Globalisation, the State and Class Struggle: A ‘Critical Economy’ Engagement with Open Marxism

Abstract

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.

Participation and Passive Revolution: The Reproduction of Neoliberal Water Governance Mechanisms in Durban, South Africa

“…It is constitutive of a complex web of social relations within which struggles occur on a continual basis through attempts to lay claims to dominant political positionalities. Gramsci's understanding of the integral state provides us with a rich framework through which to analyse struggles within, and between, elements of political and civil society over the form and expression of the state (Bieler and Morton 2003:488). It is with this in mind that Gramsci's concept of “passive revolution” becomes a particularly useful tool to explain the dynamics of statecraft and, as will be explored below, the problems of participatory development in the global South.…”

New Ways of Making and Living Politics: The Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados de Solano and the ‘Movement of Movements’

“…There have been a number of successful critiques of liberal democratic interpretations of ‘the political’. Poststructuralist, Gramscian and ‘autonomist’ Marxist intellectuals have critiqued the exclusion of the structures of the state and market from legitimate fields of political struggle (Escobar, 2001; Bieler and Morton, 2003: 467–499; De Angelis, 2005: 179–203). Assuming these two ‘structures’ as fixed boundaries within which politics occurs ‘unjustifiably’ limits the legitimate realm of political contestation.…”

Marx, Weber and NGOs

“…But, quite possibly, Gramsci's understanding of the character of capitalism is consistent with the kind of form analysis (involving 'internal relations') outlined in this article. For instance, Nicos Poulantzas (1978) readily draws on Gramsci's work in his formulation of the state in capitalist society as the condensation of class relations (Bieler & Morton, 2003). The state in Poulantzas' work becomes a terrain of both domination and contestation.…”