Crisis Of Hegemony Research Articles

Repressive suspicion, or: the problem with conspiracy theories

ABSTRACT Conspiracy culture cultivates suspicion towards the hidden workings of power. While some modes of suspicion direct critical attention towards the crimes and cruelties of oppressive social relations, other modes misdirect that same attention. When such misdirection serves to reproduce oppressive social relations, entrapping its adherents in the promise of emancipation, this may be understood as ‘repressive suspicion’. Empirically, this concept is characterized, herein, via a reception study of the QAnon conspiracy theory, reconstructing how one of the most prominent participants in the insurrection in Washington, D.C., on 6th January 2021 became wrapped up in ‘Q’ culture – a story that paints a poignant, complex picture of repressive suspicion. This concept is then further developed in historical and theoretical terms, in dialogue with the works of Herbert Marcuse, leading to an analysis of QAnon as a microcosm of the contemporary crisis of hegemony, drawing on Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall, and Nancy Fraser. While, in the 1960s, and even in the 1990s, repressive suspicion could be largely ignored by practitioners of political critique, in the current conjuncture this is no longer the case. Thus, as well as constructing a diagnosis, this article also poses a question: If this is what repressive suspicion looks like, how must we conceive its opposite?

The myth of hegemony crisis and the making of US global power

Resumo Este artigo tem por objetivo avaliar os limites do debate acerca da crise de hegemonia dos Estados Unidos na década de 1970. Nossa hipótese é que a crise daquele período não correspondeu à crise de hegemonia - à revelia dos questionamentos a ela. Argumentaremos que, ao longo do pós-guerra, os EUA construíram as bases de um poder global que se consolidaram no decorrer daquela quadra e da seguinte, mediante o alicerçamento dos parâmetros formatadores do sistema interestatal - segurança, moeda/finanças, produção/tecnologia. A crise da década corresponde, por conseguinte, não à crise de hegemonia, mas ao antagonismo entre os limites da autonomia dos Estados Nacionais e a ascensão de uma ordem econômica transnacional, em cujo vértice se situa o poder global estadunidense. JEL: F40, F62, P16, N12.

The Polycrisis and the Centaur: Hegemony, Masculinity and Racialisation

The multiplicity of crises that mark the contemporary era, the polycrisis, also constitutes a crisis of hegemony. This article explores the functions of gendered racialisation in elite management of this hegemonic crisis, with reference to Gramsci’s use of the figure of the Centaur, a hybrid of humanity and animality. It discusses the ways in which this hybrid evokes racialising tropes of human bestiality to express the dynamic interplay of consent and coercion through which hegemony is maintained. Moral panics in relation to the threat of the racialised male Other, variously figured as migrant, terrorist and/or criminal, draw on a bestialised humanisation of racialised masculinities in order to elicit consent to the exercise of coercive authority. Such authority in turn invokes a plasticity of excess/deficiency of the racialised male Other to sanction exclusionary and exterminatory violence. To seize the political opportunity of the current moment to reimagine gender justice and social justice together requires a deeper engagement with the deployment of racialised masculinities in securing consent to coercive authority amid the deepening polycrisis.

The Organic Crisis of a Colonised State: Bulgaria in the Eye of the Pandemic, 2020–2022

Abstract Bulgaria’s particularly tragic experience with covid-19, with one of the largest death tolls per 100,000 in Europe, can be analysed in terms of purely natural factors (more lethal variants), the foibles and missteps of leaders, and unpredictable vaccine supplies. From a Gramscian critical materialist perspective, the pattern is better understood in terms of four interlocking structures: Bulgaria’s subaltern status as a downtrodden colony of Europe, its mode of insertion into globalised capitalism, the Orthodox Church’s strenuous effort to maintain its hegemonic position within Bulgarian nationalism, and the crisis of hegemony that engulfed a government already reliant on corruption more than persuasion, with an inchoate and ideologically variegated ‘Great National Revolt’ against it coinciding with the pandemic. The upshot of these structures was a rate of vaccination that was unusually low by European standards, leaving many Bulgarians, especially the elderly, lethally exposed to the disease and harmed by a widely distrusted corrupt neoliberal state.

