Politics, Ideology and Hegemony in Gramsci's Theory
Author(s): Joseph A. Woolcock
Source: Social and Economic Studies , SEPTEMBER 1985, Vol. 34, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1985),
pp. 199-210
Published by: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of
the West Indies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27862802
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Social and Economic Studiet, Volume 84, No. 8,1986
Joseph A. Woolcock
Politics, Ideology and Hegemony
in Gramsci's Theory
INTRODUCTION
For nearly two decades, an unprecedented development
of interest in the theoretical contributions of Antonio
Gramsci and the influence of his thoughts on Marxist enquiry
have become quite intriguing for Marxist scholars. Beginning
with the intervention of Norberto Bobbio1 at the Cagliari
Conference on Marxist Studies in 1967, a new approach to
the understanding of Gramsci's contribution to Marxist
theory has emerged. This has thrown much light on the
interpretations of Gramsci's political thought and have
contributed significantly to the development of Marxist
enquiry.
This paper explores the major concepts of Gramsci's
political thought, the contribution of this theory to Marx's
historical materialism and the methodology underlying the
theory itself. But, before these concepts are explored, it is
useful to situate Gramsci in the historical context that shaped
and informed his theoretical contributions.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF GRAMSCFS POLITICAL THOUGHT
Concerned with the economistic interpretations of
Marx's thought that pervaded the Second International
Gramsci did not see them as abstract or academic problems
but, on the contrary, as practical political problems deeply
embedded in political practice. They were the root causes of
the massive defeats suffered by both German and Italian
working class movements in the decade after World War I.
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200 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
The theory of the collapse of capitalism on which the
Second International settled, was based on a mechanistic
conception of Marx's thought. It assumed the proletarian
revolution as both a necessary and inevitable consequence of
the development of economic contradictions of the capitalist
mode of production.
Since the development of socialist consciousness was
considered to result from the numerical growth of the prole
tariat as a class and from economic contradictions, ideology
was assumed to have no autonomy. More important, since
socialist consciousness was identified with the consciousness
of the social agents, the identity of the social agents was,
therefore, linked to the class to which they belonged. These
reductionist views of Marx's thought pervaded the Second
International without regard to the fact that the revolution
had triumphed in the European countries where it was least
expected. These developments completely negated the view
widely held by orthodox Marxists that revolution was the
result of the unfolding of economic forces.
In addition, the traditional Marxist views failed to recog
nize that the success of the Russian Revolution resulted from
political intervention in a historical juncture which, according
to the view of the Second International, could never bring
about a socialist outcome. This type of political theo
rizing which linked all historical changes to a mechanistic
relation between forces of production and the social relations
of production, became severely discredited after the Russian
Revolution.
These traditional Marxist views that permeated the
Second International faced other challenges as well. The
crushing defeat of socialist movements in Europe and the
consequent support working class groups gave to fascism and
nazism, pointed to the failure of orthodox Marxism as an
adequate understanding of the political realities of the time.
These historical developments posed some very serious
challenges to Gramsci in his quest for understanding the
nature and role of politics and ideology in the historical
process. His earlier rejection of the traditional mechanistic
interpretation of cause and effect in the relation between
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Politics, Ideology and Hegemony 201
structure and superstructure meant searching for a dynamic
interpretation of history. It was during his imprisonment that
Gramsci reflected on the cause for the defeat of the working
class movement and the victory of fascism in Italy. And, it
was there he arrived at a thorough understanding of the
nature and role of politics in the historical process.2
GRAMSCI'S SCIENCE OF POLITICS
The central question for Gramsci was not the adding of
a supplementary field of research, that is to say, politics to
a historical materialism. On the contrary, of prime im
portance to Gramsci was ...
... to reestablish the link between theory and practice lost in the
economistic interpretations of Marx's thought, and to formulate
an interpretation of historical materialism which would relocate
it as a mode of intervention in the course of the historical
3
process.
