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Introduction
Situated within a historical materialist problematic of social transformation and deploying many insights from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, a crucial break with neorealist mainstream international relations approaches emerged by the 1980s in the work of Robert Cox. In contrast to mainstream problem-solving routes to hegemony in international relations-that develop a static theory of politics; an abstract, ahistorical conception of the state; and an appeal to universal validity-debate shifted toward a critical theory of hegemony, world order and historical change.1 Rather than a problem-solving preoccupation with the maintenance of social power relationships, a critical theory of hegemony directs attention to questioning the prevailing order of the world. It therefore "does not take institutions and social and power relations for granted but calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and whether they might be in the process of changing" (Cox 1981, 129). Yet, instead of contrasting the concerns of these competing approaches, the aim here is to pursue a critical theoretical route to questions of hegemony. This move does not necessarily foreclose dialogue between problem-solving and critical theory, as they are not mutually exclusive enterprises, but it does remain wary of the assimilatory calls for synthesis that emanate from mainstream exponents.2
The critical impetus bears a less than direct affiliation to the constellation of social thought known as the Frankfurt School represented by, among others, the work of Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno or, more recently, Jürgen Habermas (Cox 1995a, 32).3 Although overlaps may exist, it is specifically critical in the sense of asking how existing social or world orders have come into being; how norms, institutions, or social practices therefore emerge; and what forces may have the emancipatory potential to change or transform the prevailing order. As such, a critical theory develops a dialectical theory of history concerned not just with the past but with a continual process of historical change and with exploring the potential for alternative forms of development (Cox 1981, 129, 133-4). This critical theory of hegemony thus focuses on interaction between particular processes, notably springing from the dialectical possibilities of change within the sphere of production and the exploitative character of social relations-not as unchanging, ahistorical essences but as a continuing creation of new forms (132).
The emergence...