Posthegemony or post-hegemony is a period or a situation in which
hegemony
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over oth ...
is no longer said to function as the organizing principle of a national or post-national
social order
The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order ...
, or of the relationships between and amongst
nation state
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...
s within the global order. The concept has different meanings within the fields of
political theory
Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
,
cultural studies
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
, and
international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...
.
In cultural studies
In the field of
cultural studies
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
, posthegemony has been developed as a concept by a number of critics whose work engages with and critiques the use of
cultural hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of t ...
theory within the writings of
Ernesto Laclau
Ernesto Laclau (; 6 October 1935 – 13 April 2014) was an Argentine political theorist and philosopher. He is often described as an 'inventor' of post-Marxist political theory. He is well known for his collaborations with his long-term partner, ...
and within
subaltern studies
The Subaltern Studies Group (SSG) or Subaltern Studies Collective is a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies. The term ''Subaltern Studies'' is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who sha ...
. George Yúdice, in 1995, was one of the first commentators to summarize the background to the emergence of this concept:
Flexible accumulation, consumer culture, and the "new world information order" are produced or distributed (made to flow) globally, to occupy the space of the nation, but are no longer "motivated" by any essential connections to a state, as embodied, for example, in a "national-popular" formation. Their motivations are both infra- and supranational Supranational or supra-national may refer to:
* Supranational union, a type of multinational political union
* Supranational law, a form of international law
* Supranational legislature, a form of international legislature
* Supranational curre ...
. We might say that, from the purview of the national proscenium, a posthegemonic situation holds. That is, the "compromise solution" that culture provided for Gramsci is not now one that pertains to the national level but to the local and transnational. Instead, the "culture-ideology of consumerism" serves to naturalize global capitalism everywhere mphasis added
The concept of posthegemony is related to the rise of the "
multitude
Multitude is a term for a group of people who cannot be classed under any other distinct category, except for their shared fact of existence. Though its use dates back to antiquity, the term first entered into the lexicon of political philosophy w ...
" as a social force which, unlike the "people", cannot be captured by
hegemony
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over oth ...
, together with the roles of
affect and
habitus in mechanisms of social control and agency.
[These ideas are discussed extensively in , , and .] Posthegemony and its related terms are influenced by
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...
and
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari ( , ; 30 April 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and ecosophy with Arne Næss, ...
,
Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...
and
Michael Hardt
Michael Hardt (born 1960) is an American political philosopher and literary theorist. Hardt is best known for his book ''Empire'', which was co-written with Antonio Negri.
Hardt and Negri suggest that several forces which they see as dominat ...
and
Antonio Negri
Antonio "Toni" Negri (born 1 August 1933) is an Italian Spinozistic- Marxist sociologist and political philosopher, best known for his co-authorship of ''Empire'' and secondarily for his work on Spinoza.
Born in Padua, he became a political ...
's accounts of the supra- and infra-national forces that are said to have rendered obsolete the national-popular forms of coercion and consent through which, for
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , , ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, linguist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a ...
, hegemony structured and constituted society.
The features of posthegemony as a concept correspond closely to those of
postmodernity
Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the ...
. Thus, posthegemony theory argues that ideology is no longer a political driving force in mechanisms of social control and that the modernist theory of hegemony, which depends on ideology, therefore no longer accurately reflects the
social order
The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social order ...
. Some commentators also argue that history is not, as
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
described it, a
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
, but rather a "struggle to produce class".
The concept of posthegemony also resonates with the work of post-
Foucauldian
Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how ...
theorists such as
Giorgio Agamben
Giorgio Agamben ( , ; born 22 April 1942) is an Italian philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception, form-of-life (borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein) and '' homo sacer''. The concept of biopolitics ( ...
. Nicholas Thoburn, drawing on Agamben's discussion on the "state of exception", writes that "it is, perhaps, with the recasting of the relationship between law and politico-military and economic crises and interventions that is instituted in the state of exception that the time of hegemony is most revealed to have passed."
In international relations
In
international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...
, ''posthegemony'' refers to the decline of the US
unilateral
__NOTOC__
Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. As a word, ''un ...
hegemony. This has likely been the result of the difficulties that have arisen out of the unilateral style
foreign policy
A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
. These difficulties predominantly include disdain from; those directly affected by the, sometimes forceful, hegemonic actions of the US, those who spectated the actions, and even Americans themselves who view the actions of their government as immoral. For example, after the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, in 1978, 72 per cent of Americans thought the war was not a mistake but fundamentally wrong and immoral. This exemplifies the hegemonic decline: how could the US maintain the legitimacy of their interventions if their own citizens find them wrong and immoral?
The dominant power(s) of the world is/are fluid, the initial period of US unilateralism can be loosely pinpointed to their interventions during the world wars. Following this period of rising US dominance on the world stage,
The predictions of these individuals represent the fluidity of power over time, through the idea that, during the period where the US was unequivocally dominant, people could still see the inevitable future, of a change in power and authority, on the world stage.
Criticism
Among the criticisms of the theory of posthegemony is Richard Johnson's, that it involves "a marked reduction of social complexity." Johnson concedes that "one considerable achievement of 'the post-hegemony project' is to draw many observable
post-9/11
The post-9/11 period is the time after the September 11 attacks, characterized by heightened suspicion of non-Americans in the United States, increased government efforts to address terrorism, and a more aggressive American foreign policy.
Pol ...
features into a single imaginative picture, while also synthesizing different currents in contemporary social theory." But he argues that "it is strange, however, that the result is viewed as the end of hegemony rather than as a new hegemonic moment." He, therefore, calls for a rejuvenation of the concept of hegemony, rather than its abandonment.
See also
*
Postnationalism
Postnationalism or non-nationalism is the process or trend by which nation states and national identities lose their importance relative to cross-nation and self-organized or supranational and global entities as well as local entities. Although po ...
*
James C. Scott
James C. Scott (born December 2, 1936) is an American political scientist and anthropologist specializing in comparative politics. He is a comparative scholar of agrarian society, agrarian and non-state societies, Subaltern (postcolonialism), ...
Notes
Bibliography
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Further reading
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External links
Posthegemony a blog on "Hegemony, Posthegemony, and Related Matters"
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2018
Concepts in political philosophy
Critical theory
Cultural studies
Marxist theory
Hegemony
Cultural hegemony
Continental philosophy
Marxism
Social theories
Postmodernism