This article explores common commitments between competing historical materialist perspectives within International Political Economy (IPE). It does so by engaging with the approach of Open Marxism that has emerged as the basis of a radical rethinking of theories of the state, the dialectic of subject-object and theory-practice, as well as commitments to emancipating the social world. Despite these contributions, though, there has been a sonorous silence within debates in critical International Relations (IR) theory in relation to the arguments of Open Marxism. In contrast, we engage with and develop an immanent critique of Open Marxism through a 'Critical Economy' conception of the state proffered by Antonio Gramsci. Previously overlooked, this alternative approach not only promotes an understanding of the state as a social relation of production but also affords insight into a broader range of class-relevant social forces linked to contemporary processes of capitalist development. A key priority is thus granted to theorising the capitalist state, as well as issues of resistance and collective agency, that surpasses the somewhat 'theological' vision of state-capital-labour evident in Open Marxism. Moreover, it is argued in conclusion that the approach we outline provides an avenue to critique additional competing 'critical' approaches in IR/IPE, thereby raising new questions about the potential of critical theory within international studies.

The agent-structure debate has proceeded in International Relations for some time now. Within an initial `first wave' of debate, this revolved around proposing various `solutions' to the problem of how to appreciate the mutually constitutive relationship between agency and structure. The ensuing debate was then characterized by an apparent intellectual cul-de-sac. There were always `two stories to tell' about agency and structure — one an explanatory account, the other an interpretative account. More recently, a `second wave' of agent-structure debate is under way in which the stakes have been raised. Yet throughout the various waves of debate it seems that the contributions of an historicist neo-Gramscian perspective developed by Robert Cox have been overlooked. This article explores some of the issues raised by such an approach. Attention is drawn to the many issues developed by neo-Gramscian perspectives that combine accounts of agency-structure as well as modes of explanation and understanding. We remain sceptical about whether the dualism of agency-structure can be successfully transcended by combining accounts that both explain and understand the social world. As such, the problem of agency-structure may well be a Gordian knot that cannot be unravelled or solved. Yet, by starting to take seriously the approaches to agency-structure within various neo-Gramscian perspectives, we aim to propel discussion into further avenues within the second wave of the agent-structure debate.

‘Some aspects of the Southern question’ (1926) established a strain of thought in Antonio Gramsci’s questioning of conditions of uneven and combined development in Italy, which encompassed complex relations of class stratification, racial domination, colonial rule, the social function of intellectuals, and how best to mobilise against the bourgeois state. This strain of thought was then extended, in his carceral research, through his sustained and wide-ranging historical sociological focus on passive revolution as a condition of modern state formation. This article sets up the importance of passive revolution as a backdrop to approaching passive revolutions of diverse varieties, which is the subject of this wider special issue, stressing ‘approaching’ (as transitive verb) in terms of setting about the task of assessing the theoretical import of passive revolution; and ‘approaching’ (as intransitive verb) in terms of the advance of passive revolutions that are contemporary to us, and those that are in the process of becoming. The continuum of passive revolution is thereby asserted in a historically specific sense, capturing transitions to and transformations of the social relations of capitalist production, rather than as some transhistorical affirmation of intersocietal existence.

Situated within a historical materialist problematic of social transformation that deploys many of the insights of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, a crucial break emerged, in the 1980s, in the work of Robert Cox from mainstream International Relations (IR) approaches to hegemony. This article provides a comprehensive ‘state-of-the-discipline’ overview of this critical theory route to hegemony, world order and historical change. It does so by outlining the historical context within which various diverse but related neo-Gramscian perspectives emerged. Attention subsequently turns to highlight how conditions of capitalist economic crisis and structural change in the 1970s have been conceptualised, which inform contemporary debates about globalisation. Significantly, the discussion is also responsive to the various controversies and criticisms that surround the neo-Gramscian perspectives whilst, in conclusion, directions along which future research might proceed are elaborated. Hence providing a thorough survey of this historical materialist critical theory of hegemony and thus forms of social power through which conditions of capitalism are reproduced, mediated and contested.

This article examines the rise of various representations of post-colonial states to highlight how thinking and practice that arose and prevailed during the Cold War still persists in the present ostensibly post-cold war era. After initially outlining the historical construction of the social sciences, it is shown how the annexation of the social sciences evolved in the early post-World War II and cold-war era as an adjunct of the world hegemonic pretensions of the USA. A critique is then developed of various representations of post-colonial states that arose in the making of the 'Third World' during the cold-war annexation of the social sciences. Yet such practices still persist in the present, as evidenced by more contemporary representations of post-colonial states commonly revolving around elements of deficiency or failure, eg 'quasi-states', 'weak states', 'failed states' or 'rogue states'. A more historicised consideration of post-colonial statehood, that recasts conceptions of state-civil society antagonisms in terms of an appreciation of political economy and critical security concerns, offers an alternative to these representations of 'failed states'. By historicising various representations of 'failed states' it becomes possible to open up critical ways of thinking about the political economy of security and to consider alternative futures in the world order