Thailand in Gramscian Perspective

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2865374
AutoresJohn Girling (Australian National University, autor de correspondencia)
Año1984
Volumen57
Número3
Páginas385
Fecha de publicación1984-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPacific Affairs (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0030-851X • E-ISSN: 1715-3379
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2759066
OpenAlexW2331051437
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8

I TALIAN PARTY LEADER and philosopher Antonio Gramsci is among the most innovative thinkers to have emerged from the Marxist tradition. Though grounded in the realities of the capitalist economic system, Gramsci's major theoretical concern is the role of politics and culture. For the people of a given he argues, culture provides a meaningful conception of their world and their place in it-that is, it denotes rules or norms of behavior corresponding to that conception. 1 It is his emphasis on culture, in the broad sense, that makes Gramsci such a remarkable, and even intriguing, figure-and renders his theoretical insights so broadly relevant. My purpose in this essay is to demonstrate the importance of these insights for an understanding of political and social change in Third World countries, and specifically Thailand. Cultural conceptions and norms underlie two of Gramsci's major contributions to the analysis of society: the linked notions of hegemony and domination; and the importance of civil society, by which Gramsci means institutions and associations operating at an intermediate level between the economic structure, on the one hand, and the state apparatus, on the other. Such institutions notably include labor unions, the press, schools and universities, courts of law and, above all, political parties. For Gramsci, this intermediate cultural level of social action affects both the direct impact of class rule, in terms of economic interests, and the state's need to rely on force to maintain its control. It also forms the basis for hegemony-the exercise of leadership with popular consent. Conversely, the outright use of force by the economic or political power-holders is called domination. 2 Gramsci's elaboration of these concepts is derived from his own fateful experience of the rise of fascism in the Italy of the 1920s and, even more significantly, the consolidation of fascist power during the

Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Political Economy and Marxism · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies