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The Politics of Complex Hegemony

  • Alex WilliamsEmail author
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Abstract

This chapter develops a series of non-exhaustive perspectives on the local organisational logics at work within key subsystems, domains, or functions of human societies. It begins by outlining two different forces at play within the field of ideological hegemony—reason and affect. It then examines the role of the economic, and its relationship to the political, and the state, developing an argument for relative autonomy in a mutually co-constituting relationship, before examining the organising principles of technology, and the interaction of technical organisation with ideological and economic spheres. Finally it propounds some considerations on the agential side of hegemony, re-read from the standpoint of complex hegemony, and attempts to answer the question of how social complexity influences political strategy in practice?

Keywords

Hegemony Gramsci Ideology Affect State theory Technology 
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  1. 1.School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication StudiesUniversity of East AngliaNorwichUK

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