Hegemony, passive revolution and the modern Prince

Bibliographic Data

ID4481697
AuthorsPeter D G Thomas (0000-0002-7906-196X, Brunel University, UK, corresponding author), Peter D Thomas
Year2013
Volume117
Issue1
Pages20-39
Publication date2013-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThesis Eleven (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0725-5136 • E-ISSN: 1461-7455
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0725513613493991
OpenAlexW2166331837
LanguageEN
Citations received49
References cited42

Gramsci's concept of hegemony has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including a theory of consent, of political unity, of 'anti-politics', and of geopolitical competition. These interpretations are united in regarding hegemony as a general theory of political power and domination, and as deriving from a particular interpretation of the concept of passive revolution. Building upon the recent intense season of philological research on the Prison Notebooks, this article argues that the concept of hegemony is better understood as a 'dialectical chain' composed of four integrally related 'moments': hegemony as social and political leadership, as a political project, as a hegemonic apparatus, and as the social and political hegemony of the workers' movement. This alternative typology of hegemony provides both a sophisticated analysis of the emergence of modern state power and a theory of political organization of the subaltern social groups. This project is encapsulated in Gramsci's notion of the formation of a 'modern Prince', conceived as both political party and civilizational process, which represents an emancipatory alternative to the dominant forms of political modernity

Dialectic · Epistemology · Hegemony · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Social science · Sociology · Subaltern · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political theory and Gramsci · Politics and Society in Latin America

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