Hegemonic Orders and International Regimes

of organic totality between civil society and political society and implies that the ruling classes are no longer able to play a role of intellectual and moral leadership and fulfil their ethical functions to respond to the expectations of the society. Organic crisis is in fact a “crisis of hegemony,” where coercion becomes the only tool of domination because of the absolute loss of the consent of masses (Gramsci 1971: 210).

The three levels are interrelated. Changes in the organisation of production generate new social forces which, in turn, bring about changes in the structure of states; and the generalization of changes in the structure of states alters the problematic of world order. […] Considered separately, social forces, forms of state, and world orders can be represented in a preliminary approximation as particular configurations of material capabilities, ideas, and institutions” (Cox 1981, 100-101)

Within this broad picture, hegemony becomes a form of order produced by social forces deriving from the economic base through obtaining the consent of various actors in global civil society with support of a carefully elaborated set of policy ideas.

Therefore, hegemony originates in the material production process, but it cannot be confined to the material world. Following Gramsci’s formulation, Cox contends that social forces struggle for world hegemony in the domain of ideas through constructing historic blocs (Cox 1983: 131, 133). Although historic blocs have their roots in the domestic sphere, world hegemony proves to be an outward expansion of the hegemony established internally (Cox 1983: 137). A hegemonic world order differs from a non-hegemonic one in that the consensual nature of domination is at the forefront, whereas non-hegemonic orders global politics reflect power based confrontations (Cox 1981: 99). Based on the consensual aspect of their epochs, neo-Gramscian scholars consider pax Britannica and pax Americana as two hegemonic orders. They consider the interwar period and the period that started in the late 1960s as non-hegemonic orders (Cox 1981: 102-4; 1983: 135-7). The nature of consensus in

each hegemonic epoch is determined by an ideological framework promoted by hegemonic forces and historic blocs. The Amsterdam School of neo-Gramscian scholarship has suggested the notion of “concepts of control” to conceptualize the ideological framework determining the ethical content of authority relations within hegemonic orders. Concepts of control, as the expressions of “general interest” of the society, are developed and promoted by hegemonic social forces to assure the sustainability of social order (van der Pijl 1998, 3; Overbeek 2004: 118). According to van der Pijl, these concepts are produced by certain class fractions which gain prominence owing to the cyclical conjunctures of capitalism and maintain their economic dominance and sustain social stability (van der Pijl 1998: 53). They are generated within an intersubjective context, through a process in which corporate interests of a class or class fragment transforms into a universally acceptable world view in civil society through incorporation of other interests and by responding to expectations and aspirations of the society. In this regard, concepts of control in becoming “comprehensive” or hegemonic constitute the moral frameworks of their epoch. In van der Pijl’s words:

what was ‘normal’ in one age, say, welfare state, is anathema in another. Such codes of normalcy in practice appear subject to change, along with the shifts in labour processes and modes of accumulation, the widening and/or deepening of commodification and the discipline of capital, the changing forms of state/society relations, world politics, etc. (van der Pijl 1998: 51)

The emergence of and changes in international regimes can be understood as a function of the world hegemony. To define an order as hegemonic, Cox requires the existence of a harmonious fit between social, political and economic domains, which can be observed in the existing coherence between the global configuration of power, ideas and international institutions (Cox 1983, 137; 1981: 104). Maintenance and changes of international institutions/regimes are associated with the production and reproduction of international hegemonies (Cox 1981: 99; 1983: 138). According to Cox, international institutions fulfill the following functions:

(1) the institutions embody the rules which facilitate the expansion of hegemonic world orders; (2) they are themselves are the product of the hegemonic world order; (3) they ideologically legitimate the norms of the world order; (4) they co-opt the elites from peripheral countries; and (5) they absorb counterhegemonic ideas (Cox 1983: 138).

Nonetheless, neo-Gramscian scholars have not found the rationalist regime studies compatible with their heterodox approaches. As Gale (1998) maintains, although the neo-Gramscian tradition generates an alternative meta-theory in IR/IPE, its potential has thus far been applied mainly to understand macro-level structures; whereas this potential offers also the possibility to examine meso-level structures like international regimes. The analysis can be based on the constructivist treatment of regimes since neo-Gramscian understanding of regimes shares the ontolological premises of constructivist scholars by treating international regimes as intersubjective entities. Cox

emphasizes the embeddedness of international regimes in historical structures through the penetration of two sets of ideas into institutions: intersubjective meanings and collective images. Intersubjective meanings are “shared notions of the nature of social relations which tend to perpetuate habits and expectations of behaviour.” These ideas are “durable over long periods of time” and “historically conditioned” (Cox 1981: 98). Bieler (2001: 97) argues that this understanding is parallel to the constructivist treatment of ideas. However, neo-Gramscian approaches go beyond constructivism and intend to understand the “material structure” of ideas, i.e. their relation with the material world via social forces (Bieler 2001: 94). In this regard, Cox contends that if the world order is in change, the underlying intersubjective meanings are also subject to change (Cox 1985: 51-6; 1996: 145-7). To understand the changes in the ideational texture of international institutions in association with material changes, Cox’s second category of ideas is helpful, i.e. “collective images.” Unlike intersubjective meanings, collective images are held only by a group of people. These are:

differing views as to both the nature and the legitimacy of prevailing power relations, the meanings of justice and public good, and so forth. Whereas intersubjective meanings are broadly common throughout a particular historical structure and constitute the common ground of social discourse (including conflict), collective images may be several and opposed (Cox 1981:

89).

The legitimacy of collective images supported within a regime is contingent upon their coherence with intersubjective meanings of historical structures. In Bieler’s words, “[s]trategies are likely to be successful in cases where the legitimising ideas of a hegemonic project correspond to the ‘intersubjective meanings’ of the structure, because they appear to be logical” (Bieler 2001: 98). Nevertheless, if the world order is in the process of change and world hegemony is contested, it becomes hard to legitimize those ideas. Because in non-hegemonic world orders, institutions turn to a terrain of clashing collective images as well as power (Cox 1981: 99-100). As Cox notes:

the clash of rival collective images provides evidence of the potential for alternative paths of development and raises questions as to the possible material and institutional basis for the emergence of an alternative structure (Cox 1981: 99).

To understand the role of social forces in the transformation of the trade regime one needs to examine the collective images held by TNCs, whether these ideas were justified with references to the intersubjective meanings, and if these ideas had potential for alternative paths of development. As examined in Chapter 5, the idea of the tradability of services was promoted by certain TNCs and had a potential to change the very intersubjective meanings of the trade regime during the Uruguay Round. In fact, the counter-collective image held and promoted by developing countries, i.e. services was a non-GATT issue lost its validity in this process in tandem

with the spread of neoliberal hegemony. In this case, the trade regime underwent a transformation which re-defined its normative framework and altered the intersubjective meanings within the trade regime. On the other hand, as will be studied in Chapter 6 and 7, the idea of creating an investment accord under the WTO, which was promoted by a coalition of TNCs during the 1990s, was challenged by some governments and ultimately failed to become hegemonic. In fact, the success of the first case was directly related with the process of (neoliberal) hegemonic production. Conversely, the failure of the second was in association with the emergence of counter-hegemonic challenges to neoliberal hegemony. The next section will discuss the historical context for the two cases by exploring the transformation of the world order.