Hegemonic Project Research Articles

Challenging SpaceX on the US–Mexico border: Value struggles against racial authoritarian neoliberalism

SpaceX’s launch site on the US–Mexico border, in the Rio Grande Valley, is an ideal example of the interconnected relationship between racial capitalism and authoritarian neoliberalism, the neoliberal expropriation of spaces and communities, and the tapestries of resistance weaved against these processes. The privatisation of space exploration is an illustration of the development of authoritarian modes of governance that are designed to facilitate such expropriation of spaces and communities. In the case considered in this article, these processes are directly related to the development of racial capitalism on the US–Mexico border. This article places the focus on how racial authoritarian neoliberalism is a response to capitalism’s inability to successfully impose a hegemonic project.

Contesting literacies: Beyond the hidden curriculum of the Neoliberal Arts

This essay challenges the broad, ongoing neoliberal transformation of higher education as expressed in contemporary literacy pedagogies based in and around Learning Management Systems. Building on Chantal Mouffe’s conception of agonistic democracy, we seek to model and encourage an alternative–a critical literacy that highlights competing hegemonic projects and the need for active engagement of all in shaping the politics of knowledge.

Decarbonization, hegemonic projects, and the green growth policy-planning network: the case of Québec

ABSTRACT Since 2010, grassroots-led socio-ecological movements in Québec, Canada played a key role in overturning carbon extractivist proposals. Building on their successes, these groups now aim to move energy transition debates toward a broader conception of transition that includes radical social justice and post-capitalist alternatives. Meanwhile, corporate actors and the state enlisted major environmental NGOs and union federations into various technocentric ‘green growth’ projects. These hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles define how transition unfolds in the province, yet few have studied how actual social actors organize to carry out these divergent responses to the climate crisis. We develop a structural analysis of the green growth policy-planning network in Québec. Starting from five organizations at the core of transition debates, we analyze the network of board interlocks they are embedded in. We describe the overall structure of the network and its main corporate, civil society, and individual actors. Analysis outlines the possibility of a new hegemonic bloc forming, positioned around the green growth project and the cleantech sector, close to achieving dominance in Quebec, that would threaten deeper decarbonization efforts. Thus, despite the recent ban on petroleum extraction, like elsewhere, energy transition in Quebec still faces deep social and ecological contradictions.

Resisting regulation: revealing orders of worth behind the debate over private education regulation in Peru

ABSTRACT Although the regulation of private education has been a disputed topic in academic and policy debates, there is a lack of recognition regarding the underlying structures that inform such opposing viewpoints. Through a sociological understanding of disputes, I propose to see through the lenses of the market to understand the contested visions at play in the regulation of private education in a specific case: a debate in 2018 between private providers and the Ministry of Education that would inform the national regulation in Peru. Specifically, I analyse how private providers justify their right to select and expel students by examining the underlying higher-order principles behind their arguments, or as Boltanski and Thévenot termed them, the ‘orders of worth’. The analysis provides evidence of contradictory ways of seeing education that are located in market, industrial and domestic orders of worth, which suggest a hegemonic project for private education in Peru that also holds open the possibility of challenging it by unpacking the arguments used to support it. These justifications expose the inconsistencies of an unequal educational system that has relied on private education for decades. This paper could prove useful for other countries seeking to reform the regulation of private education.

Stuart Hall's Relational Political Sociology: A Heuristic for Right-Wing Studies

Since 2016, there has been a flood of research on the US right spanning disciplines and methodologies. This article theorizes a conceptual heuristic drawn from the writing of Stuart Hall to integrate this scholarship. To make the case for what I term Hall’s political sociology, I stage a dialogue with Arlie Hochschild, whose 2016 ethnography Strangers in Their Own Land has become a classic in the literature. While both Hall and Hochschild stress the importance of documenting the affective nature of political subjectivities, Hochschild’s investment in a politics of reconciliation prevents her from scaling analysis up to political elites, a move that would enable her to better contextualize her findings. Hall offers a model for such an approach, as he connects political subjectivities to acts of articulation; these acts to hegemonic projects; and the impact of such projects to the conjuncture. I stylize Hall’s four-step conceptual frame as a relational cycle because it reconnects the historicizing work of conjunctural analysis to the felt experience of individual subjectivities. Beyond outlining Hall’s political sociology, I illustrate how its use as a heuristic can integrate recent research on the US right. This scheme corrects for an analytic shortcoming driven by Hochschild’s politics of reconciliation, namely a view that political progress will emerge from small-scale, cross-partisan dialogue. Though Hall offers no easy answers to the political questions of our time, his relational political sociology provides a tool for interlacing the research we have, thus rendering the massive challenges of the moment visible in all their detail.

