that vision, but I think
nevertheless that it was consistent
with a lot of thinking going on within the powerful group of
people who were talking about
globalization, basically identifying world history with
deterministic economic processes. I think
this vision is much less likely to be accepted right now as it has
led to the financial crisis and the
decline of American world power, not militarily, but as
effective power. This seems to me the
lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan: extreme military power is really
not capable of dominating the
world today.
Apart from Vichian thinking, I was influenced by a book I read
as an undergraduate, Spengler’s
The Decline of the West. Historians did not think well of the
book, but it saw the world in terms of
civilizations, each characterized by a unique spirit, civilizations
which underwent a rise and
decline, and yet were interrelated either as contemporaries or as
descendants. That seemed to me
a very appropriate way of understanding what the world had
become. While I think we should
not take Spengler literally, his way of looking at relationships

between groups in historical process
has had a big influence on my own thinking.
What would a student need to become a specialist in IR or
understand the world in a
global way?
I don’t like to prescribe, and my own intellectual trajectory has
been very idiosyncratic. Yet I can
indicate that, for me, there is a danger in the reading-list-
approach to topics, because it tends to
put students in the position wherein they get forced to become
members of a particular school of
thought, and I think that’s a risky thing. Just look at the
terminology: different schools of thought
or distinct approaches to the same world are called
‘disciplines’, and that is indeed what they do:
they discipline students into seeing the world through only one
particular lens—which is more
misleading than revealing. You can’t understand, for instance,
the economy without infusing it
with society and all of its problems, or without understanding
politics as something that has a
kind of organizing and regulating task—you have to take it all
together, you can’t just take one
aspect. Yet doing this is typical of the problem-solving
approach: in order to solve a problem,
one has to demarcate and define the problem and set other
things aside. But by focusing on
solving some concrete problems, which I acknowledge is very
important, one blinds oneself for
other related issues. If you want to ask where the world is
going, you have to get out of that way
of thinking.
So I would say something which would probably sound quite

heretical to contemporary
academics, and that is that if a student feels able to be different,
to read widely, and to accept
different influences rather than just become entrenched in a
particular area of study, he should. A
good example which I remember is Susan Strange, who came
out of journalism into IPE. Against
the fragmentation that conditions mainstream scholarship, she
never accepted academic divisions
and she talked about IPE saying it should be an open field, and I
agree with that emphasis. She
called me an eccentric, and coming from her, a non-conformist
herself, that was a compliment.
Yet what I think I have learnt is that being critical does not
readily get you financial resources for
research, so you have to be committed and go for it.
What I can comment on more clearly is the role of the historian
in relation to the historical
structures that condition human action. The historian’s task is to
reconstruct these historical
4 
 

structures in his or her own mind so as to be able to grasp the
meaning of what the actors do,
and what the consequences signify. The historian constructs in
his or her mind this seemingly
solid but nevertheless transitory structure; he must understand
how the actors within any given
historical structure, may think in terms of a particular
understanding peculiar to its time and
place. This fact of the mutation of the “common sense”
particular to historical structures which
are in process of change points the historian towards the
contingency of the prevailing order.
History for me is not a sequence of events but a holistic way of
thinking about the world. The
current academic fashion breaks the world down into politics,
economics, anthropology and so
forth. A historical outlook means taking things occurring within
a historical context all together.
Yet this is very demanding, because one person can hardly
accomplish such a view. But one
person can at least have an approach that says that everything
must be understood. Some
contemporary scholars such as Kees van der Pijl (Theory Talk
#23) seem to have such an
approach to the world.
You have coined the famous distinction between problem-
solving and critical theory in
your article S o c i a l F o r c e s , S t a t e s a n d W o r l d O r
d e r s . If problem-solving theory serves the
purposes of the prevailing status quo, for whom or for what
purpose is critical theory?

I think the two are distinct but not mutually exclusive. I do not
argue for critical theory to the
exclusion of problem solving theory. Problem solving takes the
world as it is and focuses on
correcting certain dysfunctions, certain specific problems.
Critical theory is concerned with how
the world, that is all the conditions that problem solving theory
takes as the given framework,
may be changing. Because problem solving theory has to take
the basic existing power
relationships as given, it will be biased towards perpetuating
those relationships, thus tending to
make the existing order hegemonic.
What critical theory does, is question these very structural
conditions that are tacit assumptions
for problem-solving theory, to ask whom and which purposes
such theory serves. It looks at the
facts that problem-solving theory presents from the inside, that
is, as they are experienced by
actors in a context which also consists of power relations.
Critical theory thus historicizes world
orders by uncovering the purposes problem solving theories
within such an order serve to
uphold. By uncovering the contingency of an existing world
order, one can then proceed to think
about different world orders. It is more marginal than problem
solving theory since it does not
comfortably provide policy recommendations to those in power.
What I meant is that there is no theory for itself; theory is
always for someone, for some purpose.
There is no neutral theory concerning human affairs, no theory
of universal validity. Theory
derives from practice and experience, and experience is related

to time and place. Theory is a part
of history. It addresses the problematic of the world of its time
and place. An inquirer has to aim
to place himself above the historical circumstances in which a
theory is propounded. One has to
ask about the aims and purposes of those who construct theories
in specific historical situations.
Broadly speaking, for any theory, there are two possible
purposes to serve. One is for guiding the
solving of problems posed within the particular context, the
existing structure. This leads to a
problem-solving form of theory, which takes the existing
context as given and seeks to make it work
better. The other which I call critical theory is more reflective
on the processes of change of
historical structures, upon the transformation or challenges
arising within the complex of forces
constituting the existing historical structure, the existing
‘common sense’ of reality. Critical
thinking then contemplates the possibility of an alternative.
5 
 

