Gramsci Calling: a Conceptual Framework to Rethink Agency in International Relations

Today’s crisis of the Liberal International Order does not simply signal that we are in stormy political weather. Rather, the international political system is going through an organic crisis well-rooted in all dimensions of power. This calls for a thorough reconceptualization of international relations, useful to make educated predictions about our future. Drawing from Structuration Theory and Social Theory of International Relations, the article stands as a contribution to the effort of rethinking agency in the international political scene, helpful to walk away from the extant period of interregnum in the least conflictual and most progressive way possible. Specifically, the text provides a conceptual framework useful to set students of International Relations (IR) on the right path to think of an agent playing the role of a catalyst who, from the height of their sensibility to the social space they occupy, is able to ignite change and transformation in world politics. Two debates that lie at the very core of IR as a field of research are discussed: one regarding the relationship between the agent and the structure, the other having to do with the explanatory power of ideas in the analysis of international outcomes. Both debates are approached from a perspective that does not aim at setting the primacy of ideational factors over material capabilities, but rather tries to mediate between idealism and materialism by making recourse to Gramsci’s very own Quaderni del Carcere and to George Herbert Mead’s contributions to Role Theory. Indeed, the philosophy of praxis embraced by the Sardinian thinker and the mechanisms regulating the rise of the Self described by Mead, reveal how the materiality of things and the meaning that is attributed to the objects of reality are both pivotal for an organic understanding of the historical process. All in all, an “empowerment” of the social actor is operated recognizing states the agency to mold the reality of international relations to their favor.