Political Party and Hegemony

To understand Gramsci’s concept of social class, political party and their role in socio-political change we also need to understand his theory of hegemony since these are all connected with each other in his thought and serve as the different instruments of bringing change to a society.

For instance, in the quote below Gramsci talks about the political party as the expression of a social class; however, in addition to that, he also argues that, at some periods, a single social group, through its political party, can, or even should, exercise a balancing and arbitrating function, role between the interests of its own group, and those of other groups. Here “a balancing and arbitrating role” actually refers to being hegemonic, and through that being able to lead the other social classes under its own leadership.

“Although every party is the expression of a social group, and of one social group only, nevertheless in certain given conditions certain parties represent a single social group precisely in so far as they exercise a balancing and arbitrating function between the interests of their group and those of other groups, and succeed in securing the development of the group which they represent with the consent and assistance of the allied groups – if not out and out with that of groups which are definitely hostile.”[1]

Political parties and their role in socio-political change in Gramscian theory can only be understood through the concept of hegemony because it can be argued that political parties function as no more than the agents of change according to Gramsci. However, they are probably the most complex and mature agents which can pursue the process and carry the mission of realizing such a goal: socio-political change. The crucial point here is related with the direction of this change, and whether what it envisages for the end of the process. It can be argued that change is directed toward the establishment of a hegemony, which is a desirable type of governing according to Gramsci, and that political party can play the role of leadership in carrying out the national-popular collective will,

As mentioned above, the political party, for Gramsci, is not merely a political expression, thus representative of a social class. In addition to that, the political party is the agent of socio-political change which is found to raise the people in the society to a new level political, legal, social and economic order, that is to say, to a new level of civilization. This role or function of founding a new State is related with the concept of hegemony because as Sassoon rightly explains, “each moment of hegemony represents a certain relationship between class forces.”[2] This certain relationship, hegemony, in the State level, in Gramsci’s thought, refers to an ethical State. In that regard, Gramsci argues that;

“Every State is ethical in as much as one of its most important functions is to raise the great mass of the population to a particular cultural and moral level, a level (or type) which corresponds to the needs of the productive forces for development, and hence to the interests of the ruling classes.”[3]

---

[1] Gramsci, Selections From Prison Notebooks, ibid., p. 148.

[2] Sassoon, Gramsci’s Politics, ibid., p. 115.

[3] Gramsci, Selections From Prison Notebooks, ibid., p. 258.

Marx and Hegemony

Last semester, I took a course titled as Continental Political Thought. In that course, we read three of Marx's articles as well which are On the Jewish Question, Theses on Feuerbach ve The German Ideology. In one of the articles, The German Ideology, I came across a paragraph in which Marx was talking about the concept of hegemony, and I thought that it would be useful to add it here. I think it is a good text through which one can develop an idea about the similarities and differences between the Marx's and Gramsci's usage of the concept of hegemony. Actually there are one or two articles which talk about the origins of the concept of hegemony, but I don't remember that they were referring to that paragraph from The German Ideology.

"For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a classs, not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting the one ruling class. It can do this because, to start with, its interest really is more connected with the common interest of all other non-ruling classes, because under the pressure of hitherto existing conditions its interest has not yet been able to develop as the particular interest of a particular class. Its victory, therefore, benefits also many individuals of the other classes which are not winning a dominant position, but only insofar as it now puts these individuals in a position to raise themselves into the ruling class. When the French bourgeoisie overthrew the power of the aristocracy, it thereby made it possible for many proletarians to raise themselves above the proletariat, but only insofar as they became bourgeois. Every new class, therefore, achieves its hegemony only on a broader basis than that of the class ruling previously, whereas the opposition of the non-ruling class against the new ruling class later develops all the more sharply and profoundly. Both these things determine the fact that the struggle to be waged against this new ruling class, in its turn, aims at a more decided and radical negation of the previous conditions of society than could all previous classes which sought to rule. This whole semblance, that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end, of course, as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which society is organized, that is to say, as soon as it is no longer necessary to represent a particular interest as general or the 'general interest' as ruling." (p. 174)

Hegemonya Teorisinin Sınırları

Merhaba Arkadaşlar,

Gramsci'yle yatıp, Gramsci'yle kalkıyoruz, ama Horkheimer'ın "Geleneksel Teori & Eleştirel Teori" ayrımından haberdar olan bizlerin, Gramsci'ye de ara sıra "eleştirel" bakmasında yarar vardır sanırım. :)

Geçen gün bir arkadaşım bana bir soru sordu... Sonra ben de düşündüm, dedim ki bunu bloga da yazayım; belki blogun okuyucularından bazı arkadaşlar, bu konuyla ilgili görüşlerini ifade ederler, biz de bunlardan birşeyler öğreniriz.

Sorumuz şu: "Hegemonya kavramının/teorisinin sınırları nedir? Hegemonya'yı hangi durumlarda kullanmak/uygulamak yararlıdır ve hangi durumlarda uygulamada sorunlarla karşılaşırız?"

Yani kısaca, hegemonya kavramı/teorisi nerede işe yarar, nerede yaramaz? :)

Her türlü yorumunuzun, katkınızın, eleştirinizin, konuya bağlı olarak kitap ve makale tavsiyenizin başımızın üstünde yeri var; bekliyoruz. :)