The strength of problem-solving theory relies in its ability to fix
limits or parameters to a
problem area, and to reduce the statement of a particular
problem to a limited number of
variables which are amenable to rather close and clear
examination. The ceteris paribus
assumption, the assumption that other things can be ignored,
upon which problem-solving
theorizing relies, makes it possible to derive a statement of laws
and regularities which appear of
general applicability.
Critical theory, as I understand it, is critical in the sense that it
stands apart from the prevailing
order, and asks how that world came about. It does not just
accept it: a world that exists has been
made, and in the context of a weakening historical structure it
can be made anew. Critical theory,
unlike problem-solving theory, does not take institutions and
social power relations for granted,
but calls them into question by concerning itself with their
origins, and whether and how they
might be in process of changing. It is directed towards an
appraisal of the very framework for
action, the historical structure, which the problem-solving
theory accepts as its parameters.
Critical theory is a theory of history, in the sense that it is not
just concerned about the politics of
the past, but the continuing process of historical change.
Problem-solving theory is not historical,
it is a-historical, in the sense that it in effect posits a continuing
present, It posits the continuity of

the institutions of power relations which constitute the rules of
the game which are assumed to
be stable. The strength of the one is the weakness of the other:
problem-solving theory can
achieve great precision, when narrowing the scope of inquiry
and presuming stability of the rules
of the game, but in so doing, it can become an ideology
supportive of the status quo. Critical
theory sacrifices the precision that is possible with a
circumscribed set of variables in order to
comprehend a wider range of factors in comprehensive
historical change.
Critical theory, in my mind, does not propound remedies or
make predictions about the emerging
shape of things, world order for example. It attempts rather, by
analysis of forces and trends, to
discern possible futures and to point to the conflicts and
contradictions in the existing world
order that could move things towards one or other of the
possible futures. In that sense it can be
a guide for political choice and action.
How would that distinction apply to a contemporary issue such
as, say, climate change?
With the example of climate change, the question is not to
choose between problem-solving or
critical theory. Problem solving theory is practical and
necessary since it tells us how to proceed
given certain conditions (for instance, the consequences to be
expected from carbon generated
from certain forms of behavior in terms of damage to the
biosphere). Critical theory broadens
the scope of inquiry by analyzing the forces favoring or
opposing changing patterns of behavior.

In the example of climate change, problem-solving theory asks
how to support the big and ever
increasing world population by industrial means yet with a kind
of energy that is not going to
pollute the planet. It requires a lot of innovative thought, has to
mobilize huge reluctant and
conservative social forces within a slow moving established
order with vested interests in the
political and industrial complex surrounding existing energy
sources. Problem-solving theory
gives opportunity to innovate and explore new forms of energy.
Critical theory would take one step further and envisage a world
order focused not just on
humanity but on the whole of life, taking into account the web
of relations in which humanity is
only part in our world. Humans have to come to terms what it
means to be part of the biosphere,
and not just the dominant feature. In fact, it is a big problem of
Western religion and modernist
enlightenment thinking alike that nature is seen to be created in
service of humans in the first,
6 
 

and is a force to be dominated in the second. Both Western
religion and modernism have
analytically disembedded humans from nature, turning nature
into something to be dominated or
an abstracted factor of production. To rethink this, to make
humans part of nature, implies
seeing humans as an entity with a responsibility vis-à-vis the
bigger world of which they are a
part.
What is the current value of the term ‘hegemony’?
Hegemony as a term used traditionally in international relations
meant the supremacy of one
major state power over others and perhaps the acceptance of
that supremacy by the others. A
much more subtle meaning is derived from Gramsci’s thinking
bringing culture and ideas
alongside material force into the picture. Hegemony in this
Gramscian sense means that the great
mass of mankind in a particular area or part of the world regard
the existing structure of power
and authority as established, natural and legitimate. Hegemony
is expanded when other people
come to accept those conditions as natural. Hegemony is
weakened and eroded when the
legitimacy of the power structure is called into question and an
alternative order seems possible
and desirable.
Let’s look at American thinking. It is very much premised on an

idea that ultimately, we should
all be the same—and the same means, of course, having what
America already has, or wanting
what Americans want—democratic capitalism, the ‘American
way of life’. This can be seen in
American efforts at economic and political development abroad
and through military
interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in how the
United States has shaped and used
international institutions. As I worked for the ILO, I worked
closely with an American Director-
general, very much a New-Deal thinker, and this meant working
for an agenda that effectively
tried to extend the same labor standards and regulations that
hold in the US to other countries.
Now this can all be done in good faith, and believing in the
importance of unions and equal labor
conditions is important, but it does not take into account the
extreme differences in economic
conditions and historical background of people in developing
countries targeted by these policies.
Now my Director-General was a man who could understa nd the
diversity of the world. Rather
than put the ILO’s emphasis on expanding the scope of
standards, he directed it into
development work. It was still carried out in the spirit of
American ideas but in a more subtle
way. The hegemonic idea was built into the developmental
work.
There is the case of contemporary China; if you look at Chinese
and especially the middle class,
they want to live like Americans, in terms of consumerism and
the like. The economic ties that
bind China and the US also influence ideas the Chinese hold,
and this has very much to do with

the hegemony the US has on all these levels—both
economically, and in terms of media. Now
since that American level of consumption is not sustainable in
the long run, and if one billion
Chinese, roughly 20% of the world population, were to add to
the existing American 5% of
consumers and polluters, one can easily predict collapse of the
biosphere. We should, then, hope
that the decline in American power and the rise in China’s
world power would lead to some
collective reevaluation of how to live together on the planet.
And, vice versa, how does the rise of China impact on American
hegemony?
This is a very interesting question. The Chinese see China as a
great power, but, at least for now,
with no pretensions to global domination. And the fact that
official policy and thinking is now set
in that mold may be reassuring. There has been speculation in
America about a G2 – China and
7 
 

