Joseph - Hegemony

Why is hegemony an essential feature of society?

Hegemony: A Realist Analysis is a new and original approach to this important concept. It presents a theoretical history of the use of hegemony in a range of work starting with a discussion of Gramsci and Russian Marxism and going on to look at more recent applications. It examines the current debates and discusses the recent work on Marx by Jacques Derrida, before outlining a critical realist/Marxist alternative.

This book presents a new understanding of hegemony based on a distinction between actual hegemonic projects and a deeper, underlying, structural hegemony. The move away from purely intersubjective and culturalist readings of the concept is reinforced with studies of its objectivity, its relation to ideology and concepts of time and space, and most importantly, its role in the process of social reproduction and transformation. The book also contains a detailed discussion of recent political/economic developments and the debates around post-Fordism, globalisation and international relations. This analysis shifts from the surface level operation of hegemony to the underlying social conditions under which this operation takes place. It suggests that as well as being represented by hegemonic projects, hegemony also exists at a deeper, more structural level, concerned with the unity of the social formation.

Hegemony employs critical realist philosophy in an explanatory way to help clarify the concept of hegemony and its relation to societal processes. This work contributes to recent debates in social science and political philosophy, developing both the concept of hegemony itself, and the work of critical realism.

Jonathan Joseph teaches social science and philosophy at Goldsmiths College, London, and at The Open University. He has written articles on Marxism, critical realism, hegemony and deconstruction and is on the editorial board of Capital & Class.

Critical realism is one of the most influential new developments in the philosophy of science and in the social sciences, providing a powerful alternative to positivism and post modernism. This series will explore the critical realist position in philosophy and across the social sciences.

1. Marxism and Realism

A materialistic application of realism in the social science

Sean Creaven

2. Beyond Relativism

Raymond Boudon, cognitive rationality and critical realism

Cynthia Lins Hamlin

3. Education Policy and Realist Social Theory

Primary teachers, child-centred philosophy and the new managerialism

Robert Willmott

4. Hegemony

A realist analysis

Jonathan Joseph

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The Possibility of Naturalism

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Quantum Theory and the Flight from Realism

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From East to West

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Realism and Racism

Concepts of race in sociological research

Bob Carter

Rational Choice Theory

Resisting Colonisation

Edited by Margaret Archer and Jonathan Q Tritter

Explaining Society

Critical realism in the social sciences

Berth Danermark, Mats Ekstrm, Jan Ch Karlsson and Liselotte Jakobsen

Critical Realism and Marxism

Edited by Andrew Brown, Steve Fleetwood and John Michael Roberts

Critical Realism in Economics

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Realist Perspectives on Management and Organisations

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After International Relations

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First published 2002 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2002 Jonathan Joseph

Typeset in Baskerville by Exe Valley Dataset Ltd, Exeter
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Anthony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN 0415268362

I would like to thank a number of people for varying degrees of influence, encouragement and friendship. In particular I would like to thank Liam O'Sullivan, William Outhwaite, Abbas Vali, Simon Kennedy, Sarah Honeychurch, Ray Monk, Nick Davies, John Roberts, Bob Jessop and the late Paul Wozny (a great loss to the labour movement). I would like to thank my friends from the Kings College Realism Group Alan Norrie, Nick Hostettler, Mervyn Hartwig, Rachel Sharp and Kathryn Dean. And I would particularly like to thank Andrew Collier for our many discussions and Phil Walden who, ten years after introducing me to Marxism introduced me to critical realism he has either given me a great deal or led me seriously astray. I would like to thank Maureen, Simon and Sarah and I dedicate this book to my father, Martin Joseph, wishing, perhaps, that I had not so readily spurned his dinnertime sociology for the pleasures of the table.

The concept of hegemony is normally understood as emphasising consent in contrast to reliance on the use of force. It describes the way in which dominant social groups achieve rulership or leadership on the basis of attaining social cohesion and consensus. It argues that the position of the ruling group is not automatically given, but rather that it requires the ruling group to attain consent to its leadership through the complex construction of political projects and social alliances. These allow for the unity of the ruling group and for the domination of this group over the rest of society. In its simplistic form hegemony concerns the construction of consent and the exercise of leadership by the dominant group over subordinate groups; in its more complex form, this deals with issues such as the elaboration of political projects, the articulation of interests, the construction of social alliances, the development of historical blocs, the deployment of state strategies and the initiating of passive revolutions.