Class or regional cleavage? The Russian invasion and Ukraine’s ‘East/West’ divide

ABSTRACT Why did the Kremlin fail to rely on the ‘soft power’ to secure its interests in Ukraine and instead opt for the military invasion? At the same time, why did the Kremlin believe that Russia could achieve its goals with relatively limited forces in the course of a rapid regime-change ‘special operation’? These questions pose a puzzle for the two main arguments that dominate the vast literature on Ukrainian regionalism, which either present a largely symmetrical ‘East/West’ regional cleavage or question the salience and even the existence of any such cleavage in favor of a more fluid local diversity that the ascendant Ukrainian civic identity has ultimately encompassed. Instead, the article argues that Ukraine’s ‘regional’ cleavage could be understood as a nationally specific articulation of the class conflict common to many post-Soviet countries in the context of hegemony crisis. This perspective can better explain the disparate capacity of Ukraine’s ‘pro-Western’ and ‘pro-Russian’ political camps to universalize the particular class interests standing behind them and support them through civic mobilization, the rationale behind the original plan of the Russian invasion, and the reactions of supposedly ‘pro-Russian’ Ukrainian elites and regular citizens to its failure.

The Parcelled State: A Political and Historical Framework for the Current Intra-State Crisis in Turkey

This article puts Turkey’s current state crisis into a historical perspective. During the transition to neo-liberalism after the hegemony crisis of the late 1970s, a critical objective for those in the high echelons of bureaucracy and ruling politicians was to ensure the security of state apparatuses. However, the policies implemented to achieve this led to fragmentation in both the state and the political spheres. Thus, during the second half of the 1990s and during the 2000s, the state became a field for open warfare between power networks that had established direct links between state apparatuses, political society, and civil society. These fragmentations – that is the parcellation of state apparatuses – triggered an intra-state crisis. Regarding the formation of the state and the political spheres in the neo-liberal era, this article shows that Turkey is a unique case in the debate on variegated forms of authoritarian statism.

The US Dollar Hegemony Crisis in the Vision of the "One belt and one road" and China's Strategic Choices

At this stage, the US dollar is still the most important international currency in the world and plays a leading role in international trade. However, with the continuous development of the times, the problems existing in the hegemony of the US dollar are gradually exposed, which greatly hinders the development of the world economy. There are congenital defects in the development of the US dollar, which also makes the world economy fall into crisis again and again. With the development of the world economy, the world pattern is quietly changing, the basis of the dollar hegemony is constantly weakening, and a new international financial order is gradually taking shape, which is of great help to the development of the world economy. As an important country in the world, China should grasp the trend of the times, seek new historical opportunities with the help of the "One belt and one road", explore a new international financial order, and gradually break the hegemony of the US dollar.

Financial Capital and the Parliamentary Coup in Brazil: Division, Reunification, and Crisis of Hegemony

The political action of financial capital and its class fractions in 2015–2016 resulted in the overthrow of President Dilma Rousseff and her replacement by Michel Temer's interim government. Financial capital at the time was made up of the internal banking bourgeoisie, involving the large national commercial banks, and the associated financial bourgeoisie, involving nonbank financial institutions operating in the capital market. Examination of the relationship between financial capital and other bourgeois fractions in this context disputes the hypotheses of a bourgeois united front and of a convergence around rentism to demonstrate that the Brazilian bourgeoisie did not constitute a political front that overthrew the government as a bloc. A ação política do capital financeiro e suas frações de classe em 2015-2016 resultou na derrubada da presidente Dilma Rousseff e sua substituição pelo governo interino de Michel Temer. O capital financeiro da época era constituído pela burguesia bancária interna, envolvendo os grandes bancos comerciais nacionais bem como a burguesia financeira associada, abrangendo as instituições financeiras não bancárias que atuavam no mercado de capitais. Uma investigação sobre a relação entre capital financeiro e outras frações burguesas nesse contexto contesta as hipóteses de uma frente única burguesa e de uma convergência em torno do rentismo para demonstrar que a burguesia brasileira não constituiu uma frente política que derrubou o governo como bloco.