America – as the central force in world order. China is the
world’s biggest creditor and the U.S.
the world’s biggest debtor, so some Americans see the G2 idea
as a means of saving American
hegemony. I do not think this idea meets with any degree of
acceptance in China. Indeed, much
of the legitimacy of the Chinese Party depends on its capacity to
keep the current growth
sustainable for the ever-increasing middle class. This is also the
reason why China will in all
likelihood stay peaceful.
On the other hand, you see the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in
parts of the US. At the same
time, I think the Chinese are very careful about what they say.
They prefer to speak of a non-
ideological ‘peaceful rise’ that benefits all and threatens no one.
They see themselves as having
been very dependent on America as a market, and their industry
has grown on the basis of that
market, but they’re also very aware that they have become over -
dependent and they are now
working to build up much more of a regionally oriented
economy. The success of this regional
venture will hinge upon the question whether China and Japan
will work together despite their
continuous tensions based upon history.
The Russians, too, lay down a line for the US. Their smal l war

with Georgia sent a message: ‘do
not mess with our near abroad’. And between the two, Russia
and China, there is an organization
called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that’s very
rarely spoken of. Yet as I indicated, I
think it is a very important organization since it signals the
potential coming together of Eurasia,
not as an empire or fusion, but as a kind of regional cooperative
group that is counterpoised to
US power. And the question now is, how and whether the US
can adapt to the idea of working as
one great power among several or whether US pretension to
global leadership will provoke the
consolidation of a Eurasian alliance to counter that pretension.
My hope is for a more plural
world, but I am rather pessimistic. I am thus a realist in the
sense of being realistic both about the
limitations of American power and America’s capacity to
change away from its present course.
Robert Cox is emeritus professor in Political Science at York
University in
Torontohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto, Canada. He was
the former director general
and then chief of the International Labor
Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labor_O
rganization's Program and
Planning Division in Geneva, Switzerland. Following his
departure from the ILO he
taught at Columbia
Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University.
He has
published, amongst others, A p p r o a c h e s t o W o r l d O r d
e r (1996) and T h e P o l i t i c a l E c o n o m y
o f a P l u r a l W o r l d (2002).

Related links
• Read Cox’s seminal article Social Forces, States, and World
Orders (1986) here (pdf)
• Read Cox’s The ‘British School’ in the Global Context (2009,
New Political Economy) here
(pdf)
8 
 
https://Universityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Univer
sity
https://Torontohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto
214 J • A . Ho B s o N / The Economic Taproot of Imperialism
goods at a price which covers the true cost of pro-
duction. The first result of the successful formation
of a trust or combine is to close down the worse
equipped or worse placed mills, and supply the en-
tire market from the better equipped and better
placed ones. This course may or may not be at-
tended by a rise of price and some restriction of con-
sumption: in some cases trusts take most of their
profits by raising prices, in other cases by reducing
the costs of production through employing only the
best mills and stopping the waste of competition.
For the present argument it matters not which
course is taken; the point is that this concentration of
industry in "trusts;' "combines;' etc. at once limits

the quantity of capital which can be effectively em-
ployed and increases the share of profits out of which
fresh savings and fresh capital will spring. It is quite
evident that a trust which is motivated by cut-throat
competition, due to an excess of capital, cannot nor-
mally find inside the "trusted" industry employment
for that portion of the profits which the trust-makers
desire to save and to invest. New inventions and other
economies of production or distribution within the
trade may absorb some of the new capital, but there
are rigid limits to this absorption. The trustmaker in
oil or sugar must find other investments for his sav-
ings: ifhe is early in the application of the combina-
tion principles to his trade, he will naturally apply his
surplus capital to establish similar combinations in
other industries, economising capital still further,
and rendering it ever harder for ordinary saving men
to find investments for their savings.
Indeed, the conditions alike of cut-throat com-
petition and of combination attest the congestion of
capital in the manufacturing industries which have
entered the machine economy. We are not here con-
cerned with any theoretic question as to the possi-
bility of producing by modern machine methods
more goods than can find a market. It is sufficient
to point out that the manufacturing power of a
country like the United States would grow so fast as
to exceed the demands of the home market. No one
acquainted with trade will deny a fact which all
American economists assert, that this is the condi-
tion which the United States reached at the end of
the century, so far, as the more developed industries
are concerned. Her manufactures were saturated
with capital and could absorb no more. One after
another . they sought refuge from the waste of

competition in "combines" which secure a measure
of profitable peace by restricting the quantity of
operative capital. Industrial and financial princes in
oil, steel, sugar, railroads, banking, etc. were faced
with the dilemma of either spending more than they
knew how to spend; or forcing markets outside the
home area. Two economic courses were open to
them, both leading towards an abandonment of the
political isolation of the past and the adoption of
imperialist methods in the future. Instead of shut-
ting down inferior mills and rigidly restricting out-
put to correspond with profitable sales in the home
markets, they might employ their full productive
power, applying their savings to increase their busi-
ness capital, and, while still regulating output and
prices for the home market, may "hustle" for foreign
markets, dumping down their surplus goods at
prices which would not be possible save for the profs
itable nature of their home market. So likewise they
might employ their savings in seeking investments ·
outside their country, first repaying the capital bor-
rowed from Great Britain and other countries for ·
the early development of their railroads, mines and
manufactures, and afterwards becoming themselves
a creditor class to foreign countries.
It was this sudden demand for foreign markets
for manufactures and for investment which was
avowedly responsible for the adoption of Imperial-
ism as a political policy and practice by the Repub-
lican party to which the great industrial and
financial chiefs belonged, and which belonged to
them. The adventurous enthusiasm of President
Theodore Roosevelt and his_ "manifest destiny" and
"mission of civilization" party must not deceive us.

