Though generally associated with the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, the idea of hegemony had a crucial history in revolutionary Russia where it was used to conceptualize the dynamics of political and cultural leadership. Drawing on extensive archival research, this study considers the cultural dimensions of hegemony, with particular focus on the role of language in political debates and in scholarship of the period. It is shown that considerations of the relations between the proletariat and peasantry, the cities to the countryside and the metropolitan centre to the colonies of the Russian Empire demanded an intense dialogue between practical politics and theoretical reflection, which led to critical perspectives now assumed to be the achievements of, for instance, sociolinguistics and post-colonial studies.

How can we understand power in a world of ever-growing complexity? This book proposes that we can do so by rethinking the theory and practice of political hegemony through the resources of complexity theory. Taking Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony as its starting point, the book argues that the intricacies of contemporary power can be mapped by applying concepts drawn from complexity theory, such as emergence, self-organisation, metastability, and generative entrenchment. It develops an original account of social complexity, drawing upon critical realist sociology, analytic philosophy of science, Marxist and continental philosophies, and neoliberal and anarchist thought. It then draws out the elements of Gramscian hegemony that already align with complexity concepts, such as the balance of forces, common sense, and the historic bloc. On this basis, the book sets out the different dimensions of complex hegemonic power before using this theory to interpret the nature of the power of neoliberalism since 2008.

For many years now debates over America hegemony and its supposed decline have circulated academic circles. The neo-Gramscians have greatly enriched our knowledge in this field, developing some key theoretical tools and concepts, yet ontological inconsistencies, notably the downgrading of structure, has meant their explanation of the dynamics of the contemporary world order remains somewhat incomplete. In this book, Jonathan Pass aims to counter such oversights, drawing directly on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci (amongst others) to elaborate a more sophisticated, overtly materialist, theory of world hegemony, rooted in a critical realist philosophy of science. Through the lens of this Neo neo-Gramscian (NNG) approach the book examines the complex interplay of internal and external social forces responsible for the evolving 'nature' of US hegemony, from its establishment in the 1940s, passing through its different stages of crisis and restructuring up to the present. China's spectacular rise undoubtedly constitutes a 'world event', but is it potentially a 'world hegemon'? The book seeks to sheds some light on this question, analysing the economic and geopolitical significance of China's emergence and how it affects, and is affected by, both American hegemony and its own extremely delicate 'passive revolution' at home. American Hegemony in the 21st Century presents a major contribution to International Relations, International, Political Economy, Politics and Philosophy and will be of interest to researchers looking for a more sophisticated and convincing analysis of the dynamics of the contemporary world order.

The “interest contiguity theory,” which is the book’s centerpiece, holds that rather than a smooth, one-way cruise through history, humankind’s journey from the inception to the present has brought him/her face to face with broadly three types of interests. The first is the individual interest, which, strange as it may sound, tends to be internally contradictory. The second is society’s (or “national”) interest which, due to the clash of wills, is even more difficult than personal interest to harmonize. The third is the interest espoused to justify the establishment and maintenance of supranational institutions. Though conflicting, some interests are, due to their relative closeness (or contiguity), more easily reconcilable than others. In tracing the links between and among the three broad types of interests, the book begins with a brief philosophical discussion and then proceeds to examine the implications of human knowledge for individual liberty. Against the backdrop of the epistemological and ontological questions raised in the first chapter, the book examines the contending perspectives on the theory of the state, and in particular, the circumstances under which it is justified to place the interest of society over that of the individual. The focus of the fourth chapter is on the insertion of the supranational governance constant in the sovereignty equation, and on the conflict between idealist and realist, and between both and the Kantian explanations for the new order. The adequacy or otherwise of the conflicting explanations of the change from anarchy to a ‘new world order’ is the subject taken up in the succeeding chapters. Besides suggesting a new analytical tool for the study of politics and international relations, the contiguity theory offers statespersons new lenses with which to capture the seismic, perplexing and sometimes disconcerting changes unfolding before their eyes.

