Robert Cox (1926-2018) Remembered
K. M. Seethi
First Published in Countercurrents, 2 November 2018
https://countercurrents.org/2018/11/02/historicizing-international-relations-theory-robert-cox-remembered/
Robert Cox is a scholar-extraordinary in the discipline of International Relations (IR) His writings continued to inspire scholars in both Global North and Global South. Cox’s deeply entrenched historicist position, in fact, set in motion shock waves across the positivist-realist traditions which dominated the discipline for decades. When I started teaching IR at Mahatma Gandhi University, in the South Indian state of Kerala, way back in early 1980s, not many had heard about him. In fact, the Kottayam School of IR made a departure by incorporating new trends in diverse areas of social sciences and, obviously, the post-positivist and critical theory traditions attracted our immediate attention. That was the period when Structral Realism was the subject of discussion everywhere. Cox’s writings stimulated our thinking in different ways. When I wrote a paper on “Sluice Model under Neoliberal Siege” (a critical study on Habermas) a decade and a half ago, Cox’s writings were the real inspiration. Undoubtedly, Cox is a compulsory reading for serious IR scholars across the world. He will be remembered for an intellectual subversion in the traditional scholarship of IR.
The discipline of International Relations (IR) has lost another outstanding scholar—Robert W. Cox (1926-2018)—who made a mark in its intellectual history in the last century, like Samir Amin. Canada-born IR theorist Cox had a long stint at the International Labour Organisation (ILO)—for over two decades—before he started teaching at Columbia University, New York. He then proceeded to take up a professorship at York University, Toronto where he remained for a decade and half (1977-1992). In 2014 Cox was made a member of the Order of Canada.
A leading Critical Theorist in IR, Cox emerged as an indispensable scholar in International Political Economy (IPE) like Susan Strange. His writings displayed a distinctive historicist approach to IR studies with a focus on political economy. Though an independent scholar that he was, Cox never sought to bring in any particular school or tradition.
An erudite intellectual in every sense, Cox has to his credit several scholarly works and articles. Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History (1987) became a well known treatise that analyzed power relations in production and its implications for the organization of society and international system. Among the articles that became very popular in the 1980s were “Social Forces, States and World Orders” (1981) and “Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations” (1983), both appeared in Millennium: Journal of International Studies. These two seminal papers set in motion a new wave at a time when the discipline was so entrenched in Realist/Structural Realist/Positivist traditions. His critical thinking offered several perspectives in IR theory beyond its problem-solving mode. Cox also became instrumental in applying the ideas of Antonio Gramsci in the studies of the IR.
Cox’s intellectual life was influenced by his passion for conceptualizing social conditions in historical terms. R.G. Collingwood was one of those who inspired him, as he told in an interview, and he inevitably fell in line with his “sense of historical materialism.” Collingwood, according to him, had a different sense about the ‘inside’ as well as the ‘outside’ of historical events. Even as positivists see at what happens (by classifying and collecting events and drawing inferences from them), Collingwood looks at the ‘outside.’ His emphasis on the ‘inside’ of events was “to understand the meaning of things in terms of the thought-processes of the people who were acting, and their understanding of the structure of relationships within which they lived. To understand history in those terms is what gives meaning to events.”
Cox said that though he was not a Marxist, he believed that a lot should be learned from Marxist thinking, particularly the “ideas on the tension between capital and labour, and the attempts to institutionalize these relations on state-level and the international level in order to advance material interests.” He identified his approach as ‘historical materialism,’ yet he had linked it not so much with Marx as with Giambattista Vico, the 18th-century critic of Descartes and later with Gramsci.
According to Cox, among the Marxists, Gramsci made a distinction between a deterministic and positivist historical economism and historical materialism, in which “the realm of ideas is an autonomous force.” Gramsci recognized the relative autonomy of cultures and ideas and their intimate relationship with material conditions.
Cox argued that Critical Theory is basically concerned with how the world may be changing while the problem solving theory has to take the basic existing power relationships as given. It will be biased towards perpetuating those relationships, thus tending to make the existing order hegemonic. What critical theory does, according to him, is “question these very structural conditions that are tacit assumptions for problem-solving theory, to ask whom and which purposes such theory serves. It looks at the facts that problem-solving theory presents from the inside, that is, as they are experienced by actors in a context which also consists of power relations. Critical theory thus historicizes world orders by uncovering the purposes problem solving theories within such an order serve to uphold.”
What Cox actually meant is that “there is no theory for itself; theory is always for someone, for some purpose.” According to him, there “is no neutral theory concerning human affairs, no theory of universal validity. Theory derives from practice and experience, and experience is related to time and place. Theory is a part of history. It addresses the problematic of the world of its time and place.” As such a scholar “has to aim to place himself above the historical circumstances in which a theory is propounded. One has to ask about the aims and purposes of those who construct theories in specific historical situations.”
Stephen Gill calls Cox as “an intellectual pioneer, a towering figure, a fugitive from orthodoxies and cliques: a “universal foreigner. Andrew Linklater says that for more than three decades, Robert Cox’s of-quoted phrase that “theory is always for someone and some purpose” has been popularized as a “symbol of shifting disciplinary concerns.” Linklater reminds that critical theory “has diversified greatly over the last three decades and scholars continue to search for and draw on new sources and perspectives. But all who work within the critical theory perspective, broadly defined, remain indebted to Robert Cox’s pioneering investigation of the changing complexities of world politics.” For Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Cox was “the original trailblazer in the unfinished critical project in International Relations.” He says that “Cox’s humility and seriousness are virtues in short supply in a profession eager to idealize new stars and immediacy.”
