Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 30:2 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 179

00218308

A Realist Theory of Hegemony

JONATHAN JOSEPH

Hegemony is an important concept that has been subject to much discussion

since the emergence of Gramscis Prison Notebooks. The intention of this article is
not to go over old debates but rather, to develop a new approach to understand-
ing hegemony based on the method of critical realism. In particular, it will be
concerned to move hegemony away from the inter-subjective and culturalist
interpretations of recent years. Our argument is that while hegemony is quite
correctly associated with the question of how different social groups achieve
dominance through constructing consent and while the focus quite correctly
centres on matters like political projects and social alliances, it is not exhausted
by these aspects. Indeed, a theory of hegemony that focuses solely on these
questions is in danger of becoming inter-subjective, defining the nature of the
world on the basis of these human activities. By applying a critical realist method
to the question of hegemony, this article intends to supplement the agential
aspect of hegemony with a structural definition that can restore to hegemony the
objectivity that such a concept merits.
Further, by applying a critical realist method to hegemony, this article will
seek to develop the insights of critical realism itself, in particular, the trans-
formational model of social activity (hereafter TMSA). According to this model,
society is both the necessary condition for and reproduced outcome of human
activity. (Bhaskar, 1989: 3435) It argues that society is comprised of a number
of different social structures and that these structures are reproduced, mainly
unconsciously, through human practices. However, unlike the reified models of
Durkheim or Althusser, the TMSA argues that intentional human activity does
have some importance and that the need for structural reproduction allows
for the possibility of social transformation. Here, it will be argued, the TMSA
most clearly poses the need for a conception of hegemony that is related to the
question of structural reproduction as well as to the possibility of a transformatory
project, or indeed, for an effort to conserve or protect such structures from such
a possibility.

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Publishers Ltd.
Ltd. 2000.
2000 Published by Blackwell Publishers 108 Cowley
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180 Jonathan Joseph
In addressing these questions, this article advocates a concept of hegemony
that locates the inter-subjective aspect of political practice within an objective
structural context. It examines, not just the operation of hegemony, but the
social conditions under which this operation takes place. It also tries to develop
critical realism by adding a theory of hegemony to the transformational model
of social activity. And in doing so it will establish the basis on which hegemony
is to be regarded as a necessary social feature.

READING GRAMSCI

Antonio Gramsci is not the best example of a realist theorist. Indeed, in his
rather dismissive critique, Roy Bhaskar brackets Gramsci with Lukcs and Korsch
in reducing Marxism to the expression of the subject, a position best summarised
by Gramscis claim that:

Objective always means humanly objective which can be held to correspond exactly to
historically subjective: in other words, objective would mean universal subjective. Man
knows objectively in so far as knowledge is real for the whole human race historically unified
into a single unitary cultural system. (Gramsci, 1971: 445)

Bhaskar accuses Gramsci of reducing Marxism to the theoretical expression of

the working class, making it the expression of a subject rather than the know-
ledge of an object. (Bhaskar, 1991: 17274) On such a reading Gramsci is clearly
not a realist, collapsing reality into a philosophy of praxis or universal world-
view, while Marxism comes to represent the scientific truth, approached asymp-
totically through history and confirmed by the end-point of Communism.
The point of this article is not to claim that Gramsci is a realist. Indeed, to
make hegemony a realist concept it is necessary to shift the term away from an
exclusively Gramscian context. An endless debate might take place over whether
Gramsci is a realist, and idealist, a historicist, a hermeneuticist or a structuralist.
Instead of trying to resolve this debate, it is more profitable to recognise that
Gramscis work is multi-faceted, contradictory, fragmented and full of tensions.
The most important tension is that between Gramscis philosophical views
often heavily influenced by the Hegelianism of Croce and the romanticism of
Soreland his engagement with Marxist theory and practical politics. The more
realist aspect of Gramscis work is to be found in his analysis of social relations,
the balance of class forces and the mechanisms of domination, coercion, consent
and leadership. Instead of claiming Gramsci as a realistas has been done, for
example, by Morera (1990)we will make the slightly less bold claim that
some of Gramscis arguments are compatible with realism and that they can be
developed in a realist direction. However, that we can do this is important. It
indicates that unlike the other praxis philosophers mentioned by Bhaskar,

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 181
Gramscis arguments are not inextricably tied to a philosophical framework and
that, consequently, some kind of symptomatic reading that emphasises realist
and structural aspects is possible.
The first point to make about Gramscis concept of hegemony is that it is not
only applied to the proletarian struggle (as is the case in its early Russian usage),
but to society as a wholethus referring to a general feature of the social
formation rather than to the struggle of a particular group. And if Gramscis
theory of hegemony refers to a general social condition, we can also say that this
has an objective basis. Hegemony is not to be understood simply in terms of
the struggles between different agents. Rather, these agents should be seen in the
context of wider social conditions. On our realist interpretation of Gramsci, the
material conditions for hegemonic projects are to be found in the structure of
society. Agents are involved, not only in relations with each other, but in relations
with such structures. A hegemonic project should therefore be seen as an articu-
lated attempt to preserve or transform such structural conditions.
Gramscis term historical bloc might therefore be used to refer to the real-
isation or concretisation of this relation between hegemonic projects and struc-
tural reproduction. Gramscis writings on hegemony include a description of
the historical bloc which sees it in terms of the unity between structure and
superstructure. Thus he writes:

