View on hegemony
Bestowing upon Antonio Gramsci’s prison notebooks and ideas, it is recognised that his perception of hegemony was influenced by historical reflections of his own social and political history. Gramsci, the head of the communist party, witnessed capitalists were manipulating the social classes and infrastructure of early twentieth century Italy. Doing so in favour of the bourgeoisie, without the use of coercive control. Gramsci was concerned with finding a new social order, an alternative to fascism. A social order with the basis of leadership and support. (Cox, 1983:164) Gramsci expressed his notion of hegemony as ‘The separation of powers’ which derives from the struggle between civil society and political society in a specific historical period. Gramsci then went on to define this historical period being caused by an equilibrium between the classes. (Gramsci, 1971:245)
Carnoy (1986:66) defined hegemony in Gramscian terms to be the ‘(…)the ideological predominance of bourgeois values and norms over the subordinate classes which accept them as “normal”’. The state must acquire certain characteristics in order to become hegemonic. Both coercive power and ideological dominance. Domination in political practices, social norms and perceived social …show more content…
The state that has established order within their borders economically and socially may then go on to express their ideas in an expansion beyond their boundaries. Cox (1983:171) described world hegemony as an outward expansion. World hegemony is a superstructure that is built up of: Social structures, Economic structures and Political structures. This superstructure may only exist through the three apparatuses working together and cannot be one without the other. (Cox 1983:172) historical