It was this "new" interpretation of historical material
ism as a "science of history and politics", which according to
Paggi,4 lies at the very core of Gramsci's thought, and, there
fore, broke away from the positivist conception of science.
Crucial to Gramsci's thought is the Marxist notion of
contradictions. It allows for establishing a correct analysis of
antagonistic forces and the relations of force which exist
between them at a determinate historical moment. But, the
resolution of these contradictions do not involve an auto
matic outcome. Gramsci, therefore, rejected the mechanistic
conception of historical development and conceived history,
instead, as a dialectical relationship. This enabled him to
relate a configuration of conflicting factors in historical
changes and the ways in whch they shape possible alterna
tives for the overcoming of crises and contradictions.
Without doubt, Gramsci's contribution to the under
standing of the nature and role of politics, ideology and hege
mony in historical development has shed new light on Marx
ism. Like Marx, he locates the constitution of social classes
at the structural moment of capitalist societies. However, he
rejects the immediate connection of infrastructure and super
structure which constitutes "... an historical bloc ... the com
plex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of the super
structures reflecting the ensemble of the social relations of
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202 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
production"0 to the understanding of social class domination.
According to Marx, class domination, consequently class
inequality, originates in the social relations of production.
It is, however, obscured through ideological and political
mechanisms at the superstructural level. To understand how
class domination becomes obscured through these mechan
isms at the superstructural level and how one class engenders
and spreads its hegemony throughout society is the central
aim of Gramsci's project.
RECONSTRUCTING GRAMSCI'S POLITICAL THOUGHT
A reconstruction of Gramsci's political thought must, of
necessity, begin with his conception of civil society because
it is in civil society that the Marxist notion of bourgeois
hegemony is given a central place. Similarly, the way in
which Gramsci uses the concept "civil society" differs as
much from Marx and Engels as from Hegel.
In Hegel, civil society is the reign of dissoluteness,
misery and physical and ethical corruption which must be
regulated, dominated and annulled by the superior order of
the State. According to Bobbio,6 this meaning which Hegel
attributes to civil society and which differs from the philoso
phers of natural law (Locke to Rousseau), makes it a pre
Marxist concept in that it is the antithesis of primitive society,
no longer the reign of natural order which bad positive laws
had imposed on it.
Hegel's concept of civil society is, however, from a
certain aspect wider and from another, more restricted than
the concept as used by Marx and Engels. It is wider because
Hegel's conception of civil society encompasses,
... not only the sphere of economic relations and the formation of
social classes, but also the administration of justice as well as the
organization of the police force and the corporations.^
It is on the other hand, more restricted because in
Hegel's system,
...civil society constitutes the immediate stage between the family
and the state, and therefore does not include all the ^relations and
pre-state institutions (including the family ) as do on the contrary
the natural society of Locke and civil society in its most common
use.8
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Politics, Ideology and Hegemony 203
Hence, in Hegel's system, civil society is the sphere of
economic relations combined with their external regulations
based on the principles of the liberal state which is at the
same time bourgeois society and bourgeois state. In addition,
"... it is in civil society that Hegel's critique of political
science is made, the first inspired by the principles of natural
law, and the second by the ones of the state of law".9
In Marx and Engels on the other hand, civil society
encompasses the whole of pre-state social life. It is a moment
in the development of the economic relations which precedes
and determines the political sphere, constituting one of the
two terms of the antithesis, society-state. Marx and Engels
bring this concept out quite clearly in the German
Ideology.10
... civil society embraces the whole material intercourse of indi
viduals within a definite stage of the development of the pro
ductive forces. It embraces the whole commercial and industrial
life of a given stage, and in so far, transcends the State and the
Nation, though on the other hand, again, it must assert itself in
its foreign relations as nationality and inwardly must organize
itself as state.11
This brief analysis of the concept of "civil society" is
precisely what leads to the identification in both Marx and
Engels whereby civil society is subsumed under the state. It
is civil society which defines the state in relation to the
material intercourse at a definite stage of its material develop
ment. In Gramsci, however, civil society takes on a different
meaning. It does not belong to the structural moment but to
the superstructural moment as part of the theory of the
state.