Structures and superstructures form an historical bloc. That is to say the complex, contra-
dictory and discordant ensemble of the superstructures is the reflection of the ensemble of the
social relations of production. (Gramsci, 1971: 366)

While questions may be raised about Gramscis use of Marxs base-superstructure

metaphor, this statement is an important step towards a realist position. The
historical bloc is not, therefore, reducible to the relation between different groups
or the organisation of agential forces. Rather, it represents the intervention of
these forces into the nexus of social structures. The success of a historical bloc
depends, not only on the relations of domination between groups, but on the
ruling groups relation to the conditions for structural reproduction.
Of course there are big questions over Gramscis use of the term structure and
it would be foolish to claim that he is using the term in the critical realist sense.
Nethertheless, there is reason to believe that Gramsci distinguishes between a
purely conjunctural understanding of the historical bloc, and the longer, relat-
ively enduring structured context:

in studying a structure, it is necessary to distinguish organic movements (relatively permanent)

from movements which may be termed conjunctural (and which appear as occasional,
immediate, almost accidental). (Gramsci, 1971: 177)

He goes on to write of the problems of historico-political analysis in finding the

correct relation between what is organic and what is conjunctural. One error

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182 Jonathan Joseph
is economism or an overestimation of mechanical causes, the second error is
an ideologistic excess of voluntarism and individualism. (Gramsci 1971: 178)
To put this concern in Marxist and realist terms, the aim should be conceive of
structure and agency not in isolation, but as dialectically related.
If we locate the basis for hegemonic projects in the relation of forces that
characterise a given structured situation, we can develop the view that hegemony
is not purely an inter-subjective concept but, rather, is grounded in objective
conditions. Despite the fact that Gramsci is often subjected to a culturalist em-
phasis that claims him as a theorist of the superstructure, we can see that his
theory of the historical bloc combines superstructural forms with structural rela-
tions of production. It is true that Gramsci is vulnerable to the charge that his
work suffers from a lack of economic analysis, but against those who claim that
hegemony is essentially an ethico-political concept, we can quote the statement
that hegemony must necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by
the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity. (Gramsci, 1971:
161)1 Hegemony might therefore be understood through Gramscis notion of
catharsis in that it is not simply the ethico-political moment, but the passage
to this moment from the economic and structural through to the superstruc-
tural. (Gramsci, 1971: 366) Gramsci does indeed emphasise the inter-subjective
character of social relations, but this point is arrived at after a study of the
various levels of social forces starting with those closely linked to the structure,
objective, independent of human will. (Gramsci, 1971: 180) The development
of social classes is not arbitrary but emergent, each one having a specific position
and function within production. Gramsci suggests a study of the ideologies of
these groups according to the degree of realism and practicability contained
within them. He then goes on to discuss the subsequent moment of polit-
ical forces (the conceptualisation of this moment as subsequent again implies
the notion of emergence). Here classes move away from the purely economic-
corporate level and develop a degree of consciousness and organisation.
(Gramsci, 1971: 181)
The point of these distinctions is to differentiate between inter-subjective
accounts of hegemony which give primacy to agential interaction, group interests,
actual hegemonic projects and particular world views, and a more objective
explanation that examines these in the context of underlying social relations. We
might examine the way that hegemonic projects react back upon the conditions
of their emergence, facilitating the processes of social reproduction and cohe-
sion. The hegemonic process is defined, therefore, not simply on the basis of the
relations between groups, but on the basis of the relations between groups and
structures. This is again clear when Gramsci writes that:

what is involved is the reorganisation of the structure and the real relations between men
on the one hand and the world of the economy or of production on the other. (Gramsci,
1971: 263)

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 183
Therefore, to understand why a group should become hegemonic, it is not
enough to say that it exerts its dominance over other groups. We should look at
how the group must also have behind it the economic, political and cultural
conditions that allow it to put itself forward as leading. We might develop the
objective basis of hegemony by looking at Gramscis conception of the passive
revolution. This notion is used to describe the attempts by the ruling group to
organise the superstructure in line with structural developments. Gramsci
has in mind the situation in Italy where the ruling class attempted to compensate
for its historical weakness by carrying through a reorganisation of civil society in
order to pre-empt the direct activity of the masses. This reorganisation takes the
form of a modernisation which is in line with the structural developments that
are occurring in the economy. It seeks to cultivate these changes in order to try
and prevent any potential crisis, putting into practice a far reaching reorganisa-
tion that creates the impression of progress. Gramscis analysis of Italy points to
how the bourgeoisie attempted to deflect from its own weakness by developing
Fordist production techniques, the effect of which was widely felt so that:

through the legislative intervention of the State, and by means of the corporative organisation
relatively far-reaching modifications are being introduced into the countrys economic struc-
ture in order to accentuate the plan of production . . . (Gramsci, 1971: 120)

