On Marxism International Political Sociology Thoughts

The end of the Cold War saw the proliferation of international social problems, which have been the underlying forces of the changing international relations and international politics. How to interpret the profound influences of these problems on international society has long been the major topic of International Political Sociology (IPS). With a time-seasoned academic tradition and under the influence of social constructivism, IPS has attained a higher level of research drawing greater attention from other areas of international politics. Adopting social ontology and sociology methods, IPS has gained its own research territory by studying the structure and composition of international society, the evolution of international society, the interaction between international society and international politics, the interaction between international society and domestic politics, the interaction between international society and domestic society, etc. Marxism, the founder of which, Karl Marx, is acknowledged as "Father of IPS", is a theoretical system containing seminal ideas of IPS. Therefore, it is both to develop IPS and to advance Marxist IR theories that work has to be done in systemizing the study of Marxist IPS.The major concern of Marxist IPS is to depict and analyze international society. Marx and Engels believe that international society is a totality of world communicational connections and relations, a mechanical society based on social contracts and dictated by the contradictory interplay between productive forces and productive relations. Marxist perspective highlights "social selection" of international society, a process in which the industrial society and modernism establish and consolidate their own modes of production and social life across the world. By illustrating how the monopoly transnational organizations and capital export establishes the world communicational connections, Vladimir Lenin emphasizes the extreme opposition and sharp contradiction between international forces inside the international society. A heritage of classical Marxism, Nikolai Bukharin's'world economy', studies the relation between international society and states through the concepts of 'internationalization' and 'nationalization', stressing the objectivity of the world relation. Immanuel Wallstein, from the perspective of world system, elaborates on the eternity and stability of the structure of international society, arguing that there had been no international society until the modern world system emerged. The structure of international society is seen in two parts:social class structure and dependent relation structure. Social class structure should be seen both as the domestic relation between bourgeoisie and proletariat but also as an international structure shaped by capitalist mode of production. The dependent relation manifests itself in its'center- periphery'or'core- semi-periphery- periphery'structure. The international social structure of Marxist IPS is different from other international relations theories in two aspects:the sameness and the mutual saturation of international and domestic social structures and the self-consolidation of international social relation. Marxist IPS sees the source of international conflicts in class confrontations, arguing that the proletariat revolution worldwide is a challenge to the legitimacy of the international society based on capitalist production. The manifestation of imperialist international society is seen in the wrestle among transnational monopolies and the conflicts of modern world system are basically a counter-system movement. The horizontal development of international society is seen in the worldwide expansion of international society while vertically it is seen in its transformation from a system based on capitalist production to a communist international society."The nature and ontology of social life is Praxis." Praxis, the ontological foundation of international society that has generated and constructed actors of class and nation-state, is the driving force of international society and comprises the fundamental means of reforming international society. The ontology of Marxism IPS is Praxis ontology. Communication, as one of the fundamental forms of Praxis that constructs the whole international society and shapes the social nature of international actor, is the core of Marxism IPS. Seeing humanity, communication and society as a whole, Marxism IPS is fundamentally humanistic due to its emphasis on world communications and on the ascent of international society to communist society.