Introduction
Antonio Gramsci was founder of the Italian Communist Party in the 1920’s whose seminal publication “The Prison Notebooks” has proven to be one of the most influential leftist texts of the 20th Century. Echoing aspects of Marxist-Leninist thought, Gramsci was primarily concerned with the dominance of a small ruling elite upon society, both on a national and international scale. Arguably the foundational concept of Gramsci’s vision is that of hegemony, as this concept forms the basis from which the majority of Gramscian ideas evolve. It is essential to distinguish the Gramscian notion of hegemony from its traditional understanding within dominant International Relations theories such as neo-realism. Within such theories, the term refers to a state’s hard and soft power capacity to attain dominance over other sovereign states within the international system. For instance, the neo-realist hegemonic stability theory suggests that stability is achieved in a unilateral system whereby a single state attains sufficient dominance as to act as a hegemonic power within the international arena (Bieler and Morton, 2003). In contrast, a Gramscian vision of hegemony involves the domination of an elite minority over the majority of the population, and is achieved and maintained via the mechanisms of both coercion and consent. In this sense, the Gramscian understanding of the term is far broader than the realist conception as it involves both internal and external elements and is not restricted to the unit of the state.
Gramsci’s Legacy
Recognising the fecundity of his work in relation to the world system, contemporary thinkers have built upon Gramsci’s legacy, interpreting key features of his thought and applying them to contemporar...
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In The Prison Notebooks (1971) Gramsci does not associate hegemony with the governance of a solitary individual or any structuralist energy phenomena, such as a discourse, collective conscience, deep structure or culture. Instead, hegemony from a Gramscian perspective signifies a variety of different organizations of people and agents in state formations, such as a structure, a practice, an apparatus, a unity of opposing structures or a function of leadership (Gramsci, 1971). Hegemony is always considered to be a process (Gramsci, 1971). In other contexts, hegemony may refer to a level or moment, which is equal to an evolutionary stage of leadership. Hegemony also may refer to a social grouping related to a particular social, political, cultural,
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In this paper, I will argue that the current system is hegemonial. My explanation to hegemony will then be centered on the sources of the United States as a hegemonial power. Furthermore, I will state the different primary implications associated with the rise of China and what the Roman Empire offers for understanding the United Sta...
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There is an undeniable fact that there has been a rise in globalization. It has become a hot topic amongst the field of international politics. With the rise of globalization, the sovereignty of the state is now being undermined. It has become an undisputed fact that the world has evolved to a new level of globalization, the transferring goods, information, ideas and services around the globe has changed at an unimaginable rate. With all that is going on, one would question how globalization has changed the system that is typically a collection of sovereign states. Do states still have the main source of power? What gives a state the right to rule a geographically defined region? It is believed by many that due to the introduction of international systems and increasing rate of globalization, the sovereignty of the state has been slowly eroded over time. My paper has two parts: First, it aims to take a close look at how globalization has changed the way the economy worked, specifically how it opened doors for multinational corporations to rise in power. Second, to answer the question, is it possible for it to exist today? And even so, should it?