This also emphasises the key role played by the state in the organisation of
hegemony. The ruling groups or fractions organise themselves (or develop their
existing organisation) through the state, bringing together differing interests and
forging them into a hegemonic bloc. The state therefore acts as a strategic terrain
for the implementation of hegemonic projects. It is involved in the organisation
of the hegemonic bloc itself and the relation between this bloc and the wider
layers of society. It is the site of major struggles as well as negotiations and
compromises, of articulations and exclusions. Through its bodies and institutions
it secures the cohesion of the historical bloc comprising the relations between the
different class fractions that form the ruling bloc, and those groups and classes
that this bloc seeks to organise through coercion and consent.
Moving away from Gramsci to see how these ideas might be developed, we
can argue that the state also operates in relation to the economy in what could
be called a functional sense. Under capitalism this is to help secure and repro-
duce the conditions for commodity production and capital accumulation and to
help in the extraction and distribution of the surplus product (something that
does not necessarily flow automatically from the fact of the separation of labour
and the means of production but which requires a legal and political frame-
work). We argue this on the realist basis that society is not constituted by auto-
nomous or closed processes and mechanisms, but is an open, often contradictory
combination of different structures and tendencies and that the conditions for
the reproduction of the basic economic relations of society need to be socially

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184 Jonathan Joseph
secured. We may refer to these conditions as the underlying structural hegemony
of society. The dual role of the state is therefore to provide a strategic terrain for
the implementation of hegemonic projects and to act in order to secure the
conditions for social reproduction (more specifically, the capitalist state must
secure the conditions for accumulation).
This leads to a complicated situation where the state must combine the interests
of different groups and classes with the needs of capital. This is not a harmonious
relationship and there is no guarantee that those groups that form the ruling
political bloc will necessarily act in the best interests of capital accumulation (for
example, the threat posed to stabile capital accumulation by Mussolinis govern-
ment in Italy, or more recently, by the Islamicist project of the ruling bloc in
Iran). The state cannot provide ready made functionaries who will act in the best
interests of capital (we might compare this to Marxs distinction between particu-
lar interests and the general interest. (1975: 107)) However, there is a functional
relation between the state and the economy and, ultimately, the most successful
hegemonic blocs will base themselves on underlying economic conditions, while
maverick political projects will come up against structural obstacles. This helps
clarify Gramscis understanding of the historical bloc as the relation between
structure and superstructure and the conditions that allow a group to put itself
forward as leading. Combining as it does the question of political leadership with
the relation to the economy (and other fundamental social structures), this con-
ception of the state contrasts with instrumentalist positions (as reflected in the
crudest versions of Classical Marxism as well as more recent work such as
Milibands) that see the state simply as the tool of the ruling class. In fact, the
creation of hegemonic blocs is a necessary feature of society precisely because
there is no guaranteed correspondence between the actions of the ruling class
and the reproduction of the structures of capitalist society.
This duality of structural functions and agential projects leads to a conception
of hegemony as the political or class struggle moment in the interaction between
structures and agents. This is a break from the inter-subjective conception that
views hegemony simply in terms of the relations between agents. Instead, we
focus on the underlying question of what generates hegemonic processes or
struggles. This is in keeping with Gramscis view that structural conditions
underlie hegemonic projects so that, for example, in the case of a social crisis:

incurable structural contradictions have revealed themselves (reached maturity), and that
despite this, the political forces which are struggling to conserve and defend the existing
structure itself are making every effort to cure them, within certain limits, and to overcome
them. (Gramsci, 197: 178)

Here, hegemony can be seen in the context of efforts by political forces to

conserve certain social structures in order to promote their own interests. This
hegemonic project is both motivated by structural contradictions and limited or

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 185
undermined by them. This understanding of hegemony as a conscious project
to conserve (or we might also add, to transform) social structures, within certain
limits, coincides with a critical realist perspective on social practice as outlined
by Andrew Collier as:

practice tending to take over or destroy certain institutions (politics of change) or to defend
them from such attacks (politics of conserving). The transformation of social structure is
necessarily a political act, but their reproduction is not; the task of politicians who defend the
existing order is not to cause its reproduction, since the system in a sense reproduces itself; it is
rather to ward off threats to that reproduction. (Collier, 1989: 15253)

According to critical realism hegemony is concerned not with the reproduction

of these relations as such, but with the need to secure the conditions for their
reproduction. Although the reproduction of social structures is largely a non-
conscious process, the relations between these various structures, practices and
mechanisms require a degree of organisation. The structural aspect of hegemony
in securing the conditions for reproduction, or its intervention to conserve and
defend the existing structure, indicates that the automatic reproduction of society
cannot be guaranteed given that it is complexly structured with diverse mechan-
isms, practices and human activities some of which require co-ordination while
others may be in open conflict or contradiction. We will now turn to structural
reproduction and the stratification of the social by discussing critical realisms
attempts to conceptualise transformational activity.

