Subaltern groups lack state power and cannot exercise hegemony over society

Evidence

It is the conception of a subaltern social group, deprived of historical initiative, in continuous but disorganic expansion, unable to go beyond a certain qualitative level, which still remains below the level of the possession of the State and of the real exercise of hegemony over the whole of society which alone permits a certain organic equilibrium in the development of the intellectual group. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1407

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the subaltern group against the criterion of state possession and real hegemony — the core Gramscian term.
• XREF: Directly feeds the Islamophobia toolkit’s conception of the racialized/excluded ‘Other’ lacking hegemonic initiative.