It was Messrs. Rockefeller, Pierpont Morgan, and
their associates who needed Imperialism and who
fastened it upon the shoulders of the great Repub-
lic of the West. They needed Imperialism because
they desired to use the public resources of their
country to find profitable employment for their
capital which otherwise would be superfluous ....
It is this economic condition of affairs that
forms the taproot of Imperialism. If the consuming
public in this country raised its standard of con-
sumption to keep pace with every rise of productive
powers, there could be no' excess of goods or capital
clamorous to use Imperialism in order to find mar-
kets: foreign trade would indeed exist, but there
. would be no difficulty in exchanging a small surplus
of our manufactures for the food and raw material
we annually absorbed, and all the savings that we
made could find employment, if we chose, in home
industries ....
ROBERT w cox/ G" • LI . ramsc1,r egemony, and International
Relations 215
Gramsci, Hegemony,
and International Relations
ROBERT W. COX
Cox examines the implications of Antonio Gramsci's conce t of
h . .
storico) to Gramsci is decisive composed as t't . ·•b h " p
egemony for IR. The historic bloc (blocco
. ' ts 0, ot structures and superst t " h b' .

the sub;ective, respectively. Thus, Cox tells us we find in the " .
. ~~c ures -t e o Jectiveand
ships of the political, ethical, and ideological spheres of t. -
~Zoe. te ;uxtaposttton and reciprocal relation-
the instrument of hegemony. Hegemony at the Internati:::~tl:
wit t e economic sphere." _The bloc bec~mes
the world economy exhibiting a dominant mod . vel extends
beyond states. It ts an order within
complex social relations connecting classes am e of roductton
that_penetratesall countries. It also consists of
mutually reinforcingso~ial political and eco on~
ttifferentcountries. World hegemony, therefore, consists of
' , nomtc s ructures One exp~ i d h .
monyare international organizations Pros ect : ess on an mec
amsm of world hege-
to be at the national, not the internatf anal feve{ for the creation
of counter-hegemonic blocks are most likely
Some time ago I began reading Gramsci's Prison
f!~tebooks. In these fragments, written in a fascist
pnson ~etween 1929 and 1935, the former leader of
the Italian Communist Party was concerned with
the problem of understanding capitalist societies in
. the 1?20s and. 1930s, and particularly with the
meanmg of fascism and the possibilities of build1· ,.• C ng
an a 1~ernative 1orm of state and society based on the
working class. What he had to say centered upon
!he state, upon the relationship of civil society to
the_ state, ~nd upon the relationship of politics,
ethics, a?d ~deology to production. Not surprisingly,
Grams_c1 did ~ot have very much to say directly
about mternat10nal relations. Nevertheless I found
!hat Gramsci's thinking was helpful in understand-
mg_ the meaning of international organization with

which I was then principally concerned. Particularly
useful was his concept of hegemony, but valuable
. _also~ere several concepts which he had worked out
for himself or developed from others. This essay sets
forth my understanding of what Gramsci meant by
hegemo~y and these related concepts, and suggests
how_ I thmk they may be adapted, retaining his es-
s~ntial meaning, to the understanding of problems
~f _world order. It does not purport to be a critical
stµdy of Gramsci's political theory but merely a
derivation ~om it of some ideas useful for a revision
of current mternational relations theory.1 ...
Gramsci and Hegemony
Gramsci's c?ncepts were all derived from history-
b?th from ~1s own reflections upon those periods of
history which he thought helped to throw an ex-
planatory light upon the present, and from his
person.al experience of political and social struggle.
These mcluded the workers' councils movement of
the _early 1920s, his participation in the Third Inter-
?at1onal, and his opposition to fascism. Gramsci's
ideas have always to be related to his own historical
context. Moreove_r, pe :vas constantly adjusting his
concepts to specific historical circumstances. The
c~ncepts cannot usefully be considered in abstrac-
tion from their applications, for when they are so
abstracted diffe~ent usages of the same concept
appear to ~ontam c~~tradictions or ambiguities.2
A concept, m Gramsci s thought, is loose and elastic
and at~ains preci~ion only when brought into con-
tact ~1th a particular situation which it helps to
explam, a contact which also develops the meaning

o~ th~ ~oncept. This is the strength of Gramsci's
h1stonc1sm and therein lies its explanatory power.
'
·RobertW C "G · H· · ox, ramsci, egemony, and International
Relation " · R b
to World Order (Cambridge UK· Cambridge U . . p s m o ert W.
Cox and Timothy J.Sinclair,Approaches
. . ' · mvers1ty ress, 1996), 124-41. Reprinted by permission.
' ii
https://person.al
Ro B ER T W. co X / Gramsci, Hegemony, and International
Relations R O B E RT W. COX / Gramsci, Hegemony, and
International Relations216 217
other classes from those in which it had n~t. I? north- the
leadership and supportive basis for an alterna-The term
"historicism" is however, frequently mis- particularly apposite
to the period of the New
ern Europe, in the countries whe~e capitalism had tive to
fascism. Where Machiavelli looked to the in-
understood and criticized by tho~e _who seek a Economic
Policy before coercion began to be ap-
first become established, bourgeois hegemo~y was dividual
prince, Gramsci looked to the modern more abstract systematic,
umversalistic, and non- plied on a larger scale against the rural
population.)
most complete. It necessarily involved co~cessions ~o prince:
the revolutionary party engaged in a contin-

historical form ofknowledge.3 . In western Europe, by contrast,
civil society,
subordinate classes in return for acqmescence m uing and
developing dialogue with its own base of Gramsci geared his
thought consisten~ly to_ the under bourgeois hegemony, was
much more fully
bourgeois leadership, con~essions which co~ld lead support.
Gramsci took over from Machiavelli the
practical purpose of political actio~. In h~,s priso~ developed
and took manifold forms. A war of
ultimately to forms of social democracy which pre- image of
power as a centaur: half man, half beast, a
writings, he always referred to Manosm as the p~i- movement
might conceivably, in conditions of ex-
serve capitalism while making it more acceptable t_o necessary
combination of consent and coercion. 8 To
losophy of praxis:'4 Partly at least, one m~y surmise, ceptional
upheaval, enable a revolutionary van-
workers and the petty bourgeoisie. Be~~use t~eir the extent that
the consensual aspect of power is in it must have been to
underline the practica~ revolu- guard to seize control of the
state apparatus; but
hegemony was firmly entrenched in clVll society, the forefront,
hegemony prevails. Coercion is always
tionary purpose of ph~lo_sophy: Partly too,_ it would because
of the resiliency of civil society such an
the bourgeoisie often did not need to run the sta~e latent but is
only applied in marginal, deviant cases.
have been to indicate his mtention to c~ntri~ute to a exploit
would in the long run be doomed to failure.
themselves. Landed aristocrats in England, Junkers m