It is, therefore, as a result of locating civil society at the
superstructural moment that Gramsci is able to make a pro
found innovation in the Marxist tradition. He asserts,
... what we can do for the moment, is to fix two major super
structural 'levels', the one that can be called 'civil society', that
is, the ensemble of organisms commonly called 'private', and that
of 'political society' or the State. These two levels correspond on
the one hand to the function of 'hegemony ' which the dominant
group exercises throughout society, and on the other hand to
that of 'direct domination' or command exercised through the
State and 'juridical' government.12
For Gramsci, then, civil society includes ... "not the
whole complex of material relations, of commercial and
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204
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
industrial life, but the whole ideological-cultural relations, of
spiritual and intellectual life".13 In addition, both Marx and
Gramsci conceive civil society to be the theatre of all history.
Marx, however, locates civil society at the structural moment,
but for Gramsci, it is at the superstructural moment.
It is precisely in locating civil society at the super
structural moment that Gramsci is able to elevate bourgeois
hegemony to a central place. There he makes the whole
complex of ideologico-cultural relations, the spiritual and
intellectual life and the political expression of these relations
the focus of his analysis instead of focussing on the structure.
Hegemony is, therefore, the moment of junction between
determinate objective conditions and the actual domination
of a leading group. This historical juncture comes about in
civil society.
HEGEMONY AND IDEOLOGY IN GRAMSCI
Gramsci's key concept of hegemony is the one which
tends to be the most controversial. It is, in Gramsci's matrix,
the ideological predominance of the cultural norms, values
and ideas of the dominant class over the dominated. Accord
ing to Professor Gwynn Williams, Gramsci's hegemony is,
... an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant,
irr which one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in
all its institutional manifestation, informing with its spirit, aU
taste, morality, custom, religious and political principles, and all
social relations, particularly in their intellectual and moral con
notations. ^
Analyzing the historical conditions necessary for one
class to acquire hegemony over others, Gramsci takes the
Marxist concept of ideology as class project and through an
analysis of what he calls an "historical bloc" states three
instances. The first occurs at the level of production when
this class (hegemonic class) becomes economically revolution
ary, that is to say, capable of transforming the economic base
and establishing new productive relations that permit a new
development of the productive forces themselves and also
able to shape their future development.
The second instance is the moment of a struggle for
hegemony of this class to acquire control over the state
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Politics, Ideology' and Hegemony 205
apparatuses, to reshape the political structure of domination
and to use it in its own interests. This is the moment, Gramsci
argues, when the new social class is able to maintain "... a just
equilibrium between its own fundamental interests which
must prevail, and that of secondary social groups which must
not be sacrificed".15 The economic compromise or economic
alliance that is formed is the condition, which, in political
terms unites the subordinate groups and the dominant groups
under the rule of the latter.
The third instance occurs on an intellectual and moral
plane. There the dominant class is able to diffuse throughout
society a conception of the world which obscures the nature
and character of class domination. Other classes accept and
consent to it as a "natural" view of the world, thus engender
ing a new type of social integration.
The last moment of the struggle occurs at the level of
civil society when social integration is achieved. There the
dominant class forges an ideological link between the eco
nomic, political, intellectual and moral aims. It becomes the
hegemonic class and the social formation constitutes an
"historical bloc".
Gramsci's conception of ideology as organic link con
necting structure and superstructure is crucial to the under
standing of hegemony. First, Gramsci conceives ideology as
class project, whereby a project emerging from a fundamental
class interest becomes elaborated at the level of the pro
ductive system, but is transformed into a project of organisa
tion directed towards society as a whole. The class which
carries out this transformation is able to reinforce its power
over society by virtue of its decisive function in the nucleus
of economic activities. As Marx observed, its ideas become
the dominant ideas ? the ruling ideas ? precisely because of
its decisive control over the economic activities of society.
