International Relations Essay. ONLY PROTOJE

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The Globalization of World Politics (6e)

9. Marxist theories of international relations

Baylis, Smith & Owens

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Marxism and world politics: key elements

• The social world should be analysed as a totality (subdivision into different fields is unhelpful)

• Processes of historical change are a reflection of the economic development of society – specifically of tensions between the means of production and relations of production

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

The base-superstructure model

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Marxism and world politics: key elements

• Class struggle is a key determinant in historical developments

• Analysts should not be detached and neutral, but have a moral obligation to try to make things better

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

From imperialism to world-systems theory

• Lenin claimed that modern capitalism had led to a two-tier system, with a dominant core exploiting a less developed periphery

• This meant that there was no longer an automatic harmony of interests between all workers, as posited by Marx (exploited periphery workers could ‘subsidise’ workers in the core)

• World systems theory adds the notion of a semi- periphery

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

World Systems Theory: a model

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Gramscianism

• Why had it had proved so difficult to promote revolution in Western Europe?

• The system appeared in part propped up not only by coercion but by consent

• Consent is created by the hegemony of the ruling class in society – meaning that the superstructure is more important than some Marxists believe

• Gramsci concluded that the hegemonic structure thus needed to be challenged

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Robert Cox – the analysis of ‘world order’

• Cox argues that knowledge cannot be objective and timeless

• Facts and values are thus not distinct • Cox applies the notion of hegemony to

international relations, where it is a tool to create consent for the existing order

• Capitalism is nevertheless an inherently unstable system

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

Critical theory

• Not a coherent school of though, but comprises many different strands

• Less focus on the economic base • Questions the working class as a

transformative power, as it seems to have been absorbed into the system

• Tries better to grasp and define ‘emancipation’ (Habermas focusing on the realm of communication)

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

New Marxism

• Thinkers who have derived their ideas more directly from Marx and his writings

• Rosenberg: questions basic realist tenets – the focus should be the modes and relations of production and their repercussions in different eras

• ‘Globalization theory’ as a new strand of thought is unproductive – it would be more useful to analyse globalization using Marxist notions

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

• Marx and his followers have argued that capitalism will be subject to recurrent crises

• the 2008 financial turmoil can be thought of as one such crisis

• Government austerity programmes have resulted in widespread resistance

• The Occupy movement has highlighted a growing disparity between the richest and the poorest in society

Case study 1: Occupy!

Baylis, Smith & Owens: The Globalization of World Politics 6e

• The movement has been affected in highlighting the inequalities of the capitalist system

• It has been less successful in advocating an alternative to the global capitalist system

• Occupy seems to support the reform of capitalism – but not the Marxist solution: the overthrow of capitalism itself

Case study 1: Occupy!