Hegemony is enough to ensure conformity of be-
lively developing current of thought: given impet~s Gramsci
described the state in western Europe (by
Prussia, or a renegade preten~er to the mantle of havior in most
people most of the time. The Machi-by Marx but not forever
circumscribed by Marx s which we should read state in the
limited sense
Napoleon I in France, could do it for ~hem so long as avellian
connection frees the concept of power (and
k Nothing could be further from his mind than of
administrative, governmental, and coercive ap-wor . · f h these
rulers recognized the hegemomc s~~ucture_sof of hegemony as
one form of power) from a tie toMarxism which consists in an
exegesis o t e paratus and not the enlarged concept of the state
civil society as the basic limits of their political act~on.
historically specific social classes and gives it a wider :acred
texts for the purpose of refining a timeless set mentioned above)
.as "an outer ditch, behind which
This. perception of hegemony led Gramsci. to applicability to
relations of dominance and subordi- there stands a powerful
system of fortresses andof categories and concepts.
enlarge his definition of the st~te. When the admm- nation,
including, as will be suggested below, rela- earthworks:'
istrative, executive, and coercive apparatus of gov- tions of
world order. It does not, however, sever
Origins of the Concepts of Hegemony ernment was in effect
constrained by the hege_mony power relations from their social
basis (i.e., in the In Russia, the State was everything, civil
society
of the leading class of a whole social f~r.mat10n, it case of
world-order relations by making them into was primordial and
gelatinous; in the West,There are two main strands leading to

the Grams-
became meaningless to limit the defimtion of the relations
among states narrowly conceived), but there was a proper
relation between State and cian idea of hegemony. The first ran
fro~ the debates
state to those elements of government. To be mean- directs
attention towards deepening an awareness of civil society, and
when the State trembled a within the Third International
concernmg the _strat-
. ful the notion of the state would also have to this social basis.
sturdy structure of civil society was at once
egy of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creatl?~ of mg ' l' · 1 t
revealed.10include the underpinnings of the po itic~ struc ure a
Soviet socialist state, the second from the writmgs
in civil society. Gramsci thought of thes_e m concrete
of Machiavelli. In tracing the first strand, so~,e War of
Movement and War of Position Accordingly, Gramsci argued
that the war of move-
historical terms: the church, the educational system,
commentators have sought to contrast ?r~msci s ment could not
be effective against the hegemonic
the press, all the institutions which ~elped to create In thinking
through the first strand of his concept of
thought with Lenin's by aligning Gramsci w~th t_he state-
societies of western Europe. The alternative
in people certain modes of behavi?r an~ expec- hegemony,
Gramsci reflected upon the experiences idea of a hegemony of
the proletariat and Lenm with strategy is the war of position
which slowly builds
tations consistent with the hegemomc social orde~. of the
Bolshevik Revolution and sought to deter-a dictatorship of the
proletariat. Other comment~- up the strength of the social

foundations of a new
For example, Gramsci argued that the Masomc mine what
lessons might be drawn from it for the
tors have underlined their basic agreement.s_What is state. In
western Europe, the struggle had to be won
lodges in Italy were a bond amongst the g~vernment task of
revolution in western Europe.9 He came toimportant is that
Lenin referred to the_ Rus~ian pro- in civil society before an
assault on the state could
officials who entered into the state machmery after the
conclusion that the circumstances in western
letariat as both a dominant and a dir~ctm? cl~ss, achieve
success. Premature attack on the state by a
the unification of Italy, and therefore must be con- Europe
differed greatly from those in Russia. To
dominance implying dictatorship and dir~ction im- war of
movement would only reveal the weakness of
sidered as part of the state for the purpose of assess- illustrate
the differences in circumstances, and the
plying leadership with the consent of allied classes the
opposition and lead to a reimposition of bour-
ing its broader political structure. The hegemo~y of consequent
differences in strategies required, he had ( notably the
peasantry). Gramsci, ~n effect, took o~er geois dominance as
the institutions of civil society
a dominant class thus bridged the con~entlo~al recourse to the
military analogy of wars of move- reasserted controf. an idea
that was current in the _circles of the Third
categories of state and civil society, categories which ment and
wars of position. The basic difference be-International: the
workers exercised hegemony over The strategic implications of
this analysis are

the allied classes and dictatorship over enemy retained a certain
analytical usefulness ?utceased to tween Russia and western
Europe was in the relative clear but fraught with difficulties. To
build up the
correspond to separable entities in reality. , strengths of state
and civil society. In Russia, the classes. Yet this idea was
applied by the Third Inter- basis of an alternative state and
society upon the
As noted above, the second strand leadmg to administrative and
coercive apparatus· of the state
national only to the working class _and expre~sed the
leadership of the working class means creating alter-
the Gramscian idea of hegemony came all the way was
formidable but proved to be vulnerable, while role of _the
working class in leadmg an alliance of native institutions and
alternative intellectual re-
from Machiavelli and helps to broaden even further civil society
was undeveloped. A relatively small
Workers peasants, and perhaps some other groups sources
within existing society and building bridges
> • h 6 the potential scope of application _of t~e conce~t.
working class led by a disciplined vanguard was able
potentially supportive of revo~uti~na~y_c ange._ between
workers and other subordinate classes. It
Gramsci had pondered what Machiavelli had writ- to overwhelm
the state in a war of movement andGramsci's originality lies m
his givmg a twist to means actively building a counterhegemony
within
ten especially in The Prince, concerning the prob- met no
effective resistance from the rest of civil

this first strand: he began to apply it to the bour- an established
hegemony while resisting the pres-
le~ of founding a new state. Machiavelli, in the society. The
vanguard party could set about found-
geoisie, to the apparatus or me~hanism~ of h~ge- sures and
temptations to relapse into pursuit of in-
fifteenth century, was concerned w~th fin~ing the ing a new
state through a combination of apply-
of the dominant class.7 This made it possible cremental gains
for subaltern groups within themony . . .. leadership and the
supporting s?Cial basis fo a ing coercion against recalcitrant
elements and. for him to distinguish cases m which the
bour?emsie framework of bourgeois hegemony. This is the
united Italy; Gramsci, in the twentieth century, with building
consent among others. (T~is analysis was had attained a
hegemonic position ofleadership over line between war of
position as a long-range
·I
·«
I
https://revealed.10
218 Ro BERT w. Co X / Gramsci, Hegemony, and International
Relations
revolutionary strategy and social democracy as a
policy of making gains within the established order.
Passive Revolution

