Discussion Paper No. 19 / Oktober 2006
European integration from the perspective of neo-gramscian international political economy

Aram Ziai

Abstract

Following Robert Cox, a variety of authors has used Gramscian concepts to analyse the process of European integration. This paper gives an introduction to the neo-gramscian perspective in general and its empirical analyses of the EU in particular, which explain integration not as the result of intergovernmental bargaining or supranational dynamics, but of struggles for hegemony by transnational social forces. It discusses its moderate post-positivist epistemology, its historical materialist ontology and its methods of research.