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL MODEL OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY

AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Despite our emphasis on the structural aspects of Gramscis concepts, it is cer-

tainly possible (indeed often normal) to read Gramsci as a praxis theorist or
hermeneuticist. This is to argue that the main emphasis in Gramsci is on the
actions of social beings and groups and the consequent interpretations and mean-
ings flow from this. This might be said to flow from the previously mentioned
passage where Gramsci equates objective with universally subjective.
Where the hermeneutic tradition is correct is in its understanding that the
social sciences deal with a conceptually pre-interpreted reality. In Gramscis
case, he is clearly correct in arguing that our knowledge and actions are historically
mediated. Critical realism describes this process by which we know the world
as transitive. But it also insists that transitive knowledge is of intransitive objects
that are independent of the knowledge we have of them. Where hermeneutics
errs is in its conflation of transitive knowledge with the intransitive conditions of
this knowledge, or the conflation of social being and social thought and human
praxis and social structure. The separation of these realms is necessary if we are

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186 Jonathan Joseph
to maintain the conception that knowledge is refutable. We cannot get away
from the meanings that social actors have, but by insisting on an independent
intransitive realm, it is possible to question these meanings and examine their
conditions of possibility.
Critical realism advocates a critical naturalism in opposition to those accounts
that reduce the social to its conceptual aspect or inter-subjective consensus (see,
for example, Anthony Kings recent critique of Bhaskar which includes a denial
of objectified structures and the advocacy of a hermeneutic ontology of inter-
acting individuals (1999: 274) ). In opposition to hermeneutics, realism argues
that just as the natural world is comprised of various layers of structures and
generative mechanismslike genetic make-up, physical laws or atomic and sub-
atomic structuresso the social world is also comprised of a stratified ensemble
of structures and relationssocial, economic, political, communicative, etc.,
which also have a (relatively) enduring nature and which are therefore worthy
of scientific investigation. Anti-naturalist theories that deny the existence of
intransitive social structures succumb to an empirical realist ontology based on
human experiences and individual actions. But social structures are a necessary
condition for intentional social activity. We never act within a void but always
through an already existing set of social relations. Social structure should there-
fore be seen as the very basis for enabling human activity.
This emphasis on enablement already marks out critical realism from those
accounts that only see the constraining or reificatory aspect of social structure.
It takes this further by arguing not only that social structures enable human
activity, but also that human activity is necessary for the reproduction of social
structures:

Society is both the ever-present condition (material cause) and the continually reproduced out-
come of human agency. And praxis is both work, that is conscious production, and (normally
unconscious) reproduction of the conditions of production, that is society. One could refer to the
former as the duality of structure and the latter as the duality of praxis. (Bhaskar, 1989: 3435)

This conception is important in opposing both voluntarist accounts that reduce

society to the free actions of agents and reified accounts that reduce agents to the
mere bearers of structure. Instead, the TMSA insists that social structures must
already exist if social activity is to occur but that if this activity is necessary for
the reproduction of society, then the possibility exists that these structures can be
transformed.
The fact that social structures are a necessary condition for and reproduced
outcome of human agency allows for the possibility that this human agency can
transform as well as reproduce. This in turn poses the possibility of hegemonic
activity. The logical extension of the TMSA is therefore to include relations of
struggle, of transformation and preservation, or hegemonic intervention. These
struggles represent a political moment in the process of reproduction whereby

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 187
agents may act to preserve or transform the existing conditions. A ruling group
may consciously mobilise support to defend a given situation. It may also seek to
intervene on the back of underlying structural developments as is the case when
projects of social re-construction or modernisation take place. An example would
be the re-structuring of production, political alliances and practices and state
intervention that took place after the Second World Wara passive revolution
or state led process of social, political and economic renewal. In other, more
common circumstances (since post-war developments represent a longer-term
strategy), a ruling group may have to mobilise support to conserve a situation
(and hence the underlying structural conditions) that is of benefit to it. The ruling
group may have to act to ward off transformatory activity, or else to overcome
structural contradictions. These specific hegemonic projects will be based on the
perceived interests of the agents although the consequences involve the repro-
duction of the underlying social structures. This is consistent with the distinction
made by Bhaskar between intentional activity and structural reproduction.
As far as straightforward reproduction is concerned, the conscious intentions
of agents have unintentional reproductive consequences. As Bhaskars example
of marriage shows, people do not marry to reproduce the nuclear family but it
is the unintended consequence of their actions. (Bhaskar, 1989: 35.) The process
by which the structure of the nuclear family is reproduced is not, therefore,
based on the intentions of agents to reproduce it. However, it is dependent
upon people getting married which is in turn dependent on people intending to
marry. The reproduction of abstract social structures is non-conscious rather
than intentional. However, these are the unintentional consequences of inten-
tional actions. As Bhaskar puts it:

the TMSA requires that the present actions which serve to reproduce social structure only be
intentional under some description, not under the description of reproducing the structure
concerned (which would make all social reproduction or persistence the product of conscious
acts). (Bhaskar, 1994: 95)

This relation indicates the need to distinguish between human agency and
social structure. If it applies to standard reproduction it also applies to more
deliberate attempts to intervene into the process of social reproductioneither
to preserve or transform at set of relations. The intentions of most protesters
during the Eastern European uprisings of 1989 were to call for a democratic
transformation of society. The largely unintentional consequence of these actions
was to give support to those forces fighting for capitalist restoration. And the
largely unintentional consequences of the restorationist project were mass unem-
ployment and social insecurity (even the worst capitalist does not necessarily wish
to create misery, only to make lots of money). Likewise, those forces in Indonesia
who attempted to defend their interests in crony capitalism did so at the
possible expense of further capitalist expansionundermining confidence and