Not all western European societies were bourgeois
hegemonies. Gramsci distinguished between two
kinds of societies. One kind had undergone a thor-
ough social revolution and worked out fully its con-
sequences in new modes of production and social
relations. England and France were cases that had
gone further than most others in this respect. The
other kind were societies which had so to speak
imported or had thrust upon them aspects of a new
order created abroad, without the old order having
been displaced. These last were caught up in a dialec-
tic of revolution-restoration which tended to be-
come blocked as neither the new forces nor the old
could triumph. In these societies, the new industrial
bourgeoisie failed to achieve hegemony. The result-
ing stalemate with the traditionally dominant social
classes created the conditions that Gramsci called
"passive revolution;' the introduction of changes
which did not involve any arousal of popular
forces.11
One typical accompaniment to passive revolu-
tion in Gramsci's analysis is caesarism: a strong man
intervenes to resolve the stalemate between equal
and opposed social forces. Gramsci allowed that
there were both progressive and reactionary forms of
caesarism: progressive when strong rule presides
over a more orderly development of a new state, re-
actionary when it stabilizes existing power. Napoleon
I was a case of progressive caesarism, but Napoleon
III, the exemplar of reactionary caesarism, was more
representative of the kind likely to arise in the course ,
of passive revolution. Gramsci's analysis here is vir-
tually identical with that of Marx in The Eighteenth
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: the French bourgeoisie,
unable to rule directly through their own political

parties, were content to develop capitalism under a
political regime which had its social basis in the peas-
antry, an inarticulate and unorganized class whose
virtual representative Bonaparte could claim to be.
In late nineteenth-century Italy, the northern
industrial bourgeoisie, the class with the most to
gain from the unification of Italy, was unable to
dominate the peninsula. The basis for the new state
became an alliance between the industrial bour-
geoisie of the north and the landowners of the
south-an alliance which also provided benefits for
petty-bourgeois clients (especially from the south)
who staffed the new state bureaucracy and political
parties and became the intermediaries between the
various population groups and the state. The lack of
any sustained and widespread popular participa-
tion in the unification movement explained the
"passive revolution" character of its outcome. In the
aftermath of World War I, worker and peasant occu-
pations of factories and land demonstrated a
strength which was considerable enough to threaten
yet insufficient to dislodge the existing state. 12
There took place then what Gramsci called a "dis-
placement of the basis of the state" towards the
petty bourgeoisie, the only class of nationwide ex-
tent, which became the anchor of fascist power:
Fascism continued the passive revolution, sustain-
ing the position of the old owner classes yet unable
to attract the support of worker or peasant subal-
tern groups.
Apart from caesarism, the second major feature
of passive revolution in Italy Gramsci called

trasformismo.It was exemplified in Italian politics by
Giovanni Giolitti, who sought to bring about the
widest possible coalition of interests and who
dominated the political scene in the years preceding
fascism. For example, he aimed to bring northern
industrial workers into a common front with indus-
trialists through a protectionist policy. Trasformismo
worked to co-opt potential leaders of subaltern
social groups. By extension trasformismocan serve
as a strategy of assimilating and domesticating po-
tentially dangerous ideas by adjusting them to the
policies of the dominant coalition and can thereby
obstruct the formation of class-based organized
opposition to established social and political power.
Fascism continued trasformismo.Gramsci interprets
the fascist state corporatism as an unsuccessful
attempt to introduce some of the more advanced
industrial practices of American capitalism under
the aegis of the old Italian management.
The concept of passive revolution is a counter-
part to the concept of hegemony in that it describes
the condition of a non.hegemonic society,-one in
which no dominant class has been able to establish
a hegemony in Gramsci's sense of the term. Today
this notion of passive revolution, together with its
components, caesarism and trasformismo,is partic-
ularly apposite to industrializing Third World
countries.
ROBERT W. COX/ G · H
ramsc,, egemony, and International Relations 219
Historic Bloc (Blocco Storico)
~ram~ci attributed the source of his notion of the

h1stonc bloc ( blocco storico) to Georges Sorel, though
Sorel never used the term or any other in precisely
the sense Gramsci gave to it 13 Sorel di'd ho . . · , wever, in-
terpret revo~ut10nary action in terms of social myths
through w?1ch people engaged in action perceived a
' confrontation ?ftotalities-in which they saw a new
order challengmg an established order. In the course
of a cataclysmic event, the old order would be over-
thr~wn as a w~o~e and the new be freed to unfold.14
~ile Gra~sc1 did not share the subjectivism of this
v1s10n, he did _share the view that state and society
to~eth~r co~stituted a solid structure and that revo-
lution implied the development within it of another
structure strong enough to replace the first E h .
, M h h . c omg
arx, e t ought this could come about only when
the ~rst had exhausted its full potential. Whether
domma?t or emergent, such a structure is what
GramSCI called an historic bloc.
F~r Sorel,. social myth, a powerful form of
collect1~e subjectivity, would obstruct reformist
tendencies. These might otherwise attract workers
away f~om revolutionary syndicalism into incre-
~entahst trade unionism or reformist party poli-
tics. The myth_ was a weapon in struggle as well.as a
!ool for analysis. For Gramsci, the historic bloc sim-
: Iiarly had a revolutionary orientation through its
stress on the unity and coherence of sociopolitical
order~. It was an intellectual defense against co-
optat1on by trasformismo.

