All state powers are organs of hegemony in varying degrees

Evidence

Hegemony is that state of “total social au thority” which, at certain specific conjunctures, a specific class alliance wins, by a combination of “coercion” and “consent,” over the whole social formation, and its dominated classes: not only at the economic level, but also at the level of political and ideological leadership, in civil, intellectual, and moral life as well as at the material level: and over the terrain of civil society as well as in and through the condensed relations of the state. This “authority and leadership” is, for Gramsci, not a given a priori but a specific historical “moment”—one of unusual social authority. It represents the product of a certain mastery of the class struggle, certainly, but it is still subject to the class struggle and the “relations of social forces” in society, of which its “unstable equilibrium” is only one, provisional, outcome or result. Hegemony is a state of play in the class struggle which has, therefore, to be continually worked on and reconstructed in order to be maintained, and which remains a contradictory conjuncture. The important point, for Gramsci, is that, under hegemonic conditions, the organization of consent (by the dominated classes to the “leadership” of the dominant class alliance) takes precedence (though it does not obliterate) the exercise of domination through coercion. In such conditions, the class struggle tends to assume the form, not of a “frontal assault” on the bastions of the state (“war of maneuver”) but of a more protracted, strategic, and tactical struggle, exploiting and working on a number of different contradictions (Gramsci’s “war of position”). — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 626 (#expands, via linked claim)

A further criterion of research must be borne in mind, in order to emphasise the dangers inherent in the method of historical analogy as an interpretative criterion. In the ancient and mediaeval State alike, centralisation, whether political-territorial or social (and the one is merely a function of the other), was minimal. The State was, in a certain sense, a mechanical bloc of social groups, often of different race: within the circle of political-military compression, which was only exercised harshly at certain moments, the subaltern groups had a life of their own, institutions of their own, etc., and sometimes these institutions had State functions which made of the State a federation of social groups with disparate functions not subordinated in any way a situation which in periods of crisis highlighted with extreme clarity the phenomenon of ‘dual power’. … The modern State substitutes for the mechanical bloc of social groups their subordination to the active hegemony of the directive and dominant group, hence abolishes certain autonomies, which nevertheless are reborn in other forms, as parties, trade unions, cultural associations. The contemporary dictatorships legally abolish these new forms of autonomy as well, and strive to incorporate them within State activity: the legal centralisation of the entire national life in the hands of the dominant group becomes ‘totalitarian’. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1867 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Hegemonic apparatus reconstruction varies with each state’s social relations; State power depends on borrowing the bodies of its subjects — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 695; State power depends materially on the bodies citizens lend it. (+6 more)

Related

• Hegemony requires economic leadership, not just compromise concessions (similarity 0.87)
• Domination relies on coercion while leadership wins consent and subordinate interests. (similarity 0.87)
• Modern states replace the mechanical bloc with active hegemony by dominant groups (similarity 0.86)
• Hegemony is a precarious, ever-rebuilt dominance won mainly through consent plus coercion. (similarity 0.85)
• Hegemony is rule achieved through consent rather than coercion (similarity 0.85)
• Under hegemony, organized consent displaces direct coercion as the main instrument (similarity 0.85)
• Domination without leadership constitutes dictatorship without hegemony (similarity 0.84)
• Hegemony is coercion combined with consent, won and perpetually reconstructed through class struggle. (similarity 0.84)
• States rule subject groups by allying with their internal elites (similarity 0.84)
• Hegemony combines coercion with actively won consent, with consent in the lead (similarity 0.84)
• Hegemony works by winning consent backed by coercion, not by force alone. (similarity 0.83)
• Domination operates through consent won by leadership, not force alone (similarity 0.82)
• Hegemony runs on consent backed by a standby coercive apparatus (similarity 0.82)
• A newly hegemonic subaltern group must build a new intellectual and moral order (similarity 0.82)
• Hegemony must be actively won and can be lost, never permanent (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Modern states replace the mechanical bloc with active hegemony by dominant groups #expands (0.85) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1867
• Hegemony is rule achieved through consent rather than coercion #expands (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 626
• State power depends on borrowing the bodies of its subjects #complicates (0.80) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 695
• State power depends materially on the bodies citizens lend it. #complicates (0.80)
• The state converts class interests into the general interest, giving them universal form #expands (0.80)
• Hegemony means tendential balance, not absolute class victory #expands (0.80)
• States rule subject groups by allying with their internal elites #expands (0.80)
• Hegemony requires economic leadership, not just compromise concessions #qualifies (0.80)