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188 Jonathan Joseph
damaging the conditions for accumulation. We can see, therefore, that even in
the case of intentional action, many unintentional structural consequences follow.2
This distinction indicates the fact that society has a stratified character. It is
comprised of a number of different structures, practices and generative mechan-
isms each with various causal properties. These combine in different ways, some
layers determining others, some overlapping, some relating in complementary
ways, others standing in contradiction to each other. These are the dialectics of
stratification and overdetermination.
The stratification of these objective conditions produces a corresponding strati-
fication of social agents. The combination of different economic, political and
cultural factors produce various class determinations or fractions. Classes them-
selves are not homogenous but contain different strata spread over a various
social structures. Hegemonic projects reflect this stratification and are based on
the existence of these different social groups and on the objective social relations
which produce these differentiations. Hegemonic blocs reflect the fact that social
classes do not exist as homogenous blocs but contain different strata that need to
be organised and have their interests reconciled. The concepts of structuration
and stratification enforce the fact that hegemonic projects are not simply the
product of agential wishes but must take into account a pre-structured situation
that presents hegemonic agents with a variety of choices for social action, based
on the distribution of powers, properties, interests and resources as well as
limitations, liabilities and constraints. Different agents therefore have different
powers, potentials and liabilities based on their place within a set of structured
social relations.
The work of Nicos Poulantzas examines how classes can be broken down into
fractions that correspond to different interests, powers and relations within
classesfor example, the distinction within the bourgeoisie between fractions
based on financial and industrial capital. There are also other categories that
combine different features but which are united on the basis of their social
functionfor example the bureaucracy and intelligentsia. Other stratasuch as
the group of privileged workers that Lenin termed the labour aristocracy
may benefit from economic or political advantages and may therefore lend
support to a conservative bloc that defends these advantages even if this mean
opposing what might be claimed as their own class interests. In opposition to
the instrumentalist view that the state is a tool of the ruling class and the
economic determinist view that the politically dominant class is that which holds
economic power, Poulantzass analysis allows a genuine role to be given to the
process of hegemonic construction. Because classes and social groups have many
different determinations, a negotiation of interests must take place through a
bloc which constitutes a contradictory unity of politically dominant classes and
fractions under the protection of the hegemonic fraction. Poulantzas, 1973: 239) We may
relate this to the post-war project that incorporated sections of the working class
and the labour bureaucracy into a closer historical bloc, while granting major

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 189
concessions to the working class in generalcementing the bloc with welfarism
and consumerism.3
We can now make a reappraisal of the TMSA for it is not sufficiently clear
how the TMSA incorporates critical realisms argument about the stratified
nature of the world, and in particular, the relation between different structures,
agents and practices. The discussion of the reproduction and transformation of
social structures is posed at a very general level, leaving the question of stratifica-
tion unanswered. It is not adequate simply to say that society is the pre-requisite
and consequence of human action. The concept of social stratification requires
us to look at how this process is mediated by other factors like practicesfor
example the established social practice of getting married mediates between
individual intentions to marry and the reproduction of the nuclear family. Neither
can the TMSA be left to explain the reproduction of individual structures since,
in the open context of the social world, structures do not exist in isolation but
form part of wider combinations or ensembles. The reproduction of the nuclear
family, for example, is connected to other structures, practices and bodies like
the legal system, patriarchal structures, the church, the reproduction of labour
power, property relations and so on. The reproduction of the nuclear family
presupposes the reproduction of these other relations, while the process by which
the structure is reproduced is mediated.
The stratification of the social means that the conception of the TMSA as
condition and outcome of human practice is inadequate. Reproduction and
transformation implies a) mediation through established practices and social
structurata (concrete structured entities as opposed to the more abstract notion
of structural relations) and b) connections between the reproduction of one
structure and its place in the an ensemble of other structures, the structures
relation to other practices and agents, and the agents relation to other structures,
practices and agents. These complications mean that the TMSA model refers to
an abstract model of structures in isolation. Having established this model it is
necessary to re-situate it in an open context where various structures, mechanisms,
practices and agents operate together.
To incorporate these arguments into the TMSA it is necessary to extend the
model to include a theory of hegemony capable of dealing with the stratification
of both agents and structures. We have already argued that hegemony intervenes
into the TMSA as soon as agents attempt to alter the process of social reproduc-
tion in order to either conserve or transform the existing situation. The effects of
these interventions will be stratified across other social structures and practices
that are connected to the ones the agents are trying to affect. This often leads to
unintentional consequences as our examples of Eastern Europe and Indonesia
indicate.
As far as transformatory action is concerned, if structures, practices and gen-
erative mechanisms exist in stratified and hierarchical combinations and if some
of these carry more weight and influence than others, then clearly there will be

