Yusli Efendi (presenter), Reza Triarda (discussant), Ni Komand Desy (discussant), Mely Noviryani (discussant), Dewa Ayu Putu Eva (discussant), Azis (discussant), Abdullah (discussant), Asih Purwanti (discussant), Anggun Trisnanto (facilitator)
Started by Yusli Effendi, the fortnightly discussion is about Robert Cox’s idea of hegemony. As one of the prominent scholars in International Political Economy (IPE), Cox has identified himself as the Neo Gramscian. Though the difference between Gramscian and Neo Gramscian is not the aim of this note, Hugo Radice has highlighted that the latter:Neo-Gramscianism has yielded an increasingly confident body of work that seeks not only to renew the Marxist tradition but also to challenge recent innovations in mainstream scholarship that have sought to go beyond the traditional duality of liberalism and realism in IR and IPE (Radice, 2008:54)The idea of seeking an ‘alternative’ approach to understanding what was happening during the post-war era was triggered by the di)iculties of two mainstream IR theories; realism and liberalism to explain the world order. This comes to the fore as a basic understanding of how and to what extent Mark has contributed to international political economy discourse that at some point has lost its interest from realists’ and liberalists’ point of view.Further, issues like poverty, dependency, labor relations, and many more are away from both theories. This indeed requests an alternative explanation by which Marx finally contributes. In this school of thought, Robert Cox came into being. For him, it is necessary to understand that state-society relation is a whole historical process and not exclusively separated from each other. He, further, states that this form of understanding represents a ‘critical’ meaning that world order is not something that is taken for granted but importantly questioning the process of how such order (institutions and social relation) is made and changing (Cox, 1981).Drawn from revisionist Marx, Cox is in line with Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony which attempts to explain why capitalism has sustained. Accordingly, Cox argues that the sustainability of hegemony is supported by a set of arrangements, consensuses, and consent (Cox, 1983). Dominance can be into being with those arrangements. These are in parallel with conventional forces like coercion and military. Examples of the existence of multinational oil2companies such as British Petroleum, Shell, and others are manifestations of hegemony. More, the liberal is also a hegemon to other alternative thoughts.The discussion goes deep into how such things become hegemonic. The first is because there is a limitation on any other rising thoughts apart from liberalism. This may occur through the strengthened role of educators and the education system that fully accommodates and supports liberalism (social and cultural hegemons are examples of this). There Is No Alternative (TINA) becomes an international slogan in this context. Here, the role of the state is vital by establishing a historical block that is aimed at ‘disciplining’ logic of thinking from epistemic communities like groups of educators. Another example that came into discussion was from international development practices.The idea of shaming in water and sanitation is an example. Taken from colonial health practices in the 1930s, shaming became hegemonic in development projects mostly associated with international donors such as the World Bank, the Rockefeller, and the Ford Foundation (Engel & Susilo, 2014). It seems that shaming as the hegemon plays as the ‘only game in town’ pushing aside another more humanistic method in the behavioral change process. Taken broader, neoliberalism can also be a hegemon in the current world system as this is an unavoidable term, especially in international cooperation logic. Why it is so? Susan Engel explains that this is not only because neoliberalism is able to explain the world system (in the global economy) but also its success in moderating its form into a more ‘human face’ (Engel, 2012).
List of references
Cox, R. W. (1981). Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298810100020501Cox,
R. W. (1983). Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations : An Essay in Method. Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298830120020701Engel, S. (2012). The World Bank and the post-Washington consensus in Vietnam and Indonesia: Inheritance of loss. In The World Bank and the Post-Washington Consensus in Vietnam and Indonesia: Inheritance of Loss. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203873168
Engel, S., & Susilo, A. (2014). Shaming and sanitation in indonesia: A return to colonial public health practices? Development and Change, 45(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12075Radice, H. (2008). Gramsci and neo-Gramscianism: To what purpose? In Gramsci, Political Economy, and International Relations Theory: Modern Princes and Naked Emperors. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230616615