Authoritarian rule that rejects winning consent fails militarily and politically

Evidence

Luigi Cadoma (1850-1928) was commander-in-chief of the Italian armed forces until the defeat at Caporetto in 1917, for which he was held responsible. The war was widely unpopular by 1917, and the Italian soldiers’ disaffection was certainly an important factor in the defeat. Cadoma was taken by Gramsci as the symbol of the authoritarian leader who makes no attempt to win the “consent” of those he is leading. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2119

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames the negative pole of Gramsci’s consent/coercion distinction: the authoritarian leader who ignores consent versus the hegemonic leader who cultivates it.
• XREF: Connects forward to how Islamophobia scholarship distinguishes coercive state power from hegemonic consent-building, and to the broader ruler-led/consent binary.