The hi~to~ic bloc is a dialectical concept in the
se~se that its. mteracting elements create a larger
umty. _Gramsc1 expressed these interacting elements
s?met1mes as the subjective and the objective, some-
times as superstructure and structure.
Structures and superstructures form an "h' t .
bl ,, Th . 1s one
oc. . at is to say the complex contradictory
?nd discordant ensembleof the superstructures
eco~omism'.' or a narrowly economic interpretation
of history), ideas and material conditions are alw ays
bound together, mutually influencing one another
and not reducible one to the other. Ideas have to b;
under~too_d in relation to material circumstances.
~atenal c1rcumstances include both the social rela-
, tions and the physical means of production. Super-
structures of ideology and political organization
s~ape the development of both aspects of produc-
tion and are shaped by them.
:'11h~storic bloc cannot exist without a hege-
mon~c social cl~ss. Where the hegemonic class is the
dommant class m a country or social formation the
s~ate (in ?ramsci's enlarged concept) maintains c~he-
s~on and identity within the bloc through the propaga-
tion of a ~ommon culture. A new bloc is formed when
a subordinate class (e.g., the workers) establishes its
hegemony over other subordinate groups (e.g., small
f~mers, marginals). This process requires intensive
dialogue between leaders and followers within the
would-?e hegemonic class. Gramsci may have con-
curred m th_e Leninist idea of a vanguard party which

takes upon itself the responsibility for leading an im-
mature working class, but only as an aspect of a war of
mov~me~t. Because a war-of-position strategy was
reqmred m the western countries, as he saw it, the role
o~ the partJ:' s~ould be to lead, intensify, and develop
d1alo~e w1thm the working class and between the
working class and other subordinate classes which
could be brought into alliance with it. The" lin " . . mass e
as ?mo billzat10n. techniq~e once developecl by the
C~m~se <?ammumst Party is consistent with Gramsci's
thmking 1n this respect.
. I~tellectuals play a key role in the building of an
h1~tonc bloc. Intellectuals are not a distinct and rel~
ativel~ classless SOfial stratum. Gramsci saw them as
orgamcally co~nected with a social class. They per-
form the_ funct10n of developing and sustaining the
me~tal _image~, technologies, and organizations
is ~e reflection of the ensembleof the social
relat10ns of production. is
The ju~t~position and reciprocal relationships of
.· the_ ~ohti~al, ethical, and ideological spheres of
~cti".1ty with the economic sphere avoid reduc-
• omsm._It avoids ~educing everything either tot econom.~cs
(~con?m1sm) or to ideas (idealism). In
y GramSCIs h1stoncal materialism (which he
'· · careful t d · · . wasf O 1stmgmsh from what he called
"historical ,..,
wh1c~ b1~d together the members of a class and of
?n histonc bloc into a common identity. Bourgeois
mtellect~~ls did this for a whole society in which the
bourge01s1e was hegemonic. The organic intellectu-

?ls of the w?rking class would perform a similar role
m the creat10n of a_ne:W historic bloc under working-
class hegemony w1thm that society. To do. this they
woul~ ha_ve to evolve a clearly distinctive culture,
?rgamz?t1on, and technique, and do so in constant
mteraction with the members of the emergent
block. Everyone, for Gramsci, is in some part an
https://unfold.14
https://state.12
https://forces.11
220 Ro B E RT w. co X / Gramsci, Hegemony, and International
Relations
•
Ro B E RT W. co X / Gramsci, Hegemony, and International
Relations
221
intellectual, although only so~e perform ful~-
. the social function of an mtellectual. In this
time . " 11 f
task, the party was, in his conception, a co ec ive
intellectual:' h
In the movement towards hegemony and t e
creation of an historic bloc, Gramsci di~tinguished ~ee
levels of consciousness: the econom1co-corpo~ative,
which is aware of the specific interests of a particu!ar
group; the solidarity or class conscio~sness, whtch
extends to a whole social class but rema~ns at ~ purely
economic level; and the hegemonic, which b~mgs the
interests of the leading class into harmony with those

of subordinate classes and incorporate~ these_ other
interests into an ideology expressed m umversa~
terms.16 The movement towards hegemony, Gramsc1
says is a "passage from the structure to the sphere of
the 'complex superstructures:' by which he means
passing from the specific interests of a gro~p or ~lass
to the building of institutions and elabor~t10~ of ~de-
1 . If they reflect a hegemony, these mst1tutions o og1es. . h ill
and ideologies will be universal in form, I.e., t ~y~
not appear as those of a particular class, and will g1~e
some satisfaction to the subordinat~ gr?ups while
not undermining the leadership or vital mterests of
the hegemonic class.
Hegemonyand International Relations
We can now make the transition from what
Gramsci said about hegemony and related ~oncepts
to the implications of these concepts for mterna-
tional relations. First, however, it is useful to l~ok at
what little Gramsci himself had ~o say_ about m:er-
national relations. Let us begin with this passage.
Do international relations precede or follow
(logically) fundamental social relations? The~e
can be no doubt that they follow. Any orga~IC
innovation in the social structure, ~hrough its
technical-military expressions, mo~1fies ?rgan-
ically absolute and relative relat10ns m the
international field too.17
By"organic" Gramsci meant that which is structural,
long-term, or relatively perma~,ent, as opp?sed to
the short-term or "conjunctural. He was say~ng that
basic changes in international power relati~ns or

