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 i ...

s within the global order. The concept has different meanings within the fields of political theory, cultural studies, 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 a ...

In cultural studies

In the field of cultural studies, posthegemony has been developed as a concept by a number of critics whose work engages with and critiques the use of cultural hegemony 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 sh ...

. 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. 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

, 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 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 Næs ...

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 ...

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 domin ...

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 p ...

'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, 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

. 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, 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. 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

, ''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. 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 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 Vietnam a ...

, 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.

Notes

Bibliography

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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