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190 Jonathan Joseph
different degrees of transformative action. The TMSA must take note that in
order for a transformation to occur, some kind of hegemonic strategy is neces-
sary. This must be capable of relating to the stratification of agents so that it can
unite various different agents or fractions under a common set of interests (or
under the interests of the hegemonic fraction). It must engage with the distribu-
tion of causal properties, powers, resources and constraints and recognise the
stratification of structure by locating the most important (or feasible) structures
or structurata to be transformed and the connections these may have to other
social relations. And given the connectedness of such structures, a transformatory
project will require a degree of discipline and resoluteness if it is to succeed. This
makes it necessary to emphasise aspects of hegemony such as direction and
leadership, notions that are implicit in Gramscis use of the term. It means that
the model of the TMSA cannot be left at the abstract level of structures and
agents but must proceed to concrete actions, projects and bodies. A transformat-
ory project cannot be confined to a single structure but must take into account
the dominant dynamics within the social hierarchy and direct itself at a wider
combinatory. Transformation, like the structures themselves, is stratified and
multiple, and requires co-ordination. For the most ambitious projects this points,
not to abstract structures, but to the state, as the main body capable of co-
ordinating social transformation.
This is the basis for the elaboration of an agential conception of hegemony.
However, the stratification of the social necessitates another, more structural
notion of hegemony. The TMSA argues that generally the reproduction of social
structures is not a conscious or intentional process, so we might assume that it
occurs automatically. However, this again is a conception based on the abstrac-
tion of certain structures in isolation. We must therefore bear in mind that these
structures operate in an open context and that they occur in various combina-
tions. The question posed is not simply the reproduction of individual structures
but the reproduction of these wider social ensembles. Here a structural notion of
hegemony becomes important. It is concerned with the way that these structures
function together and how social cohesion is maintained.

TWO ASPECTS OF HEGEMONY

The basis for a realist theory of hegemony lies in a distinction between a structural
aspect of hegemony and an agential aspect. The agential aspect of hegemony is
rather easier to outline as it corresponds to the normal understanding of the
concept as the struggle for dominance, the application of strategy, the exercise of
power, the striving for consent, the articulation of interests, the construction of
blocs and the battle of ideas.
Our argument is that underlying this is a more structural aspect of hegemony
that is concerned with its role in the process of social reproduction. As the

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 191
TMSA argues, the reproduction of social structures is largely unconscious.
However, these structures do not exist in isolation, but in contradictory social
ensembles. The reproduction of the relations between these structures cannot
always be guaranteed. Hegemony in its structural sense refers to the relations
between these structures, practices, generative mechanisms and institutions, and
between political, economic and cultural domains. Its basic role is to secure the
cohesion of the social system and ensure the reproduction of basic social structures
and social and institutional ensembles. However, this functional role in securing
the unity of the social formation, should not be interpreted in an essentialist way.
Hegemony does not have a unique role but exists in its conditions of possibility.
Andrew Collier introduces the notion of conatus to describe the way things have
a tendency to persist in their being (1999: 3). If things can hang together then
hegemony succeeds. If it fails, a hegemonic crisis emerges which has to be
resolved. Structural hegemony refers to the unity of the social formation and the
need to secure the conditions for the reproduction of social structures. In relation
to this function hegemony can be good or bad, strong or weak, stable or volatile,
dynamic or stagnant.
Our distinction is between a deeper, structural hegemony which refers to the
unity and reproduction of society and its structures and institutions and the
agentially based hegemony of specific hegemonic projects. By making this dis-
tinction we do not seek to completely separate these two aspects. It is an ana-
lytical distinction between structural and agential aspects of a social process.
They pre-suppose one another in that hegemony combines the political moment
of agency with the structural nature of social reproduction. The possibility of
particular hegemonic projects is based on the structural necessity of a hegemonising
process. Those inter-subjective and humanist approaches that reduce society to
the activities of groups and individuals, effectively reduce hegemony to its ex-
pression and ignore its material conditions of being. Our distinction is between
hegemonys basic material necessity and various forms of its actualisation through
concrete projects and intentional agency.
This relates to our understanding of the historical bloc as the relation between
material structure and politico-ethical superstructure. It is a relationship which
concerns the fundamental unity of society, but which has to be realised through
the concrete projects of various fractions, groups and classes. We can add to this
understanding a concept of emergence or the idea that while certain levels of social
activity presuppose more fundamental structural or material conditions, they
nevertheless have their own irreducible features. In the case of the agential
aspect of hegemony, it is dependent upon an underlying or lower level of social
relations which allows for its expression through concrete hegemonic projects.
But the expression of these projects, practices and struggles has its own particular
character and dynamics. Any account of hegemony must recognise its structural
or material grounding and the determining influence that this plays on actual
hegemonic activities. But it must also recognise that as the structural conditions