Contesting just transitions: Climate delay and the contradictions of labour environmentalism

The notion of ‘just transition’ (JT) is an attempt to align climate and energy objectives with the material concerns of industrial workers, frontline communities, and marginalised groups. Despite the potential for fusing social and environmental justice, there is growing concern that the concept is being mobilised in practice as a form of ‘climate delayism’: a problem more ambiguous than open forms of denialism as it draws in multiple and conflictual agents, practices, and discourses. Using an historical materialist framework, attentive to both energy-capital and capital-labour relations, we show how JT is vulnerable to forces and relations of climate delay across both fossil capital and climate capital hegemonic projects. We review this through an engagement with the climate obstructionism literature and the theory of labour environmentalism: the political engagement of trade unionists and workers with environmental issues. As tensions within the labour movement surface amidst the unsettling of the carbon capital hegemony, we assess the degree to which (organised) labour—as an internally differentiated, contradictory movement—is participating in climate breakdown through a ‘praxis of delay’. Trade unions and industrial workers are often implicated in resisting or undermining transitions, but this is related significantly to their structural power relations vis a vis the fossil hegemony. Notably, JT negotiations are themselves structurally embedded within the carbon capital economy. The general preferences of trade unions for social over environmental justice might be prevalent but are neither universal nor inevitable; JT is open and contested political terrain, and labour-environmental struggles remain imperative for building just energy futures.

Polityka pamięci „żołnierzy wyklętych”

Referring to the concept of hegemony, the article focuses on memory politics regarding the “cursed soldiers”. It analyses how and why the conservative-nationalist right wing invented the “cursed soldier” figure and elevated it to the role of a key historical symbol in its hegemonic project of remodelling Polish collective memory in keeping with its ideology. Drawing on the concept of difficult heritage, the paper argues that hegemonic memory politics presupposes the transformation of the disputed heritage of the underground into a taken-for-granted symbol of the “cursed soldiers” representing a narrowly defined “Polishness”, and expressing the emotions of national pride, resentment and martyrdom. At the same time, on the basis of qualitative research, the article examines the process of the grassroots reception of this symbol, revealing selected aspects of its difficult nature.

The British Royals in Australia

The British Royals in Australia

Royalty and Its Representation in Popular Culture

Royalty and Its Representation in Popular Culture

Mapping the Coercive Turn: Universal Credit, Social Crisis, and the Politics of Welfare in Austerity Britain, 2010–2019

This article examines the politics of welfare in Britain from 2010 to 2019. Drawing on Gramscian literature, the first section outlines an original framework of the ‘divide-and-rule’ politics of welfare during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom. The second section examines the return of welfare restructuring in Britain following the 2008 global financial crisis, focusing on Universal Credit. It contends that a significant escalation of coercive social policies within the social security system undermined previous social antagonisms underpinning the political coalitions of neoliberal welfare reform. Alongside deepening economic stagnation and dislocation exacerbated by austerity after 2010, it argues that this coercive turn intensified an unfolding crisis of legitimacy. The third section examines the politics of welfare amid an unfolding social crisis in Britain. It argues that despite burgeoning socio-political discontent and the emergence of the counter-hegemonic project of Corbynism, 2016–2019 was characterised by an interregnum. With the defeat of Corbynism amid protracted Brexit negotiations, this included a period of political impasse in which popular support for welfare reform, austerity and neoliberalism were in decline, but without an attendant shift in the balance of political forces to advance an alternative hegemonic project. As a result, a deepening social crisis continued to unfold.

Untangling “Chinese characteristics”: an examination of “the China Discipline Evaluation with Chinese characteristics” and what it implies

AbstractThe terminology of “Chinese characteristics” (zhongguo tese) is ubiquitous in China’s political language, but its precise definition remains elusive. This study focuses specifically on the mobilising of the idea of Chinese characteristics of China’s science evaluation programme: the China Discipline Evaluation (CDE). Implemented as an instrument of the higher education reform since 1978, it still plays a vital role in China today. This paper is structured into three parts. It begins by laying out the broad landscape of the science evaluation systems across several countries including China, to distil the distinctiveness of the CDE. Then, it moves to focus on the CDE and locates it in its historical and social-political context. Finally, it investigates the origin and use of Chinese characteristics, suggesting that this terminology functions as a rhetoric modality which describes, labels, and legitimates seemingly self-contradictory phenomena exclusive to China. It also emphasises the idea of Chinese exceptionalism that is touted as irreducible to other cultural forms. Based on these considerations, it proposes three dimensions of the Chinese characteristics of the CDE: (i) the paradoxical status of the evaluation agency, (ii) the co-existence of contradictory values embedded in the objectives and criteria of the evaluation, and (iii) the promotion of the visibility of the idea of China at the international stage. Overall, it shows that while the CDE may appear to be a decentralisation instrument, it is in essence a “hegemonic project” and “hegemonic apparatus” to fulfil the party-state’s ambition in securing domestic stability and pursuing international competitiveness.

ACCOUNTABILITY, FLEXIBILIZAÇÃO E QUALIDADE TOTAL:

The text analyzes the influence of the concepts of accountability, flexibility and total quality on Brazilian educational policies and, mainly, on the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) and the reform of Secondary Education. It is a bibliographical and documentary, qualitative research, whose theoretical-conceptual perspective is Historical-dialectical Materialism. A contextualization is carried out on the rise of neoliberal policies, New Public Management and managerialism and their consequences on educational policies, highlighting the large-scale evaluation policies issued since 1990. The presence of business sectors in the construction and implementation of the BNCC and the reform of Secondary Education, returning education to private corporate interests. Therefore, these educational policies express the hegemonic project of the social form of capital which seeks, once again, to adjust education to the interests of the market, under the logic of flexible pedagogy and the accountability of social beings for the results of their historical existence.

Sanitizing a crisis: The three dimensions of an enhanced regime of accumulation

AbstractIn many western countries the Covid crisis has evolved from a public health crisis toward an economic crisis. Spain was no exception. Crises are always key moments in the reconfiguration of the role of the state, as this takes on new domains and functions. Conceiving state's role as a triad helps us understanding its functioning. From the initial stage, state work has been intense in order to mitigate its effects. But the Spanish particularity is the specific articulation of state apparatuses. As in previous crises, Spain has deployed a significant activity to police the public order. The policing of public spaces was tailored to ensure the economic apparatuses remain unchallenged. A new mode of regulation has been established to allow an enhanced regime of capital accumulation through different financial instruments. Despite the frequent neglect of ideological state apparatuses, this paper exposes how relevant they are in moments of impasse to produce a new moral economy reassuring the hegemonic project of the elites.

Seeing the Future Through the Socialist Past: the Works of the Radical Imaginary Through Migration

This article contours the collective imaginary horizons of post-socialist subjects as they emerge within and around the ‘routinised’ practice of labour migration and its pressing materialities. Taking the case of Bulgarian-origin migrants in the UK, the article problematises the common conceptualisation of (semi-)peripheral imaginations as medium for enacting the hegemonic project of Western modernity-coloniality. Rather than passive subscribers to powerful but deceitful political utopias, ‘peripheral’ migrant subjects emerge as autonomous agents, articulating radically different visions of the desirable and possible. The politicisation of the socialist past as a historical context of shared social meaning and experience, as well as a symbolic resource of forgotten ideals, opens up a space for critical engagement with the capitalist mechanisms producing despair in the present. Invoking meaning and value from previously existing ideals of solidarity, justice and egalitarianism as they relate to the realms of work, self-hood and socio-political organisation, my interlocutors countermap the trauma of the present to the stability and fullness of what was before, in the process hinting at a possible moment of ‘rupture’ and ‘re-institution’. Respectful engagement with the ‘lay’ socialisms of today, I suggest it is vital for exploring further the political capacity of the post-socialist imaginary and its possibilities for carving out self-affirming agendas for equality, collectiveness and working-class dignity.

