Antonio Gramsci and Hegemony

Gramsci is known for the concept of hegemony. What is this? (these notes are fromthis site, where you will find more on Gramsci)

"...Dominant groups in society, including fundamentally but not exclusively the ruling class, maintain their dominance by securing the 'spontaneous consent' of subordinate groups, including the working class, through the negotiated construction of a political and ideological consensus which incorporates both dominant and dominated groups." (Strinati, 1995: 165)

• A class had succeeded in persuading the other classes of society to accept its own moral, political and cultural values;
  
  
• The concept assumes a plain consent given by the majority of a population to a certain direction suggested by those in power;
  
  
• However, this consent is not always peaceful, and may combine physical force or coercion with intellectual, moral and cultural inducement;
  
  
• Can be understood as "common sense", a cultural universe where the dominant ideology is practiced and spread;
  
  
• Something which emerges out of social and class struggles, and serve to shape and influence peoples minds;
  
  
• It is a set of ideas by means of which dominant groups strive to secure the consent of subordinate groups to their leadership;

Can we conclude that "hegemony" is a strategy exclusively of the bourgeoisie?

No. In fact the working class can develop its own hegemony as a strategy to control the State. Nevertheless, Gramsci stated that the only way to perform this labour class control is by taking into account the interests of other groups and social forces and finding ways of combining them with its own interests.

If the working class is to achieve hegemony, it needs patiently to build up a network of alliances with social minorities. These new coalitions must respect the autonomy of the movement, so that each group can make its own special contribution toward a new socialist society.

The working class must unite popular democratic struggles with its own conflict against the capital class, so as to strengthen a national popular collective will.

How does the hegemonic class manage to maintain its ideology over time?

Hegemony is readjusted and re-negotiated constantly. Gramsci said that it can never be taken for granted, in fact during the post-revolutionary phase (when the labour class has gained control) the function of hegemonic leadership does not disappear but changes its character.

However, he describes two different modes of social control:

• Coercive control: manifested through direct force or its threat (needed by a state when its degree of hegemonic leadership is low or fractured);
• Consensual control: which arises when individuals voluntarily assimilate the worldview of the dominant group (=hegemonic leadership).

How does the process of mutation from a dominant "hegemony" to a new one occur?

Periodically there may develop an organic crisis in which the governing group begins to disintegrate, creating the opportunity for a subordinate class to transcend its limitations and build up a broad movement capable of challenging the existing order and achieving hegemony. But, if the opportunity is not taken, the balance of forces will shift back to the dominant class, which reestablishes its hegemony on the basis of a new pattern of alliances.

"The key to 'revolutionary' social change in modern societies does not therefore depend, as Marx had predicted, on the spontaneous awakening of critical class consciousness but upon the prior formation of a new alliances of interests, an alternative hegemony or 'historical bloc', which has already developed a cohesive world view of its own. (Williams, 1992: 27)

Is violence the only way to subvert dominant "hegemony"?

No. The way of challenging the dominant hegemony is political activity. But we must understand a distinction that Gramsci proposed between two different kind of political strategies to achieve the capitulation of the predominant hegemony and the construction of the socialist society:

War of manoeuvre:

• Frontal attack;
• The main goal is winning quickly;
• Especially recommended for societies with a centralised and dominant state power that have failed in developing a strong hegemony within the civil society (i.e. Bolshevik revolution, 1917).

War of position:

• Long struggle;
• Primarily, across institutions of civil society;
• Secondly, the socialist forces gain control through cultural and ideological struggle, instead of only political and economic contest;
• Especially suggested for the liberal-democratic societies of Western capitalism with weaker states but stronger hegemonies (i.e.: Italy);
• These countries have more extensive and intricate civil societies that deserve a longer and more complex strategy.

In this context, how do we understand the notions of culture and ideology?

• Culture: a whole social process, in which men and women define and shape their lives.
• Ideology: a system of meanings and values, it is the expression or projection of a particular class interest. The form in which consciousness is at once expressed and controlled, as Raymond Williams has defined it: "...a mistaken interpretation of how the world actually is." (Williams, 1992: 27)

Hence, having everything we just said in mind, one could take it that, first, you have a class "building" a specific and concrete ideology -- based in its specific and concrete interests -- that will dominate the rest of the society because of the unavoidable influence of capitalist relations. This set of ideas will constitute the hegemony that will be expressed as the nucleus of culture. If these assumptions are correct, we can conclude that the media are the instruments to express the dominant ideology as an integral part of the cultural environment.

More on Hegemony:

• 14 meanings of Hegemony
• Hegemony and the Hidden Persuaders: The Power of UnCommon Sense
• Definition of Hegemony