Thus, in Gramsci's view, once this class obtains the active
consent of society, it becomes the hegemonic class.
Second, Gramsci conceives ideology as practice pro
ducing subjects. Ideology, according to Gramsci, is the battle
field, the terrain of the struggle, since men's acquisition of
consciousness does not come about individually, but through
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206 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
the intermediary of the ideological terrain where two
hegemonic principles confront each other. It is, therefore,
through ideology that subjects are created and through
ideology rooted in the economic conditions of life that they
act. Such an active role of ideology, as practice, is articulated
by Gramsci in the notion of ideology as organisation, as
Mouffe16 properly proposes.
An organic ideology is able to organise social groups and
direct them throughout all their activities. It appears through
the concept of "hegemonic apparatuses" (schools, churches
and media) which are the instruments for the exercise of
hegemony and through which organic intellectuals become
organisers. These organisers (organic intellectuals) are the
agents of this practice. They are the ones, according to
Gramsci, in charge of elaborating and spreading organic
ideologies and who will have to realise the moral and intel
lectual reform. This role of intellectuals both at the levels of
class organisations (political parties) and the hegemonic
apparatuses, is crucial for maintaining class hegemony as well
as the emergence of counter-hegemonic forms of class
struggle.
For Gramsci, everything which is the expression of the
"people-nation" is the "national-popular will". Thus, a suc
cessful hegemony is one which is able to create a "collective
national-popular will", and for this to occur, the dominant
class must be capable of articulating its hegemonic principle
by absorbing all the national popular ideological elements.
It is only when this occurs, Gramsci contends, that the
dominant class can appear as representing the national
interest. In the creation of a "national-popular will", the
dominant class is able to transform the class character of
ideological elements by articulating a hegemonic principle
which differs from the one to which they are presently
articulated.17 Such a practice, Mouffe contends, is devoid of
expressed class interests. Their class character is, nevertheless,
conferred upon them by the discourse to which they are
articulated and as manifested in the type of subject this
practice creates.
A most crucial and original aspect of Gramsci's political
thought is his regard for the fundamental contradictions
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Politics, Ideology and Hegern ony 207
economically rooted in the presentation of his theory. In
this theory, hegemony is achieved through the establishment
of an organic link connecting civil society and political
society. Thus, political society effectively represents the
interests of the hegemonic class which resorts to the hege
monic apparatuses of society to organise and direct social
groups by securing consent to their leadership.
To summarise, Gramsci's conception of hegemony,
counter-hegemonic struggle and the nature and role of poli
tics and ideology are predicated on three methodological
principles: (i) the dialectical unity of the structure and super
structure; (ii) the dialectical relations between instances of
the superstructure; and (iii) the crucial role of human
practice.
It is through the notion of an historical bloc and the
concept of ideologies as organic links which enable Gramsci
to assert the dialectical unity between structure and super
structure as a single totality. He asserts:
... material forces are the content and ideologies the form, though
this distinction between the form and the content has purely
'didactive' value, since the material forces would be inconceivable
historically without form, and ideologies would be individual
fancies without the material forces.1**
Thus, for Gramsci, there cannot exist quantity with
out quality, or quality without quantity economy without
culture, practical activity without intelligence. Any attempt
to divide this principle would be breaking the unity of the
historical process by creating a separation between the con
tent from the form. Such an approach would be a rejection
of the role of the superstructures by making them appear as
individual fancies devoid of economic roots. This leads to the
erroneous conceptions of economism and ideologism, the
same mechanistic, views Gramsci himself rejected from the
Second International.
The second methodological principle concerns the rela
tions between different instances of the superstructures.