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192 Jonathan Joseph
of hegemony are realised through such activities, these assume a degree of
autonomy and develop their own distinct features. These can, of course, act
back upon the very structural conditions from which they are emergent. While
structural hegemony performs the function of ensuring the reproduction of social
structures and composites, this functional requirement allows for the manifesta-
tion of various attempts at hegemonic projects that must engage with this under-
lying requirement. They represent the proactive side of hegemonythe conscious
political projects and interventions that occur within the context of the under-
lying, slower and surer process of social cohesion and structural reproduction.
We can compare this position to the stance taken by Margaret Archer in
relation to the TMSA and culture and agency. Archer is critical of the idea that
the TMSA represents the duality of structure and the implication that structures
and agents are mutually constitutive. She criticises the position of Anthony Giddens
who argues that structures are instantiated by the activity of agents in the
present (1996: 7695).4 In examining the relation between culture and agency
she argues that the cultural system logically pre-dates the socio-cultural actions
which transform it, while cultural elaboration (development) logically post-dates
such interaction (1996: xxv). She thus distinguishes between the cultural system
and socio-cultural integration. The conception of the cultural system embraces
the kind of structural and systemic-functional definition that we have used in
relation to structural hegemony. This is distinct from socio-cultural elaboration
which may be compared to hegemonic practices and projects. Archer criticises
those theories that collapse this distinction. In the case of the downwards con-
flation of normative or functional accounts, the cultural system engulfs socio-
cultural integration so that the socio-cultural level becomes an epiphenomenon
of systemic structuring (1996: 20, 42) By contrast, upwards conflation (where
Archer rather harshly includes the position of Gramsci) allows the socio-cultural
level to engulf the cultural system which is reduced to an effect of social domina-
tion and ideological manipulation (1996: 20).
Archers alternative model flows thus: cultural conditioning cultural inter-
action cultural elaboration (1996: 144). A realist theory of hegemony might
similarly move from hegemonic conditioning hegemonic interaction hege-
monic elaboration. If hegemonic interaction involves the traditionally understood
notions of hegemonic actions by social groups and classes, this depends on prior
hegemonic conditioning or the role that hegemony must play in securing the
unity of the social formation. This function cannot be reduced to the actual
expressions of hegemonic elaboration just as hegemonic elaboration cannot be
reduced to prior structural conditioning. The duality of hegemony is based on
its structural function to secure the unity of the social formation and its agential
expression through conscious social projects. These projects and struggles are
emergent out the deeper hegemonic conditions and are determined by the basic
structure of society, but they are not reducible to it. Hegemonic interaction has
its own dynamics leading to a unique outcome or elaboration. Their dependence

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 193
on underlying hegemonic conditioning means that these projects cannot ultimately
escape certain basic conditions just as plants and animals cannot escape certain
laws of nature. But they can develop in their own specific way and give these
conditions their own form of expression.
Given the open and stratified nature of society, the relations between structural
hegemony and hegemonic elaboration may assume a contradictory character.
For example, deep disturbances at the structural level of hegemony may lead to
a crisis at the level of hegemonic interaction. This deep hegemonic crisis may
be represented by a crisis of capital accumulation, a crisis of bourgeois political
representation, and a crisis of cultural hegemony. In the 1930s this led to the
elaboration of hegemonic projects based on fascism. In one respect we might say
that the success of the fascist project is dependent on its ability to resolve the
crisis of the hegemonic foundations of German and Italian society. Such conditions
allowed for the particular appeal of fascism and the view, certainly of sections of
big business, that fascism could inflict a defeat on the working class movement
and restore the smooth functioning of capitalist relations of production. However,
while this provided the basis for a hegemonic project to emerge, its expression
went beyond, and ultimately came into conflict with these conditions. Its petit
bourgeois base and its populist-demagogic aims and programme were not best
suited to resolving the crisis of capitalist hegemony. Ultimately the fascist project
was frustrated by the general underlying hegemonic conditions, and the demands
of the petit bourgeoisie were replaced by the needs of big business (in Trotskys
terminology, fascism is transformed into bonapartism (1971: 15556) ). The fascist
project was emergent out of a deeper structural crisis of bourgeois hegemony but
was unable to resolve this crisis and, through its particular elaboration, only
further developed these contradictions. Similarly, we can see in Gramscis stud-
ies of the Italian Risorgimento how the particular projects of the ruling groups were
continually frustrated by the underlying weakness of Italian civil society or social
hegemony. This weakness can explain the failings of particular projects, how-
ever, it cannot explain the specific programmes and actions of these groups in
trying to resolve or overcome these contradictions.
The distinction between a deep or structural hegemony and an emergent,
agential or manifest hegemony can also be related to a distinction Roy Bhaskar
makes between power1 and power2 expressed in his latest writings:

Suppose one distinguishes power1, as the transformative capacity analytic to the concept of
agency, from (the transfactual or actual) power2 relations expressed in structures of domina-
tion, exploitation, subjugation, and control, which I will thematise as generalised master-slave
(-type) relations. (Bhaskar, 1993: 60)

Power1 relations are seen as enabling, structural relationsthis is a notion of

power as pouvoir or to be able. Power2 relations represent the exercise or
manifestation of these powers and constitutes the ability to exercise power

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194 Jonathan Joseph
over. We may draw a rough parallel between power1 as intrinsic and enabling
and power2 as exercised and manifest and the two aspects of hegemony that we
have outlined. The structural aspect of hegemony (hegemony1, perhaps) cor-
responds to an intrinsic relation to social reproduction and transformation and
its more functional aspect in relation to securing the reproduction of the social
formation, while hegemony in its manifest or surface expression corresponds
to the exercise of hegemony through actual hegemonic projects, practices and
struggles (hegemony2). The strategic or territorial aspect of hegemonyexpressed
by Gramsci as a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks (1971: 238)is
also conveyed by Bhaskars description of power:

power2, as the (possessed, exercised, mobilised, manifest, covert, indirect, mediated or their
contraries; globally, nationally, regionally, sectorally, locally, economic, political, military, sym-
bolic, etc.; more or less ideologically legitimated or discursively moralised, more or less resisted
or opposed, more or less successfully, etc.) transfactually efficacious capacity to get ones
way . . . and to thematise the plurality, which approximates to a potential transfinity of power2 or
generalised masterslave-type relationships . . . (Bhaskar, 1993: 15354)

