## References Neo-Gramscianism is a critical theory approach to the study of international relations (IR) and the global political economy (GPE) that explores the interface of ideas, institutions and material capabilities as they shape the specific contours of the state formation. The theory is heavily influenced by the writings of Antonio Gramsci. Neo-Gramscianism analyzes how the particular constellation of social forces, the state and the dominant ideational configuration define and sustain world orders. In this sense, the neo-Gramscian approach breaks the decades-old stalemate between the realist schools of thought and the liberal theories by historicizing the very theoretical foundations of the two streams as part of a particular world order and finding the interlocking relationship between agency and structure. Karl Polanyi, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault are cited as major sources within the critical theory of IR. ## Basics of the neo-Gramscian perspective In the mainstream approaches to international or global political economy, the ontological centrality of the state is not in question. In contrast, neo-Gramscianism, using an approach which Henk Overbeek, Professor of International Relations at the VU University Amsterdam, calls transnational historical materialism, "identifies state formation and interstate politics as moments of the transnational dynamics of capital accumulation and class formation".[4] ==Neo-Gramscianism perceives state sovereignty as subjugated to a global economic system marked by the emergence of a transnational financial system and a corresponding transnational system of production.== The major players in these systems, multinational corporations and international financial institutions such as the [[World Bank (WB)]] and [[International Monetary Fund (IMF)]], have evolved into a "transnational historic bloc" that exercises global hegemony (in contrast to the realist view of hegemony as the "predominant power of a state or a group of states").[5] The historic bloc acquires its authority through the tacit consent of the governed population gained through coercive techniques of intellectual and cultural persuasion, largely absent violence. It links itself to other social groups that have been involved in political struggles[6] to expand its influence and seeks to solidify its power through the standardization and liberalization of national economies, creating a single regulatory regime (e.g. [[World Trade Organization (WTO)]]). There are powerful forces opposing the progress of this historic bloc who may form counterhegemonies to challenge it as part of an open-ended class struggle. These might include neo-mercantilists who depend on the protection of tariffs and state subsidies, or alliances of lesser developed countries, or identitarian and environmentalist movements in the industrialized West.[7] If a counterhegemony grows large enough, it is able to subsume and replace the historic bloc it was born in. Neo-Gramscians use the Machiavellian terms "war of position" and "war of movement" to explain how this is possible. In a war of position, a counterhegemonic movement attempts through persuasion or propaganda to increase the number of people who share its view on the hegemonic order whereas in a war of movement the counterhegemonic tendencies which have grown large enough to overthrow, violently or democratically, the current hegemony and establish themselves as a new historic bloc.[8] ## Reference Wikipedia