Hegemony

Hegemony etymologically derives from ancient Greek hegemon meaning chieftain. The use of the concept of hegemony in social and political theory is relatively new and signifies the domination of a social class over others, which is exerted beyond what may be accounted for as coercion, law, and force.

In the 19th century, the concept of hegemony was used in a specific sense to describe the domination of one state over others. In the period of Napoleon's reign, French control over the rest of Europe and beyond is referred to as a hegemonic relationship. In this sense, the concept is used to refer to Britain's political influence and economic domination beyond its formal boundaries in the 19th century and the U.S. domination after 1945. This meaning of the concept comes very close to the core meaning of the concept of imperialism, namely the great power policies intending to expand and establish economic and political predominance. This meaning of the concept of hegemony is still current in the debates among the theorists of international relations in the United States and in Europe among political theorists on imperialism (new imperialism, Euro-imperialism) exploring European Union's policies, especially since the monetary union in 1999.

The concept of hegemony was introduced into modern social and political thought by the Russian philosopher Georgi Plekhanov to describe the relationship between a political party and the social class that the party aims to represent. The broader meaning of the concept to refer to the domination of a social class over others by cultural and ideological means has, however, been explored by Italian philosopher and communist politician Antonio Gramsci. His central category is civil society as distinct from political society. In his concept, Gramsci reflects on and explores a long-standing tradition. On the one hand, he looks back to the scholarship on civil society starting with John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and particularly G. W. F. Hegel. On the other hand, Gramsci aims to develop the concept of hegemony as has been explored in the European communist movement in the first quarter of the 20th century. In his exploration of both of these traditions, he endeavors to answer the question why revolutionary uprising in Western Europe did not succeed, whereas in Russia it did.

In classical liberalism, a distinction is made between civil society (consisting of passive citizens) and political society, referring to active citizens in magistrates, councils and parliaments, and so on. Hegel brings a third element into this conceptual distinction between civil society and political society and redefines the concept. He differentiates between society consisting of families (private sphere) and civil society (system of needs) consisting of estates (stände) or classes and the state. When Gramsci uses the concept of civil society, he points to the Hegelian concept explicitly as his main source. But he draws also on Karl Marx's distinction between structure and superstructure. He introduces a new element into Hegelian and Marxian concepts. This new element refers to newspapers, journals, universities, churches, trade unions, and all sorts of other associations on which the state rests. The reason, then, why the revolution could succeed in Russia is that there was no civil society that the state could rely on and which had to break down under revolutionary [Page 316]pressure. In Western Europe, on the contrary, the state could activate all sorts of elements of civil society and enjoy support from the base to resist revolutionary uprisings.

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