Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T08:51:48.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Common-sense Constructivism and Hegemony in World Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2013

Ted Hopf
Ted Hopf*
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The IR literature on hegemony rarely combines attention to material power and ideas. Cox's neo-Gramscian work is a rare exception, but it too narrowly construes Gramsci's conceptualization of common sense, reducing it to elite views on political economy. But Gramsci argued that hegemony had to reckon with mass quotidian common sense. If political elites do not take into account the taken-for-granted world of the masses, elite ideological projects would likely founder against daily practices of resistance. In this article, I show how mass common sense can be an obstacle to an elite hegemonic project aimed at moving a great power into the core of the world capitalist economy. In contemporary Russia, a ruling elite with a neoliberal project is being thwarted daily by a mass common sense that has little affinity with democratic market capitalism. Scholarly work on future Chinese, Brazilian, or Indian participation in constructing a new hegemonic order would do well to pay attention to the mass common senses prevailing in those societies

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 317 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, Emanuel, and Pouliot, Vincent, eds. 2011. International Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aleksashkina, Liudmila N., Danilov, Aleksandr A., and Kosulina, Liudmila G.. 2008. Rossiia I Mir v XX—Nachale XXI Veka. Moscow: Prosveshchenie.Google Scholar
Barsenkov, Aleksandr, and Vdovin, Aleksandr. 2010. Istoriia Rossii, 1917–2009. Moscow: Aspekt Press.Google Scholar
Bar-Tal, Daniel. 1998. The Rocky Road Toward Peace: Beliefs on Conflict in Israeli Textbooks. Journal of Peace Research 35 (6):723–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, Thomas U. 1998. Cultures of Antimilitarism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biton, Yifat, and Salomon, Gavriel. 2006. Peace in the Eyes of Israeli and Palestinian Youths: Effects of Collective Narratives and Peace Education Program. Journal of Peace Research 43 (2):167–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Checkel, Jeffrey. 1999. Norms, Institutions and National Identity in Contemporary Europe. International Studies Quarterly 43 (1):83–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Julian. 2006. Can Russia Compete in the Global Economy? Eurasian Geography and Economics 47 (4):407–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cortell, Andrew P., and Davis, James W. Jr. 1996. How Do International Institutions Matter? The Domestic Impact of International Rules and Norms. International Studies Quarterly 40 (4):451–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cortell, Andrew P., and Davis, James W. Jr. 2000. Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms: A Research Agenda. International Studies Review 2 (1):65–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Robert. 1981. Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. Millennium 10 (2):126–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckstein, Harry. 1975. Case Study and Theory in Political Science. In Handbook of Political Science, edited by Greenstein, Fred L. and Polsby, Nelson W., 79–137. Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley.Google Scholar
Gilpin, Robert. 1981. War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Hoare, Quintin and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Hendrick, Harry. 1990. Constructions and Reconstructions of British Childhood. In Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood, edited by James, Allison and Prout, Alan, 35–59. London: Falmer.Google Scholar
Hopf, Ted. 2010. The Logic of Habit in International Relations. European Journal of International Relations 16 (4):539–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopf, Ted. 2012. Reconstructing the Cold War: The Early Years, 1945–1958. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikenberry, John. 2001. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanov, Sergey B. 2011. U.S.-Russian Relations. Council on Foreign Relations. Available at ⟨http://www.cfr.org/russian-fed/us-russian-relations/p24590⟩. Accessed 18 November 2012.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J. 1996. Cultural Norms and National Security. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret E., and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kindleberger, Charles. 1986. The World in Depression: 1929–1939. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen. 1976. State Power and the Structure of International Trade. World Politics. 28 (3):317–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levandovskii, Andrei A., Shchetinov, Iurii A., and Mironenko, Sergei V.. 2009. Istoriia Rossii. XX—Nachalo XXI Veka. Moscow: Prosveshchenie.Google Scholar
Marinina, Aleksandra. 2009. View from Eternity. Good Intentions. Moscow: Eksmo.Google Scholar
Millenium. 2002. Special Issue: Pragmatism in International Relations Theory 31 (3).Google Scholar
Nestmann, Thorsten, and Orlova, Daria. 2008. Russia's Outward Investment, 30 April. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Deutsche Bank Research.Google Scholar
Pelevin, Victor. 2009. A Macedonian Critique of French Thought. Moscow: Eksmo.Google Scholar
Pouliot, Vincent. 2008. The Logic of Practicality. International Organization 62 (2):257–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse, Thomas. 2010. A Community of Europeans? Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas, and Ropp, Stephen C.. 1999. International Human Rights Norms and Domestic Change. In The Power of Human Rights, edited by Risse, Thomas, Ropp, Stephen C., and Sikkink, Kathryn, 234–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Andrew. 2005. Towards an Intellectual Reformation: The Critique of Common Sense and the Forgotten Revolutionary Project of Gramscian Theory. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8 (4):469–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Snidal, Duncan. 1985. The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory. International Organization 39 (4):579–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surkov, Vladislav. 2008. Russian Political Culture: The View from Utopia. Russian Politics and Law 46 (5):10–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Universal Postal Union. 2008. Postal Statistics Database. Bern, Switzerland: Universal Postal Union.Google Scholar
Utkin, Anatolii, Filippov, Aleksandr, and Alekseev, Sergei. 2009. Istoriia Rossii, 1945–2008. Moscow: Prosveshchenie.Google Scholar
Volobuev, Oleg V., Klokov, Valerii A., Ponomarev, Mikhail V., and Rogozhkin, Vasilii A.. 2009. Istoriia: Rossiia i Mir 11. Moscow: Drofa.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The World System. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Zagladin, Nikita V., and Simoniia, Nodari A.. 2008. Istoriia Rossii I Mira. Moscow: Russkoe Slovo.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Hopf supplementary material

Appendix

Download Hopf supplementary material(File)
File 26.1 KB