Millennium:Journal of International Studies Vol.12,No.2 Gramsci,Hegemony and International Relations:An Essay in Method* Robert W.Cox Some time ago I began reading Gramsci's Prison Notebooks.In these fragments, written in a fascist prison between 1929 and 1935,the former leader of the Italian Communist Party was concerned with the problem of understanding capitalist societies in the 1920s and 1930s,and particularly with the meaning of fascism and the possibilities of building an alternative form of state and society based on the working class.What he had to say centred upon the state,upon the relationship of civil society to the state,and upon the relationship of politics,ethics and ideology to production.Not surprisingly,Gramsci did not have very much to say directly about international relations.Nevertheless,I found that Gramsci's think- ing was helpful in understanding the meaning of international organisation with which I was then principally concerned.Particularly valuable was his concept of hegemony,but valuable also were several related concepts which he had worked out for himself or developed from others.This essay sets forth my understanding of what Gramsci meant by hegemony and these related concepts,and suggests how I think they may be adapted,retaining his essential meaning,to the under- standing of problems of world order.It does not purport to be a critical study of Gramsci's political theory but merely a derivation from it of some ideas useful for a revision of current international relations theory.1 Gramsci and Hegemony Gramsci's concepts were all derived from history-both from his own reftections upon those periods of history which he thought helped to throw an explanatory light upon the present,and from his personal experience of political and social struggle.These included the workers'councils movement of the early 1920s,his participation in the Third International and his opposition to fascism.Gramsci's ideas have always to be related to his own historical context.More than that,he was constantly adjusting his concepts to specific historical circumstances.The concepts cannot usefully be considered in abstraction from their applications,for when they are so abstracted different usages of the same concept appear to contain contradictions or ambiguities.2 A concept,in Gramsci's thought,is loose and elastic and attains precision only when brought into contact with a particu- 162 Downloaded from mil.sagepub.com at LIB SHANGHAI JIAOTONG UNIV on Ocober 10,2010Downloaded from mil.sagepub.com at LIB SHANGHAI JIAOTONG UNIV on October 10, 2010