Global Hegemony and the Structural Power of Capital

Abstract

This essay seeks to clarify, develop, and apply concepts of power and hegemony which are often latent within the literature in the field of international political economy. Clarification is vital, both for debate between rival perspectives and for attempts to go beyond them. We see power as having related material and normative, behavioral and structural dimensions. These distinctions are elaborated to help explain aspects of the changing nature of present-day capitalism, with particular reference to aspects of transformation in the 1980s and beyond. Partly building upon Robert Cox's analysis of social forces and world orders, and Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony, we seek to explain some of the conditions under which a more “transnational” regime of accumulation and an associated hegemony of transnational capital might develop. Such a hegemony could never be complete because of counter-hegemonic forces and contradictory elements in the internationalization of capital. Some requirements for an alternative counter-hegemonic historic bloc are sketched, with suggestions for a research agenda.