world order, which are observed as changes m the
military-strategic and geopolitical b~lance, ~an be
traced to fundamental changes in social relations.
Gramsci did not in any way bypass th~ state or
diminish its importance. The state rema_med for
him the basic entity in international relat10ns and
the place where: social conflicts take_ place-t?e
place also, therefore, where hegemom~s of soc~al
classes can be built. In these heg~m.omes of s~e1al
classes, the particular charactensttcs of nat1~ns
combine in unique and original ways. The ~orking
class, which might be considered to ~e m~erna-
tional in an abstract sense, nationalizes itself m the
process of building its hegemony. The emergence
of new worker-led blocs at the national le~el would,
in this line of reasoning, precede any bastc restruc-
turing of international relations. However, t?e
state, which remains the prima~y focu~ of. social
t gle and the basic entity of mternational rela-
s rug · · 1 d ·ttions, is the enlarged state which me u es I s own
social basi:s. This view sets aside a narrow_ or sup~r-
ficial view of the state which reduces it, for m-
stance, to the foreign-policy bureaucracy or the
state's military capabilities.
From his Italian perspective, Gramsci had a keen
sense of what we would now call depend~ncy. What
happened in Italy he knew was mar~edly m~uenced
by external powers. At the purely fore1gn-pohcy le~el,
great powers have relative freedom to de~e~mme
their foreign policies in response to domestic mter-
ests; smaller powers have less ~uto~omy.1s The eco-
nomic life of subordinate nations is pen~trated ~y
and intertwined with that of powerful n~t1~ns. This

is further complicated by the e~stence ~1thm cou~-
tries of structurally diverse reg10ns which have dis-
tinctive patterns of relationship to external fo~ces.19 .
At an even deeper level, those states which are
powerful are precisely those which have undergone
a profound social and economic revolution an~
have most fully worked out the consequence~ of this
revolution iµ the form of state and of social rela~
tions. The French Revolution was the case Gramsc1
reflected upon, but we can think of the ~evelopme~t
during the Cold War of U.S. and Soviet power m
the same way. These were all nation-based de~elop-
ments which spilled over national boundaries to
become internationally expansive phenomena.
Other countries have received the impact of these
developments in a passive way, an instance of w~at
Gramsci described at the national level as a passive
revolution. This effect comes when the impetus ~o
change does not arise out of a "vast local economic
development ... but is instead the reflection of in-
ternational developments which transmit their ide-
ological currents to the periphery."20
The group which is the bearer of the new ideas,
in such circumstances, is not an indigenous social
group which is actively engaged in building a new
economic base with a new structure of social rela-
tions. It is an intellectual stratum which picks up
ideas originating from a prior foreign economic and
social revolution. Consequently, the thought of this
group takes an idealistic shape ungrounded in a do-
mestic economic development; and its conception
of the state takes the form of"a rational absolute."21
Gramsci criticized the thought of Benedetto Croce,

the dominant figure of the Italian intellectual estab-
lishment of his own time, for expressing this kind of
distortion.
Hegemonyand World Order
Is the Gramscian concept of hegemony applicable at
the international or world level? Before attempting to
suggest how this might be done, it is well to rule out
some usages of the term which are common in inter-
national relations studies. Very often "hegemony" is
used to mean the dominance of one country over
others, thereby tying the usage to a relationship
strictly among states. Sometimes "hegemony" is used
as a euphemism for imperialism. When Chinese po-
litical leaders used to accuse the Soviet Union of
"hegemonism;' they seem to have had in mind some
combination of these two. These meanings differ so
much from the Gramscian sense of the term that it is
better, for purposes of clarity in this chapter, to use
the term "dominance" to replace them.
In applying the concept of hegemony to world
order, it becomes important to determine when a
period of hegemony begins and when it ends. A pe-
riod in which a world hegemony has been estab-
lished can be called hegemonic and one in which
clominance of a nonhegemonic kind prevails, non-
hegemonic. To illustrate, let us consider the past
century and a half as falling into four distinguishable
periods,roughly.221845-1875, 1875-1945, 1945-1965,
and 1965 to the present.•
The first period ( 1845-75) was hegemonic there
was a world economy with Britain as its center. Eco-
nomic doctrines consistent with British supremacy

but universal in form-comparative advantage, free
trade, and the gold standard-spread gradually out-
ward from Britain. Coercive . strength . underwrote
this order. Britain held the balance of power in Europe,
thereby preventing any challenge to hegemony from
a land-based power. Britain ruled supreme at sea and
had the capacity to enforce obedience by peripheral
countries to the rules of the market.
In the second period (1875-1945), all these fea-
tures were reversed. Other countries challenged
British supremacy. The balance of power in Europe
became destabilized, leading to two world wars. Free
trade was superseded by protectionism; the gold
standard was ultimately abandoned; and the world
economy fragmented into economic blocs. This was
a nonhegemonic period.
In the third period, following World War II
(1945-65), the United States founded a new hege-
monic world order similar in basic structure to that
dominated by Britain in middle of the nineteenth
century but with institutions and doctrines ad-
justed to a more complex world economy and to
national societies more sensitive to the political
repercussions of economic crises. Sometime from
the later 1960s through the early 1970s it became
evident that this US-based world order was no
longer working well. During the uncertain times
which followed, three possibilities of structural
transformation of world order opened up: a recon-
struction of hegemony with a broadening of polit-
ical management on the lines envisaged by the
Trilateral Commission; increased fragmentation of
the world economy around big-power-centered

economic spheres; and the possible assertion of a
Third World-based counterhegemony with the
concerted demand for the New International
Economic Order•as a forerunner.
• In Production, Power, and World Order, three successive
structures of world order are substituted for the peri-
odization given above, based on the dialectical relation of
production, forms of state, and different configurations
of world order. These three structures are: ( 1) the liberal
international economy (1789-1873); (2) the era of rival
imperialisms (1873-1945); and (3) the neoliberal world
order (post-World War II). See Robert W. Cox,
Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the
Making of History (New York: Columbia University Press,
1987), 107-109.
https://fo~ces.19
https://uto~omy.1s
https://terms.16
222 . Ro B ER T w. co X / Gramsci, Hegemony, and
International Relations ROBERT W. COX/ Gramsci, Hegemony,
and International Relations 223
On the basis of this tentative notation, it would
appear that, historically, to become hegemonic, a state
would have to found and protect a world order which
was universal in conception, i.e., not an order in
which one state directly exploits others but an order
which most other states ( or at least those within reach
of the hegemony) could find compatible with their
interests. Such an order would hardly be conceived in
inter-state terms alone, for this would likely bring to
the fore oppositions of state interests. It would most

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