Post-Truth, the Future of Democracy and the Public Sphere

The rise of authoritarian and nationalist forces is currently accompanied by a change in the way public opinion is formed and in the culture of debate, a phenomenon that has been described as a crisis of facticity. There is an urgent need to clarify the (factual) foundations and benchmarks for democratic negotiation, even if lies are nothing new in politics. The article analyses this shift and discusses to what extent the liberal problematization of post-factual politics is becoming a way of coping with the neoliberal crisis of hegemony. Finally, it seeks to illuminate what these developments mean for those strands of critical social science dedicated to exploring the connection between truth and power and deconstructing truth claims.

Strategies Against the covid-19 Pandemic and the Crisis of Hegemony

Abstract This article tries to explain why, if those countries that applied an elimination strategy in respect of the covid-19 pandemic experienced fewer deaths and relatively fewer negative impacts on their economies, the ruling bourgeoisie of other countries did not promote similar measures. Additionally, it attempts to explain why people have not widely demanded that policies be implemented to eliminate the circulation of the virus. The article suggests that, in order to better understand these behaviours, it is necessary to frame them in the context of the profound crisis of hegemony in which most of Europe and America was already plunged before the arrival of the covid-19 virus.

The Hegemony Crisis, the Neoliberal Model, and the United States Power Structure

The U.S. hegemony crisis is partly economic and social, derived from the failure of neoliberalism as an alternative to the accumulation crisis and its social consequences; but it is, above all, the result of changes brought about in power structures. This hegemony crisis could be understood as the loss or depletion of the economic structure, the political organization, and the ideological orientation instruments created after World War II, which are necessary to maintain a stable world order. Marco Gandásegui, founding leader of the CLACSO “United States Studies” Working Group (WG), assumed this crisis as a result of a “global” phenomenon. However, in his internal determinations related to the American power structure, he stressed its changes in the context of “neoliberal globalization.” He interrogated the ability, or lack thereof, of the American capitalist class or internal bourgeoisie to tackle the crisis, in a context of disarticulation and weakening of the working class.

Demoliberalism, populism, authoritarianism: the crisis of hegemony and the search for a (new) legal logos

In recent years, a crisis of demoliberal hegemony has emerged in many countries of the broadly understood West. The considerations in this article focus primarily on the juridical dimension of the crisis of liberal democracy. The key issue is genealogy, history, and the process of decomposing faith in the apolitical nature of the discursive rules of jurisprudence. The assumption of the objectivity of these rules and their exceptional status is considered an important object of attack by those contemporary opponents of the ancien regime who focus on legal issues. Such a situation allows us to compare the present decline of demoliberal hegemony to the first significant crisis of liberal theoretical and practical constructions, symbolically exemplified by the dispute between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt in the sphere of German legal culture. In our contemporary discourse questioning the assumptions of the demoliberal hegemonic formation, the themes undertaken by Schmitt constitute an important theoretical element. Undoubtedly, Kelsen’s way of thinking is strongly present in the discourse of defenders of the status quo. Of course, historical changes within the episteme had an impact on the use of old arguments. In other words, they are “different Schmitt” and “different Kelsen”. In this work, both names do not serve as an introduction to the objectivized exegesis of thinkers’ views. They are only symbols, or rather metaphors, of certain positions in a dispute that can be seen diachronically.The final part of the article is devoted to an attempt to formulate certain program comments and fairly general postulates of such a reform of the rules of jurisprudence in the Polish context, which will allow to strengthen the chance for a convincing legitimization of its products. The article is written from the perspective of a critical theory of law, which is associated with avoiding legal metaphysics and foundationalism. The author assumes that gaining hegemony by a given set of discursive rules is the product of many contingent factors. In other words, individuals and groups (epistemic communities) are able to accept and internalize different knowledge and different sets of rules for their production. Nevertheless, a rather cautious assumption was made in the text that the most effective key to transforming the discourse is learning what has been recognized as flaws in its existing rules, i.e., what has been attacked. Future scenarios are not predictable, nevertheless the author outlines three directions of potential transformations of jurisprudence discourses, which are the most probable.

