Hegemony is rule achieved through consent rather than coercion

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

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precise working definition of Gramscian hegemony as the conjunction of coercion and consent won by a class alliance.
• XREF: Relates directly to Stuart Hall’s later use of hegemony and ‘authoritarian populism’ in Thatcherism analysis. — connects to: Under hegemony, organized consent displaces direct coercion as the main instrument; Hegemony is not equivalent to ideological domination.; Hegemony is an unstable equilibrium requiring continuous re-securing. (+32 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 626

Broader Connections

• Hegemony works by winning consent backed by coercion, not by force alone. #corroborates (0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 905
• Hegemony operates through winning consent backed by the threat of force. #corroborates (0.85)
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #corroborates (0.72)
• Hegemony is coercion combined with consent, won and perpetually reconstructed through class struggle. #complicates (0.70)
• Social control includes winning consent, not just coercive punishment #corroborates (0.60)
• Hegemony is an unstable equilibrium that dominant forces must continually resecure #expands (0.60)