China and the philosophy of internal relations
| Author | Kevin Gray |
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117821991874 |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Subject Matter | A Necessarily Historical Materialist Moment? Forum on Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117821991874
International Relations
2021, Vol. 35(1) 183 –187
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117821991874
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China and the philosophy
of internal relations
Kevin Gray
University of Sussex
Keywords
capitalism, crisis, global, internal relations, war
Bieler and Morton’s Global Capitalism, Global War, Global Crisis makes an important
and timely contribution to the academic study of the international political economy.1
Based on the philosophy of internal relations, the book seeks to challenge the ‘ontologi-
cal exteriority’ that is typically posited between key elements of the international system,
such as ideas, the social relations of production, the workplace, the ‘social factory’, and
the market, state and inter-state system. While the authors draw on a range of theoretical
resources and approaches, it is the historical materialism of Antonio Gramsci that pro-
vides the key intellectual resource for the numerous theoretical interventions made in the
book. For example, Gramsci’s critique of economism and statology provides the basis of
an insightful intervention into the structure-agency debate by emphasising the intersec-
tions between the social relations of production and class struggle. Gramsci’s theory of
hegemony and the integral state, on the other hand, provides the basis of an understand-
ing of the material structure of ideology. As such, Bieler and Morton further strengthen
the case for the relevance of Gramsci’s writings not just for the field of International
Political Economy but for social theory more broadly.
Any critical engagement with the book should thus recognise its ambition and scope.
Yet, for all this dense theoretical discussion, it is the three empirical chapters on the ris-
ing powers, the Iraq war, and global financial crisis that provide the opportunity for the
authors to demonstrate that theoretical framework centred on the philosophy of internal
relations lives up to its potential in terms of offering novel and compelling explanations
of contemporary international affairs. In my comments, therefore, I will reflect primarily
on the chapter on rising powers, and as with the chapter itself, on the case of the rise of
Corresponding author:
Kevin Gray, Department of International Relations, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.
Email: K.Gray@sussex.ac.uk
991874IRE0010.1177/0047117821991874International RelationsGray
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