Hegemony

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Domination. Everyone talks about it these days: the West dominating over the 'rest'; the government dominating over the people; the upper-classes dominating over the lower; and so on. While people can certainly be controlled by military or some other force, for Gramsci hegemony works primarily through politics, and thus must operate by some form of consent: Hegemony

is characterized by the combination of force and consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively over consent (Gramsci, p. 210)

To be most effective, the groups being dominated need to see the domination as 'natural' or 'necessary' or 'inevitable' or 'working for their own good'. This is what hegemony is about. In the "'normal' exercise of hegemony,"

the attempt is always made to ensure that force will appear to be based on the consent of the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion - newspapers and associations. (Gramsci, p. 211)

In Gramsci's conception, hegemony explains how "a degree of homogeneity, self awareness, and organization" is created and experienced in society by both the advantaged and the disadvantaged-a process in which the "leading group should make sacrifices," yet these sacrifices "must not touch the essential" economic advantages they enjoy. Thus is a state made cohesive.

 

References

Gramsci, A. "Hegemony, Intellectuals, and the State" in John Storey's Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (pages 210-216)

Take a look at this website for more insight into Gramsci and hegemony:

http://faculty.uwb.edu/mgoldberg/courses/definitions/hegemony.html

 

Contributed by Amar Nandyala