Gramsci's concepts which denote a moment or crucial aspect
of historical reality are inseparable from the concepts which
designate the opposite but complementary aspects of that
reality. Thus, in contrast to the state, understood as the
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208
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
apparatus of government, stands civil society. In contrast to
the moment of force and dictatorship there is the moment
of persuasion and consent. In contrast to the moment of
ethico-political struggle which transforms the infrastructure
or the economic base, stands the moment of ethico-political
expansion. Hence, any separation of these elements can only
be made solely for methodological reasons since in the real
world all elements are inseparable.
The third and final methodological principle under
girding Gramsci's theoretical formulation concerns human
practice. The unity of infrastructure and superstructure can
only be a process in which the sole agent is human activity
in its various forms.' This process of historical dialectics is
conceived by Gramsci as the passage from the objective to
the subjective, from quantity to quality and from necessity
to liberty. They result periodically in an "overthrow of
praxis", and in a novel historical synthesis when the develop
ment of the productive forces and the political initiatives of
men have created all the conditions which make the possible
real.19
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Politics, Ideology and Hegemony 209
FOOTNOTES
*The 1967 Conference on Gramsci Studies was held at Cagliari in Italy.
It witnessed the intervention of Norberto Bobbio, ''Gramsci and the Conception
of Civil Society", which set the stage for understanding Gramsci's contribution
to Marxist Theory. Bobbio's intervention has been published in English in
Gramsci and Marxist Theory, Chantal Mouffe, (ed.), Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London 1979.
2
For a thorough discussion on the historical background to the devlvelop
ment of Gramsci 's political thought see, "Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci"
Gramsci and Marxist Theory, Chantal Mouffe, (ed.), Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London 1979.
3
See Chantal Mouffe, "Gramsci Today" in Gramsci and Marxist Theory,
C. Mouffe, (ed.).
4
See Leonardo Paggi, "Gramsci's General Theory of Marxism" in Gramsci
and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.), pp. 113-167.
^See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Internal
Publishers, New York, 1971, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Smith, (eds.).
^On this, see Norberto Bobbio, "Gramsci and the Conception of Civil
Society", in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.).
Hegel cited in Bobbio, "Gramsci and the Conception of Civil Society" in
Gramsci and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.).
SOp. cit., p. 28.
9Op. cit., p. 29.
10
See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, Internal
Publishers, New York, 1977.
^Marx and Engels, cited in Bobbio, "Gramsci and the Conception of Civil
Society", pp. 29-30.
12
p. 30.
Gramsci, cited in Bobbio, "Gramsci and the Conception of Civil Society ,
13Op. cit., pp. 30-31.
14
Antonio Gramsci, cited in Gwynn Williams, "Gramsci's Conception of
Egemonia" in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1960.
^Antonio Gramsci, cited in Jacques Texier, "Gramsci, Theoretician of the
Superstructures", in Gramsci und Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.).
See Chantal Mouffe, "Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci , in Gramsci
and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.).
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210 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
11 Op. cit., pp. 178-200.
18
Gramsci, cited in Jacques Texier, "Gramsci, Theoretician of the Super
structures", in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, C. Mouffe, (ed.), p. 58.
190p. cit., pp. 63-78.
REFERENCES
[1] CAMMETT, John M., Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of
Italian Communism, Stanford University Press, 1967.
[2] FEMIA, Joseph, Gramsci's Political Thought, Oxford Clarendon
Press, 1981.
[3] GRAMSCI, Antonio, The Modem Prime and Other Writings,
International Publishers, New York, 1978.
[4] HOARE, Quintin and Geoffrey SMITH (eds.), Selections From
the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers, New
York, 1971.
[5] MOUFFE, Chantal, Gramsci and Marxist Theory, Routledge
and Kegan Paul, London, 1979.
[6] SASSOON, Anne S., Approaches to Gramsci, Writers and
Readers, Publishers, London, 1982.
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