Hegemony is a rare, temporary, actively-maintained settlement
Evidence
First, “hegemony” is a very particular, historically specific, and temporary “moment” in the life of a society. It is rare for this degree of unity to be achieved, enabling a society to set itself a quite new historical agenda, under the leadership of a specific formation or constellation of social forces. Such periods of “settlement” are unlikely to persist forever. There is nothing automatic about them. They have to be actively constructed and positively maintained. Crises mark the beginning of their disintegration. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 106
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Defines hegemony as temporary ‘settlement’ needing active maintenance — historically specific, not permanent.
Related
- Hegemony is a fragile, multi-front achievement won through consent, not domination (similarity 0.86)
- Hegemony must be perpetually won and can be lost. (similarity 0.86)
- Hegemony is a contestable, unstable equilibrium, never permanently secured. (similarity 0.85)
- Hegemony is an unstable equilibrium requiring continuous re-securing. (similarity 0.85)
- Hegemony is an unstable equilibrium that dominant forces must continually resecure (similarity 0.83)
- Hegemony is an unstable ongoing process, never a settled victory (similarity 0.83)
- Hegemony must be actively won and can be lost, never permanent (similarity 0.81)
- Hegemony is a precarious, ever-rebuilt dominance won mainly through consent plus coercion. (similarity 0.81)
- Hegemony is a shifting power balance, never total victory or domination. (similarity 0.81)
- Hegemony is an unstable equilibrium never certain of success (similarity 0.81)
- Hegemony as a term blocks reductive class-domination readings of political formations (similarity 0.80)
- Hegemony means tendential balance, not absolute class victory (similarity 0.79)
- Hegemony must be won before power is seized, not merely imposed by force after (similarity 0.79)
- Hegemony is reproduced through unstable, shifting equilibria rather than static dominance (similarity 0.79)
- Hegemony is achieved by more than mere class dominance (similarity 0.78)