Hegemony, in Antonio Gramsci's usage, is rule secured by consent. A class becomes hegemonic when it succeeds in presenting its own interests as the general interest, so that subordinate groups accept its leadership as natural, moral and simply the way things are. Gramsci contrasts this with domination by coercion. The state, he writes, is hegemony armoured by coercion — political society supplies the force, but the everyday work of consent is done in civil society.
How it works
Hegemony is produced in schools, churches and temples, newspapers, cinema, trade unions, family and popular language. Through them a ruling bloc's worldview settles into common sense — the uninspected assumptions people use to interpret their lives. This is why Gramsci treats intellectuals as functionaries of consent, and why he insists hegemony is never finished. It must be renewed continuously, and it is always partial, contested and mixed with dissent.
Why it matters
Hegemony rescues Marxism from crude economic determinism. It explains why capitalism survives economic crisis, why workers vote against their material interest, and why revolution in the West would require a long war of position in culture and institutions rather than the frontal war of manoeuvre that succeeded in Russia. Its counterpart is counter-hegemony — the slow construction by a subordinate class of its own intellectuals, institutions and moral leadership.
Points of debate
Perry Anderson argued that Gramsci left the balance between coercion and consent unstable. Others note that hegemony can be stretched until it explains everything and therefore nothing. In India the concept has been applied widely — to Brahmanical hegemony over caste ideology, to the hegemony of a developmental consensus, and by subaltern historians who insisted that peasant consciousness was never wholly captured.
For the UPSC answer
Define hegemony as consent plus coercion, locate it in civil society, and use war of position and counter-hegemony as the pair of concepts that follow. Ambedkar's attack on Brahmanical ideology and Phule's counter-institutions are strong Indian illustrations of counter-hegemony in practice.
References & further reading
- Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Lawrence and Wishart.
- Anderson, P. (1976). The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci. New Left Review, 100.
- Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford University Press.