Hegemony
Hegemony (pronounced or ) (greek:ηγεμονία) is the
dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the
threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the
dominant party can dictate the terms of
trade to its advantage; more broadly,
cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. Hegemony controls the ways that ideas become "naturalized" in a process that informs notions of
common sense.
Throughout history, cultural and political
power in any arena has rarely achieved a perfect balance, but hegemony results in the
empowerment of certain
cultural beliefs,
values, and practices to the submersion and partial exclusion of others. Hegemony affects the perspective of mainstream history, as
history is written by the victors for a sympathetic readership. The official history of Christianity, marginalizing its defined "
heresies", provides a richly-exampled arena of cultural hegemony.
Jás Elsner, in
Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (1998), has written: :"Power is very rarely limited to the pure exercise of brute force.... The Roman state bolstered its
authority and
legitimacy with the trappings of ceremonial — cloaking the actualities of power beneath a display of wealth, the sanction of tradition, and the spectacle of insuperable resources.... Power is a far more complex and mysterious quality than any apparently simple manifestation of it would appear. It is as much a matter of impression, of theatre, of persuading those over whom authority is wielded to collude in their subjugation. Insofar as power is a matter of presentation, its cultural currency in antiquity (and still today) was the creation, manipulation, and display of
images. In the propagation of the imperial office, at any rate, art was power." (quoted at [
1])
Theories of hegemony attempt to explain how dominant groups or individuals (known as
hegemons) can maintain their power -- the capacity of dominant
classes to persuade subordinate ones to accept, adopt and internalize their values and norms.
Antonio Gramsci devised one of the best-known accounts of hegemony. His theory defined the
State by a mixture of
coercion and hegemony, between which he drew distinctions; according to Gramsci, hegemony consists of political power that flows from intellectual and moral
leadership, authority or
consensus, as distinguished from mere armed force.
Recently,
critical theorists Ernesto Laclau and
Chantal Mouffe have re-defined the term "hegemony" as a discoursive strategy of combining principles from different systems of thought into one coherent ideology. An example of this is the American project of discoursively tying together democracy, liberalism, freedom of trade and war on terror into one coherent bundle. The American Heritage Dictionary does not reflect this.
The word "hegemony" originated in ancient
Greece and derives from the word
hegeisthai (meaning "to lead"). An early example of hegemony during ancient
Greek history occurred when
Sparta became the hegemon of the
Peloponnesian League in the
6th century BC. Later, in
337 BC,
Philip II of Macedon became the personal Hegemon of the
League of Corinth, a position he passed on to his son
Alexander the Great.
In ancient
China during the
Eastern Zhou dynasty the Zhou kings appointed hegemons (known as "Ba"). This was due to the increasing chaos that resulted from the weakening of Zhou authority. The hegemons - initially from the powerful state of
Jin - were men with sufficient strength to impose Zhou rule. In return they got prestige and legitimacy they would not otherwise enjoy. The office of hegemon had vanished by the time the last Zhou king was deposed in
256 BCE.
The term hegemon is also used to describe
Japan's three unifiers in the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century.
Oda Nobunaga,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi and
Tokugawa Ieyasu each had different titles (and held many different posts during their lifetimes), but each had in common that they exercised hegemony over all or much of Japan (and in Hideyoshi's case much of
Korea at one point). For ease of reference they are collectively referred to as the three hegemons or the three unifiers.
To the extent that hegemony appears as a cultural phenomenon, cultural institutions maintain it. The
Medici maintained their hegemony in Tuscany through control of
Florence's major guild, the
Arte della Lana. Modern hegemonies also maintain themselves through cultural institutions, often with allegedly "voluntary" membership: the law abiding citizens or, arguably, the
Teamsters in states without "
right to work" laws — one might adduce countless modern associations.
The dominance of the British Empire during the 19th Century can be considered the first emergence of a global hegemon whose influence reached all over the globe. The hegemony, or dominance, of Britain during this period stemmed not only from its large military power on the seas, but also from its financial and ideological power in both its Empire (the colonies) and elsewhere.
In more recent times, analysts have used the term
hegemony in a more abstract sense to describe the "
proletarian dictatorships" of the 20th century, resulting in regional domination by local
powers, or domination of the world by a global power. China's position of dominance in
East Asia for most of its history offers an example of the regional hegemony.
