CALL FOR PAPERS
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Relaciones Internacionales Vol. 31

Post, counter or simply hegemony? Political thought and International Relations 30 years after “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy”

To be published in February 2016

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In 2015, 30 years will have passed since the publication of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics”. Since its first appearance, this text has become a reference point for theoretical reflection in the Social Sciences ― particularly for left leaning academics―, for its revival of theoretical debate around the notion of hegemony. Gramscian, poststructuralist and deconstructionist influences are intertwined in the theoretical political proposal of these authors. They attempt to move beyond classic Marxism, and class reductionism, to formulate an alternative to the neoliberal paradigm. Agonism and radical democracy are the principal theoretical and practical innovations emerging thanks to the work of these authors.

At the same time as the publication of this text, in International Relations, neo-gramscians began to gain influence within the discipline, widening the use of the concept of hegemony. From similar positions they have critically engaged with theoretical and historical interpretations of the concept. Particularly influential in this sense are the works of Robert Cox, Stephen Gill and the Amsterdam School (Kees van der Pijl, Otto Holman and Henk Overbeek).

For this reason we have decided to dedicate this issue of Relaciones Internacionales to one of the most used terms over the last decades in the Social Sciences, and particularly in Political Theory and International Relation: Hegemony. 30 years after the publication of Laclau and Mouffe’s classic we seek to interrogate the heuristic validity and political relevance of this concept.
Firstly, we ask, as often happens when a political concept enters into common parlance, if there is a paradox: does its spread go hand in hand with a lack of theoretical clarity and sharpness? Is “hegemony” a useful conceptual instrument to understand current political phenomena? Also, what do the perspectives of post-hegemony and counter-hegemony, developed recently in different Social Science disciplines offer? At the same time, from a theoretical-normative stand point, we wish to interrogate the characteristics of hegemony in the area of Political Theory and International Relations. From a more empirical viewpoint we ask: what ideological paradigms, what subjects, and what political spaces currently face off in the fight for hegemony?

This issue of Relaciones Internacionales focuses on the success of neogramscian perspectives and wishes to examine their application to political analysis, broadly understood, of phenomena and political-social transformations since the beginning of the 21st century. We seek articles that enter in these debate, and that can contribute ― theoretically and empirically ― arguments focused on the strength (or weakness) of this plane of analysis.


DUE DATE:
Abstracts (250 words max.) for proposed articles must be sent by email before the 20th of February 2015 to the coordinators:

Paolo Cossarini: paolo.cossarini@uam.es
Ari Jerrems: ari.jerrems@monash.edu

Whether proposals are accepted or rejected will be decided in the week following submission. Accepted articles will need to be submitted before the 1st of June 2015. They are required to meet the style guide of the journal and will go through a blind peer review process.


SUBMISSIONS:
Full manuscript submissions must be made via the journal web page, authors having to register themselves and follow the instructions in the section “For Authors” on the website: http://www.relacionesinternacionales.info/ojs/about/submissions.html.

For further information please contact:
Paolo Cossarini: paolo.cossarini@uam.es
Ari Jerrems: ari.jerrems@monash.edu


LANGUAGES:
Articles in Spanish or English will be accepted.
The articles will be translated into Spanish for publication.