Political discontent and labour in a post-growth region: A view from East Germany

The article traces the political economy and labour relations in East Thuringia, a ‘post-growth region’ in East Germany with a structurally weak periphery and a declining populace. We argue that the regional decline results from a process of peripheralization which has led to economic stagnation and a shrinking population, and also has fostered political discontent. By drawing on a regional survey, an intensive case study at a manufacturing site and qualitative interviews with policy makers, managers, works council members and employees, we analyse how peripheralization has impacted labour relations and politics in a shrinking region. We discuss our findings by referring to current political sociology debates on the rise of right-wing populism and the scientific discussion on post-growth, as well as recent approaches of critical geography and development sociology. We show how feelings of injustice such as anger about low wages and the democratic void at work interlink with pessimistic assessments concerning the region’s future and feelings of deprivation. We conclude that the economic model based on labour-intensive exports in the internal periphery of East German capitalism is eroding and is contributing to a crisis of hegemony and political instability.

Molecular Transformations: Reading the Arab Uprisings with and beyond Gramsci

The increasing interest in Antonio Gramsci’s thought constitutes an important source of inspiration in the study of the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in the post-2011 Arab uprisings period. The popularity of the Italian Marxist thinker is to be found in the original applications and uses of Gramscian categories, which have given rise to a growing secondary literature, especially outside Italy and Europe, beyond Gramsci’s immediate background and beyond the context of his own historical and political analysis. The revolutionary moment of 2011, the crisis of hegemony, and thus the crisis of ‘the State as a whole’ (stato integrale), is present in different ways in Arab countries, where many groups within civil society live, work, compete and protest tirelessly. This article draws attention to the less explored Gramscian concept of the “molecular” and argues for the importance of reading molecular, even fragmented, ways to resist the manufacturing of consent and the dominant hegemony during revolutionary moments, such as the pre- and post-2011 periods. The concept of the ‘molecular’ (molecolare) is fundamental to shedding light on the potentially transformative implications of everyday contentious actions and helps us to scrutinise what kind of hegemony is possible in Arab-Mediterranean countries today. Furthermore, Gramsci enables us to confront multiple, singular experiences of ‘others’ – which already are shaping contemporary history in different world regions while being intertwined with global history. This article shows how the theoretical, methodological and political potential of Gramscian interpretations is vital to – and can be enriched and renewed by – a promising, ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue.

El ascenso de China y las disputas estratégicas en los grupos dominantes de los Estados Unidos

El sistema mundial se encuentra en plena transición histórico-espacial. La crisis de hegemonía se refleja en un conjunto de conflictos en donde los poderes dominantes no logran imponerse, como también en el cambio en las jerarquías del sistema interestatal y en las profundas transformaciones de la economía mundial. Frente a esta situación, surgen distintas respuestas imperiales y se profundiza la polarización entre proyectos políticos estratégicos en Estados Unidos, al calor de una fractura en su “establishment”. En este sentido, en el presente ensayo se examinan aspectos centrales de la geopolítica y de las estrategias en disputa en los Estados Unidos frente al ascenso de China y al declive de su poder relativo. Desde esta perspectiva, se analizan las reconfiguraciones imperiales en marcha a partir del triunfo de Donald Trump, cuando se produce un giro nacionalista-americanista contrario a las fuerzas globalistas. Además, se observan elementos clave del ascenso de China, sus aspectos geopolíticos y sus respuestas frente a las geoestrategias dominantes de Washington. Una de las conclusiones a las que se arriba en la investigación es que el giro nacionalista-americanista puede favorecer el ascenso de China, a la vez que profundiza la crisis del orden mundial.