Overthrowing Democracies in South America: The Hegemonic Project of the Brazilian Dictatorship and the Coup in Chile

Overthrowing Democracies in South America: The Hegemonic Project of the Brazilian Dictatorship and the Coup in Chile

The memory politics of Cursed Soldiers, antisemitism and racialisation

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between racism and the memory politics of the anti‐communist underground in Poland. It explores a covert antisemitism behind the conservative nationalist hegemonic project of transforming the anti‐communist underground into the ideologically charged symbol of the Cursed Soldiers. It demonstrates that under the conditions of the condemnation of antisemitism, the symbolism of the Cursed Soldiers has become a covert way of expressing anti‐Jewish prejudice in hegemonic memory politics. The paper argues that this covert antisemitism must be seen in the broader context of historical racialised antisemitism and racialised structures of Polish national identity. The paper challenges the notion of Poland as a country free from racism, by unpacking the role of racialisation in the dominant understanding of Polishness. It demonstrates how the memory politics of the Cursed Soldiers fit into the racialised logic of the dominant ideology of Polish national identity.

Territorial development in Bavaria between spatial justice and austere federalism: A historical-materialist policy analysis of Bavarian regional development politics and policies, 2008–2018

This paper examines the territorial development reforms in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany between 2008 and 2018 in light of the rise of austerity policies, introducing the concept of ‘austere federalism’ as a new state spatial process in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Methodologically, the paper draws on the historical-materialist policy analysis and identifies three processes – municipalisation, competitisation, and responsibilisation – as key elements of a new hegemonic project. Our findings suggest that the years following the crisis saw a paradigm shift in spatial planning taking place, characterised by a carrot-and-stick policy of planning deregulation and austerity discipline. Rather than diminishing disparities, however, this shift runs the risk of exacerbating spatial inequality.

The Party-State’s Hegemonic Project and Responses from Civil Society: The Case of Service-oriented NGOs in China

ABSTRACT This article investigates the Chinese party-state’s hegemonic project to construct social consent in NGOs and how they react to this. Using service-oriented NGOs as examples, it argues that the changing institutional dynamics of NGO governance in China demonstrates that Chinese civil society is a site of ideological struggle. The party-state has adapted some foreign concepts and practices of civil society, which have been popular in China since the reform era, to serve its political and socioeconomic agenda, while avoiding political challenges of liberal values and discourse. Civil society’s hegemonic transformation relies on two major mechanisms—professionalization and Maoist incorporation. This process, however, also leaves some space for NGOs to act differently. Some have been comfortably incorporated into the state-led welfare system and reproduce authoritarian norms and practices among their beneficiaries, whereas counter-hegemonic activism still exists among groups that link their stance and agenda closely with marginalized groups in society.

Jedan, dva ili više imperijalizama?

The paper problematizes the understanding of the concept of imperialism in the current conjuncture, which is significantly determined by the Ukrainian crisis. In particular, the position of some of the leading left-wing intellectuals is criticized, with the claim that they omit the meaning that imperialism had in classical Marxist theory, as well as structural unequal power relations and unequal socioeconomic development that characterizes the modern world capitalist system. The paper uses the deductive method. By criticizing the positions of left-wing intellectuals who do not use the notion imperialism in a sufficiently clear way, nor according to the meaning that imperialism has in Marxist and world-system theory, an attempt is made to start a wider theoretical debate about what the notion imperialism should mean in contemporary (geo)political circumstances. In this context, the position of China in the world system is primarily discussed, which is presented in this paper as a semi-peripheral country that is not imperialistic and does not have a project of a new global hegemony, but uses its semi-peripheral position to strengthen its own regional strategy. It is concluded that there is currently only one imperialism as a stage in the development of capitalism and the only global hegemonic project under the leadership of the USA.

The Early Medieval State: A Strategic‐Relational Approach

AbstractThe state is a contested concept in the historiography on early medieval societies. Debates have frequently revolved around its heuristic validity, but few scholars have addressed its broader theoretical implications. Those who have tend to reduce the state to its institutional features and privilege the role of the dominant groups in the analysis of state‐building processes and the workings of the state. This paper contends that a richer conceptualisation of the state can overcome the limits of the debate as it has been framed so far and provide a deeper insight into how social relations shaped and were shaped by the development of early medieval polities. After reviewing the most significant historiographical contributions to the debate, the paper introduces the Strategic‐Relational Approach to the state, as formulated by B. Jessop, as one that can provide a more nuanced understanding of early medieval polities. Particular emphasis is made on the analysis of class relationships and the articulation of hegemonic projects as two particularly fruitful lines of inquiry. Finally, the paper focuses on one particular instance of early medieval political practice, the politics of the land, as a means to illustrate the potential of the approach.