The
Cold War (1945 - 1990), with its main avenues of coercion — the
Warsaw Pact led by the
USSR and
NATO led by the
United States — often appears as a battle for hegemony. The details of the parties' respective ideologies have no relevance to whether they are hegemons: both sides featured
superpowers (supported by their
clients) battling to dominate the
arms race and become the supreme world superpower. The details of the ideologies do come into play to the extent they determine how persuasive or efficient each hegemon is.
Since the end of the Cold War, analysts have used the term "hegemony" to describe the United States' role as the sole superpower (the
hyperpower) in the modern world. However, some scholars of international relations (such as
John Mearsheimer) argue that the United States does not have global hegemony, since it lacks the resources to impose dominance over the entire globe. Also,
China,
India, and the
European Union are at least considered by some to be emerging superpowers themselves. Capable of competing with the U.S in their own regions, and in the case of the EU worldwide.
The novel
Valis by the science fiction writer
Philip K. Dick treats the concept of hegemony as one aspect of what he calls the
Black Iron Prison, a totalised system of social control.
Orson Scott Card used the title 'Hegemon' to describe the office of world leader taken by the fictional character
Peter Wiggin, the brother of
Andrew (Ender) Wiggin. The story of Peter's rise to dominance is (partly) told in the
science fiction novel '
Ender's Game', and more fully in the 'Shadow' series. Peter uses his great intelligence and political savvy to manipulate public opinion. Initiallyunder the guise of "Locke", his alter ego, and "Demosthenes", that of his sister
Valentine Wiggin.
Dan Simmons'
Hyperion Cantos also features an interstellar society called 'The Hegemony of Man'. The Hegemony includes all of the several hundred planets colonized by the human race, as well as space stations and outlying colonies. The Hegemony funds and maintains an interplanetary military/police entity called FORCE, and two hundred or so Hegemony planets are linked together by the
farcaster network to comprise the WorldWeb. The
TechnoCore and the
Ousters are not included in the Hegemony.
Geopolitics influences hegemonies. Ancient hegemonies developed in fertile river valleys (an example of
hydraulic despotism):
Egypt, China and the succession of states in
Mesopotamia. In China during the
Warring States Era the state of
Qin created artificial waterways (such as the
Chengkuo Canal) in order to give itself an advantage over its neighbouring rival states. Hegemonic
successor states in Eurasia tended to cluster around the
Middle East for a period, using either the sea (Greece) or the fringe lands (
Persia,
Arabia). The focus of European hegemony moved west to
Rome, then northwards to the
Franks and the
Holy Roman Empire. The Atlantic seaboard had its heyday (
Spain,
France,
Britain) before the fringes of the European cultural area took over in the twentieth century (United States, Soviet Union).
Some regions show continually fluctuating areas of regional hegemony:
India, for example, or the Balkans. Other regions show relative stability: northern China offers a case in point.
Long-lived hegemonies (China,
Pax Sinica; Rome,
Pax Romana) offer a contrast to shorter dominations: the
Mongol Empire or
Japan's
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Conrad Phillip Kottak, in
Window on Humanity (2004), explains hegemony in terms of ideologies that offer explanations about why the existing order is in everyone's interest. Many things are promised, but are said to take time and patience in order for them to happen.
One good way to keep the people away from
oppression would be by telling people that they will eventually gain power in the near future. In most cultures it is seen that the young respect their parents; therefore they let their elders decide what they want to do because of the great respect they have towards them.
Hegemony
*
Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony*
Cultural hegemony*
Monetary Hegemony*
Dominant ideology*
Hegemony or Survival, a book by
Noam Chomsky*
Spartan hegemony (
404 BC -
371 BC)
*
Theban hegemony (
371 BC -
362 BC)
*
Pax Americana*
Pax Britannica*
Pax Mongolica*
Pax Romana*
Pax Sinica*
Pax SyrianaPower
*
Major powers*
Power (international)*
Middle power*
Great power*
Superpower*
HyperpowerOther related concepts
*
Full-spectrum dominance*
The White Man's Burden*
Groupthink*
Open Directory Project:
Hegemonism*
Stuart Hainsworth, "Gramsci's hegemony theory and the ideological role of the mass media"Mike Dorsher, Ph.D., "Hegemony Online: The Quiet Convergence of Power, Culture and Computers" [
2]
*
Hegemonic Pundit, a neo-con blog