As a result of his inquiry into the nature of class, culture, and the state, Antonio Gramsci became one of the most influential Marxist theorists. Hegemony and Revolution is the first full-fledged study of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks in the light of his pre-prison career as a socialist and communist militant and a highly original Marxist intellectual. Walter Adamson shows how Gramsci's concepts of revolution grew out of his experience with the Turin worker councils of 1919-1920 as well as his experience combatting the Fascist movement.For Gramsci, revolution meant the steady ascension of a mass-based, educated, and organized "collective will," in which the final seizure of power would be the climax of a broader educative process. Success depended on countering not just the coercive power of the existing economic and political order but also the cultural hegemony of the state. A "counter-hegemony" for Gramsci required the leadership of an organized political party, but at its core lay his conviction that the common people were capable of self-enlightenment and could produce an alternative conception of the world that challenged the prevailing hegemonic culture.Adamson shows how these ideas, which Gramsci developed prior to his imprisonment, led him to a highly original concept of "subaltern" class movements that cohere not just on the basis of economic interest but by virtue of religious, ideological, regional, folkloric, and other sorts of cultural ties as well. These ideas of Gramsci have had enormous influence on a wide variety of subsequent cultural theories including postcolonialism and Foucault-style analyses of discursive practices.

In this hugely influential book, Laclau and Mouffe examine the workings of hegemony and contemporary social struggles, and their significance for democratic theory. With the emergence of new social and political identities, and the frequent attacks on Left theory for its essentialist underpinnings, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy remains as relevant as ever, positing a much-needed antidote against ‘Third Way’ attempts to overcome the antagonism between Left and Right.

This book offers a comprehensive Marxist critique of the business of mental health, demonstrating how the prerogatives of neoliberal capitalism for productive, self-governing citizens have allowed the discourse on mental illness to expand beyond the psychiatric institution into many previously untouched areas of public and private life including the home, school and the workplace. Through historical and contemporary analysis of psy-professional knowledge-claims and practices, Bruce Cohen shows how the extension of psychiatric authority can only be fully comprehended through the systematic theorising of power relations within capitalist society. From schizophrenia and hysteria to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, from spinning chairs and lobotomies to shock treatment and antidepressants, from the incarceration of working class women in the nineteenth century to the torture of prisoners of the ‘war on terror’ in the twenty-first, Psychiatric Hegemony is an uncompromising account of mental health ideology in neoliberal society.

A fascinating history of the political theory of hegemony Few terms are so widely used in the literature of international relations and political science, with so little agreement about their exact meaning, as hegemony. In the first full historical study of its fortunes as a concept, Perry Anderson traces its emergence in Ancient Greece and its rediscovery during the upheavals of 1848–1849 in Germany. He then follows its checkered career in revolutionary Russia, fascist Italy, Cold War America, Gaullist France, Thatcher’s Britain, post-colonial India, feudal Japan, Maoist China, eventually arriving at the world of Merkel and May, Bush and Obama. The result is a surprising and fascinating expedition into global intellectual history, ending with reflections on the contemporary political landscape.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - General and Theories of International Politics, grade: 1,3 (A), Martin Luther University (GPS), course: International Political Economy, language: English, abstract: In the second half of the 20. century the term of “Hegemonic Stability Theory “ was introduced by political scientists such as Stephen Krasner, Robert Gilpin and Robert Keohane to explain the mechanisms of the new economic world order that had been established after the Second World War.1 The main assumption of the theory that a stable liberal economic world order needs a hegemo n was explained with the examples of the British hegemony in the 18. and 19. century and with the example of American hegemony in the postwar years of the second half of the 20. century. This term paper intends to answer the following questions: What is Hegemonic Stability Theory about? How is the shape of the hegemonic system? Why will it decline? The theoretical assumptions will be extended by a closer look at the UShegemony. How was it possible that the US could establish their leadership in the international economic system? What did they do to create a stable global economic order? Of course, the last questions have to answer why the US weakened and why their hegemony eventually declined? How is the situation today? Is there still a hegemon? To answer these questions, the first part of the paper will summarize the main assumptions of the theory. Then, the international economic situation after the Second World War which enabled the US to become the world ́s hegemon will be shortly presented. The following chapters will deal with the establishment of the UShegemony by creating international regimes such as IMF, IBRD and GATT. Finally, the end of the paper will explain how the American hegemony declined and which role it plays in the present international economy. 1 Reinhard Rode. Weltregieren durch Internationale Wirtschaftsorganisationen. Halle, 2001: 24.