Marxist approach to the study of IR

Marxist approach to the study of IR Marxism is both a critical approach that desires to always question the mainstream policy-driven approaches to IR theory and a classical approach via the philosophical and sociological tradition of its namesake, the philosopher Marx (1818–1883). In fact, Marxism is that the only theoretical perspective in IR that's named after an individual . Of the range of great thinkers available to us, Marx might not automatically qualify as being the foremost ‘internationalist’. 

In fact, most of Marx’s (and his sometimes co-author Friedrich Engels’) work wasn't primarily concerned with the formation of states or maybe the interactions between them. What connected their interests to IR was the economic revolution, as this event was ultimately what Marx was witnessing and trying to know .  Marxist approach to the study of IR, He, with Engels, developed a revolutionary approach and outlined a group of concepts that transcended national differences while also providing practical advice on the way to build a transnational movement of individuals . Workers from factories across the planet – the proletariat – were to organise themselves into a politically revolutionary movement to counter the exploitative and unequal effects of capitalism, which were accelerated and expanded by the economic revolution. This vision of a possible link between the majority of humanity as a worldwide proletariat is where, and how, Marxism enters IR from a special viewpoint to other theories.

Another influential update of the classical theories of imperialism is that the neo- Gramscian strand of Marxism. Antonio Gramsci’s (1891–1937) concept of hegemony is assumed by some to be more useful today than the concept of imperialism. It emphasises two things. First, the domination of some groups of people (or groups of states) over other groups also depends on ideological factors. In other words, capitalism is experienced in several ways historically and across the world because people know it – and thus comply with or resist it – in several ways. Second, the relations of dependency and kinds of groups (or units) wont to understand those relations are more varied and fluid than world systems theory. Therefore, capitalism dominates our social relations because it's reproduced through coercive and consensual means. The concept was wont to explain why educated and organised workers in Western Europe didn't ‘unite’ to ‘lose their chains’, as Marx and Engels had predicted. A neo-Gramscian concept of hegemony focuses on the consensual ways during which transnational classes, organisations and law of nations reproduce capitalism and its inequalities. The transnational capitalist class – dominated by great powers – forms a ‘global civil society’ that universalises liberal ideals instead of imposing itself through more coercive processes of classical imperialism and colonisation, as was the case in earlier times.

 For example, Singapore, Hong-Kong, South Korea and Taiwan were known because the Four Asian Tigers due to their rapid industrialisation and high growth rates from the 1960s to the 1990s. In these countries, a robust ruling elite consented to a selected sort of financial economy – often called a ‘neoliberal’ model – which also took hold across the planet to varying degrees as other states sought to emulate this ‘success’. However, vast inequalities and human rights violations are increasing across and within many societies despite the dominance of neoliberalism globally. This shows that although neoliberal hegemony is way from producing the success it originally projected, this perceived success remains one among the most drivers of capitalism because it convinces people to consent to capitalism without the threat of force.

A newer trend of Marxism in IR – historical sociology – returns to a number of the more classical problems of IR. Specifically, it's at the event of the fashionable state system in reference to the transition(s) to capitalism and to the various moments of colonial and imperial expansion. it's more closely at what happened inside Europe but also beyond Europe. More specifically, it contests the birth of the sovereign states system following the treaties of Westphalia in 1648 and instead focuses on more socio-economic processes within the nineteenth century to define key shifts in modern diplomacy . This underlines how scholars are taking history beyond Europe so as to deal with the Eurocentric assumptions found in Marxism and within the wider discipline of IR itself.

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