Misunderstanding the state as dictatorship plus hegemony causes strategic errors

Evidence

Tactic of great masses, and immediate tactic of small groups. Belongs to the discussion about war of position and war of movement, in so far as this is reflected in the psychology both of great leaders (strategists) and of their subordinates. It is also (if one can put it like that) the point of connection between strategy and tactics, both in politics and in military science. Individuals (even as components of vast masses) tend to conceive war instinctively as “partisan warfare” or “Garibaldine warfare” (which is a higher form of “partisan warfare”). In politics the error occurs as a result of an inaccurate understanding of what the State (in its integral meaning: dictatorship + hegemony) really is. In war a similar error occurs, transferred to the enemy camp (failure to understand not only one’s own State but that of the enemy as well). In both cases, the error is related to individual particularism—of town or region; this leads to an underestimation of the adversary and his fighting organisation. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 906

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explicitly defines the State in its integral meaning as ‘dictatorship + hegemony’ — an essential concept definition.
• XREF: The dual definition of state power (coercion + consent) is precisely what the Islamophobia field carries forward in analyses of racialized state exclusions. — connects to: Neoliberal hegemony required state control, so abandoning state theory is a mistake — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2182