Revolution and transition in Tunisia as crises of hegemony

ABSTRACT Some Gramscian concepts proved to be relevant for a better and a worthwhile understanding of the current changes and of the political and social upheavals in Tunisia since winter 2010/2011. In particular, I will approach the ongoing political crisis as a crisis of hegemony. By emphasising the social and economic content in the hegemony of the Tunisian state, the article will focus on its construction during the Habib Bourguiba era, by showing how elites emerged after the independence, through their alliance with the workers’ union (UGTT), won the people’s support by working on two main issues: first, economic growth, second, social recovery thus fairly benefited different social classes, according to meritocracy. I will then look at how President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali tried to apply the same ‘hegemony formula’ and how despite his agreement with the trade unions, he nevertheless lost that hegemony due to two major evolutions during the 2000s: the transformation of Tunisian capitalism into a crony capitalism and the end of meritocracy. Eventually, the article will show that the current political and socio-economic crisis can be read as the consequence of the crisis of hegemony, since old and new elites have not yet succeeded in providing answers to the main social and economic questions raised by the 2011 Revolution.

The Struggle for Power in Post-Colonial Africa: Politics without Hegemony and the State.

Scholars have explained the implications of colonization on Africa, but none has explained the implications to include crisis of hegemony and crisis of state. That is the thrust of this paper, an explanation of how/why post-colonial Africa got enmeshed in violent struggle for power by factions of the dominant class soon after independence. In Africa, colonialism imposed capitalism and inverted the process of evolving a capitalist sate, which made the emerging dominant class, who were of different ethnic and tribal origins, to develop into factions. As a result, the dominant classes were made up of belligerent factions and therefore cannot institute hegemonic process which will be the way they will maintain a dominant culture through the use of social institutions to formalize power. Consequently, in post-colonial Africa, politics is without hegemony (leadership, domination and control) and a state (institution for order). And whenever people struggle for power without hegemony and the state, what emerges is chaos. Hence, post-colonial African countries boil each time there is competition for power. Thus, there is need to redefine state-society relations in post-colonial Africa, based on a new paradigm of state formation that will reflect their colonial experience.

US Hegemony and the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Consensus, Crisis, and Common Sense

Abstract This article provides a critical analysis of the agency of the United States in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Building on neo-Gramscian theory, it contextualises the US decision to withdraw from the TPP as an expression of hegemonic crisis. Through an examination of the strategic and geoeconomic logics and objectives of the trade agreement in US foreign economic policy, it maintains that the TPP was intended primarily to expand the structural and consensual power of the United States in the international political economy. Partly an attempt to kick-start a stalled neoliberal agenda, the TPP was also an effort to respond to China’s growing influence in trade governance. The article argues that, despite the revival of the TPP in the form of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the inability of elite networks in the United States to implement the original accord is illustrative of a crisis of hegemony driven largely by the collapse of the ‘common sense’ in favour of economic globalisation.

Crisis? What Crisis? Los tipos de crisis en Gramsci y la interpretación de la crisis de hegemonía actual

In this article, a classification of the types of “Crisis” is elaborated from the analysis of the conceptualizations contained in the Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci. Then, these conceptualizations are used to understand the current crisis of hegemony. Finally, some hypotheses are drawn about the possible impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on disputes about hegemony. Crisis; Hegemony; Gramsci; Covid-19.

Classe política e crise da democracia na crítica de Antonio Gramsci

No início dos anos 1880 um novo gênero de literatura política começou a ganhar vigor e a expandir-se, a análise crítica das democracias parlamentares existentes. Na Itália, esse gênero teve uma importante expressão na obra de Gaetano Mosca. Antonio Gramsci confrontará essa literatura, preocupado com sua reapropriação e revalorização no debate político a partir do imediato pré-guerra, quando a crise da democracia liberal assumiu contornos mais fortes. O artigo mostra como Gramsci traduz o conceito mosquiano de classe política como “a categoria intelectual do grupo social dominante” e integra-o à sua reflexão sobre os partidos políticos. Desse modo pode interpretar a crise do regime parlamentar como uma crise marcada pela decomposição dessa “categoria intelectual” e pela perda de sua capacidade dirigente. Aquilo que na teoria elitista aparecia como decomposição do princípio de autoridade era interpretada como uma crise de hegemonia, crise do Estado em seu conjunto, da qual o afastamento entre governantes e governados seria a manifestação mais evidente. Na seção conclusiva, apresenta-se a hipótese aventada nos Quaderni del carcere de um regime representativo não parlamentar.