Class, States and International Relations

Introduction

 

 

 

 

The neo-Gramscian perspective has made an important contribution to the development of critical International Relations (IR) theory since the early 1980s. Mobilizing Antonio Gramsci's non-reductionist and historicist Marxism and analysis of hegemony, the neo-Gramscians challenge the transhistorical essentialization of state power characteristic of the dominant Realist perspective in mainstream conservative IR and argue instead that the rise and fall of class forces and shifting patterns of class relations underlie changes in forms of state and, in turn, transformed structures of world order. By going beyond Realism's narrow focus on state power, the neo-Gramscians have produced a range of impressive works that provide a more ...