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Antonio Gramsci pp 195–213Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Gramsci, Hegemony and Post-Marxism

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Abstract

Antonio Gramsci’s rich reflections on the concepts of hegemony, ideology and political strategy have provided much inspiration for social theorists and analysts working in various traditions and fields.1 The latter include developments in international political economy, cultural studies, sociology, organization theory, literary theory and political philosophy.2 This chapter focuses on the work of Laclau and Mouffe, as well as other proponents of the Essex school of discourse analysis who have sought to elaborate a post-Marxist interpretation of Gramsci’s work. Such scholars have combined Gramsci’s reflections of hegemony, with more recent developments in critical theory (such as structural Marxism, genealogy and psychoanalysis) to engage in a wider deconstruction of the Marxist tradition, thereby laying the basis for a distinctive approach to the analysis of ideology and politics.3 The goal of the chapter is to explore the way Laclau and Mouffe’s ideas about hegemony, subjectivity and power can supplement other neo-Gramscian accounts of the state, ideology and international political economy. But it also seeks to provide a way of operationalizing these abstract concepts and logics so as to develop critical explanations of problematized phenomena in the national and international context.

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Notes

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Authors
  1. David Howarth
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the West of Scotland, UK

    Mark McNally (Lecturer in Politics, School of Media, Culture and Society) (Lecturer in Politics, School of Media, Culture and Society)

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© 2015 David Howarth

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Howarth, D. (2015). Gramsci, Hegemony and Post-Marxism. In: McNally, M. (eds) Antonio Gramsci. Critical Explorations in Contemporary Political Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334183_11

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