In an interview Cox said that the neoliberal world order will be forced to change, sooner or later. He said that some change called “self-organization” at a global level is inevitable. In that sense, the world economic crisis is ‘a great advantage’ because it shows that global capitalism has failed, Cox noted. Like Samir Amin, Robert Cox continued to inspire new generation of both IR and IPE scholars across the world.
Bibliography
Cox, R.W. (1953): “The idea of international labor regulation,” International Labour Review, 68 (2): 191–6. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1969): “The executive head: an essay on leadership in international organization,” International Organization, 23 (2): 205–30. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. and J. Harrod, et al. (1972): Future Industrial Relations: An Interim Report, Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies.
Cox, R.W. and Jacobson, H.K. (1972): The Anatomy of Influence: Decision Making in International Organization, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1976): “‘On Thinking about Future World Order,” World Politics, 28 (2): 175–96.
Cox, R.W. and Jacobson, H.K. (1977): “Decision making,” International Social Science Journal (Special issue edited by Abi-Saab, G.), 29 (1): 115–35. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1977): “Labor and Hegemony,” International Organization, 31 (3): 385–424. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1979): “Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: reflections on some recent literature,” International Organization, 33 (2): 257–302. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1980): “Labor and hegemony: a reply,” International Organization, 34 (1): 159–76. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. 1981 ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10 (2): 126–55. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1982): “Production and Hegemony: Toward a Political Economy of World Order,” in Jacobson, H.K. and Sidjanski, D. (eds.) The Emerging International Economic Order: Dynamic Processes, Constraints, and Opportunities, London: Sage Publications.
Cox, R.W. (1983): :Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 12 (2): 162–75. Reprinted in Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1986): “Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,” with a Postscript (1985), in R.O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics, New York: Columbia University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1987): Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History, New York: Columbia University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1989a): “Middlepowermanship, Japan, and future world order,” International Journal, 44 (4): 823–62. Reprinted in Cox R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1989b): “Production, the State and Change in World Order,” in Czempiel, E. and Rosenau, J.N. (eds.), Global Changes and Theoretical Challenges, Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan.
Cox, R.W. (1992a): “Global Perestroika,” Reprinted in R.W. Cox with T.J. Sinclair 1996, Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1992b): “Towards a Post-Hegemonic Conceptualisation of World Order: Reflections on the Relevancy of Ibn Khaldun’, in Rosenau, J.N. and Czempiel, E. (eds.), Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1992c): “Take six eggs’: theory, finance, and the real economy in the work of Susan Strange,” in R.W. Cox with T.J. Sinclair. Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. 1992d ‘Multilateralism and World Order’, Review of International Studies, 18 (2): 161–80.
Cox, R.W. (1993a): “The Global Political Economy and Social Choice,” in Gill, S. (ed.) Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Reprinted in Cox. R.W. with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1993b): “Structural Issues of Global Governance: Implications for Europe,” in Gill, S. (ed.) Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. 1993c ‘Production and Security’, in Cox. R.W. with T.J. Sinclair. 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1993d): “Realism, Political Economy and the Future World,” in Morgan, R. et al. (eds.) New Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War World: Essays for Susan Strange, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Cox, R.W. (1995a): “Critical Political Economy,” in Hettne, B. (ed.) International Political Economy: Understanding Global Disorder, London: Zed Books.
Cox, R.W. (1995b): “Civilizations: Encounters and Transformations,” Studies in Political Economy, 47: 7–31.
Cox, R.W. with T.J. Sinclair (1996): Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1996a): “Civilisations in World Political Economy,” New Political Economy, 1 (2): 141–54.
Cox, R.W. (1996b): “Influences and commitments,” in R.W. Cox with T.J. Sinclair 1996 Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1996c): “A Perspective on Globalization,” in Mittelman, J.H. (ed.) Globalization: Critical Reflections, London: Lynne Rienner.
Cox, R.W. (1996d): “Preface,” in R.W. Cox with T.J. Sinclair 1996, Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cox, R.W. (ed.) (1997a): The New Realism: Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order, New York: United Nations University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1997b): “Some Reflections on the Oslo Symposium,” in Gill, S. (ed.) Globalization, Democratization and Multilateralism, New York: United Nations University Press.
Cox, R.W. (1999a): “Civil society at the turn of the millennium: prospects for an alternative world order,” Review of International Studies, 25 (1): 3–28.
Cox, R.W. (interview with R. Germain) (1999b): “The Millennium Symposium: Conversations with Manuel Castells, Robert Cox and Immanuel Wallerstein,” New Political Economy, 4 (3): 379–408.
Cox, R.W. (1999c): “Susan Strange: A Personal Reflection,” BISA News: The Newsletter of the British International Studies Association, nr 61 May 1999.
Cox, R.W. (2000): “Political Economy and World Order: Problems of Power and Knowledge at the Turn of the Millennium,” in Stubbs, R. and Underhill, G.R.D. (eds.) Political Economy and the Changing Global Order (Second Edition), Ontario: Oxford University Press.
Cox, R.W. with Schechter, M. (2002): The Political Economy of a Plural World: Critical Reflections on Power, Morals and Civilization, London: Routledge.
Cox, R.W. (2004): “Beyond Empire and Terror: Critical Reflections on the Political Economy of World Order,” New Political Economy, 9 (3): 307–23.
