CONCEPT OF HEGEMONY

"It was Gramsci who, in the late twenties and thirties, with the rise of fascism and the failure of the Western European working-class movements, began to consider why the working class was not necessarily revolutionary, why it could, in fact, yield to fascism." (Gitlin, 1994: 516)

Gramsci was concerned to eradicate economic determinism from Marxism and to develop its explanatory power with respect to superstructural institutions. So, he held that:

• Class struggle must always involve ideas and ideologies, ideas that would make the revolution and also that would prevent it;

• He stressed the role performed by human agency in historical change: economic crises by themselves would not subvert capitalism;

• Gramsci was more "dialectic" than "deterministic": he tried to build a theory which recognised the autonomy, independence and importance of culture and ideology.

"It can be argued that Gramsci's theory suggests that subordinated groups accept the ideas, values and leadership of the dominant group not because they are physically or mentally induced to do so, nor because they are ideologically indoctrinated, but because they have reason of their own." (Strinati, 1995: 166)

From Gramsci's view, the supremacy of the bourgeoisie is based on two, equally important, facts:

• Economic domination

• Intellectual and moral leadership

What exactly is the meaning of "hegemony"?

"...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;

"...the practices of a capitalist class or its representatives to gain state power and maintain it later." (Simon, 1982: 23)