Articulating Particularistic Interests: The Organic Organisers of Hegemony in Germany and France Huw Macartney Recent debates in IPE have (re)visited questions of the material and ideological in historical materialist analysis. The article begins with a rereading of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci which argues that, according to Gramsci, certain (organic) material phenomena reveal the contra- dictions of the capital relation and hence precipitate the role of ideas. The focus of the article is then an empirical examination of the role of intellectuals in producing neo-liberal common sense, shaping responses to crises in Germany and France. Two economic research institutes are consid- ered, arguing that they are both ‘organic’ to transnational class fractions in their respective member states. The article asserts that these institutes aim to present the corporate (‘neo-liberal’) interests of these fractions as universally beneficial; this is the crucial stage in the production of common sense/good sense. Finally though, in examining the international community of economists the article seeks to demonstrate the privileged position of the ‘Atlantic’ heartland in shaping this pan-European form of knowledge. Keywords: Gramsci; organic intellectuals; neo-liberalism Introduction Recent debates within International Political Economy (IPE) have (re)visited ques- tions of materialist and idealist interpretations of historical materialism (Bieler et al. 2006; Germain 2007; Morton 2007a). In essence the debate questions which factors determine capitalist (uneven) development. As Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton point out (2006, 200), neo-Gramscian perspectives attempt to ‘steer a careful course between idealist, pluralist empiricist explanations and economic determinist, materialist accounts’. The results have been mixed. This article has two purposes then: one is to present an alternative reading of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci which contributes to this debate, situating ideas as central to changes in capitalist accumulation strategies; the other is to provide original empirical material on the role of ideas in European financial market integration, based on this reading of Gramsci. I begin by arguing that a fourth ‘position’ in the contemporary debate can be discerned from the work of Gramsci. The crux of the article then focuses on the material produced by two economic research centres in France and Germany in order to argue that, against the backdrop of crises in these member states, econo- mists contribute to the production of neo-liberal common sense forming a ‘struc- ture’ within which capital and labour act. After briefly introducing the two research doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2008.00330.x BJPIR: 2008 VOL 10, 429–451 © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Political Studies Association