Thus Bhaskars notion of power2 implies a theory of hegemonic struggles around

these masterslave relations of exploitation and domination within the context
of different geo-political sectors and locations. This indeed is what Bhaskar intro-
duces next, a conception of:

hermeneutic hegemonic/counter-hegemonic struggles around structures of domination, exploita-

tion and control, and more generally discursively moralised power2 relations of a potentially
indefinite number of types . . . (Bhaskar, 1993: 101)

This is quite correct, but there are limitations to Bhaskars approach. Most
crucially, he limits his discussion of hegemony to these power2 relations of ex-
ploitation without discussing its intrinsic aspect at power1. In fact, hegemony is
limited to hermeneutic hegemonic/counter-hegemonic struggles in the context of gener-
alised masterslave relations. (Bhaskar, 1993: 62) This has two drawbacks. First,
if Bhaskar is restricting hegemony to power2 struggles, he is limiting it to its
expression or exercise and cutting it off from its basic materiality. Second, the
notion of hegemonic struggle as hermeneutically constituted reduces hegemony
to its conceptual moment or to its role as an articulator of discourse. The result
is a conception of hegemony in its agential aspect as an exercised or manifest
project consciously carried out by social agents. The masterslave relations
involve struggles to get ones wayeither to dominate or resist domination
as power over rather than power to. But the very fact that it is possible to
exercise power over is due to the intrinsic aspect of hegemony as a basic
feature of social systems. Bhaskars talk of hermeneutic hegemonic struggles
reduces hegemony to a conscious agential process without the underlying struc-
tural aspect. It fails to relate hegemony to the TMSA and the question of the

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 195
reproduction and transformation of social structures. In fact the most stable
forms of hegemony exist at this deep structural level and may result in a lack of
power2 hegemonic struggles. Such may be the case in much of post-war Europe
where the institutionalisation of social concessions and the creation of a long-
lasting historical bloc (linked to deep seated changes in production relations and
state strategy) led to a long period where serious hegemonic/counter-hegemonic
struggles did not manifest themselves. It is to these concrete conditions that we
shall now briefly turn.

HEGEMONY AND THE POST-WAR PERIOD

The Second World War brought in far reaching changes leading to many social
uncertainties. It was clear, therefore, that a new order had to be established that
could allow for widespread social change while preventing social instability. It is
impossible to analyse this period and the activities of groups without referring
to the underlying changes in the structural hegemony of society. This can be
related to Gramscis notion of the historical blocnot just a conjunctural project
by a particular group of agents but a bloc designed for an entire historical
periodand to the idea of the passive revolution that builds on and cultivates
widespread structural changes in society through a reorganisation of social insti-
tutions. In particular, Gramsci looks at the relation between a more active form
of state intervention and the development of productive relations and work
practices so that:

through the legislative intervention of the State, and by means of the corporative organisation
relatively far-reaching modifications are being introduced into the countrys economic
structure in order to accentuate the plan of production element; in other words, that
socialisation and co-operation in the sphere of production are being increased, without how-
ever touching (or at least not going beyond the regulation and control of ) individual and group
appropriation of profit. (Gramsci, 1971: 120)

The post-war era is based on far reaching changes in the structure of society, the
organisation of production and the related deep hegemony. It is closely connected
to the generalisation of Fordism which brought in more regulated work practices,
conditions and management, an escalation of mass production, new wage struc-
tures and bargaining, and a mass consumer society. Gramsci relates Fordism to
the growth of monopoly capitalism allowing for an increased amount of economic
regulation. It is also linked to Americanisation or the spread of North Amer-
ican productive methods throughout the world which brings with it changes in
social life, creating automatic and mechanical attitudes among the population.
Fordism and hegemony have a wider international context based on the role
of the US in the post-war order (its influence on the rebuilding of Europe, on
political and economic world bodies like the United Nations and Bretton Woods,
and the increasing power of US corporations). Fordism is not limited to the

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196 Jonathan Joseph
economic sphere but has a wider social context based on the role of the inter-
ventionist state, demand management, Keynesian policies and consumerism.
Fordist production both generates and is facilitated by state involvement and
intervention. This could be described as an accumulation-regulation model
where the relation between capitalist production techniques and the strategy of
the state implies a concept of deep or structural hegemony. Fordism implies
particular state strategies designed to facilitate growth and secure social cohe-
sion. These strategies in turn require the construction of a new historical bloc
based on a set of social and political alliances. Our argument is that Fordism,
state intervention, the historical bloc and new socio-political alliances are insepar-
able features of the post-war order. To put this in Bob Jessops terms, we might
distinguish between some sort of economic hegemony deriving from a general
acceptance of an accumulation strategy, a political hegemony involved in secur-
ing an institutional unity of the capitalist state and the question of class unity or
compromise. (1990: 8, 199)
Widespread support for the post-war order was built around a number of key
concessions like collective bargaining, higher wage rates and full employment.
The pacifying effect of this was further enhanced by the incorporation of labour
leaders into the ruling bloc, while the more privileged sections of the working
class (the group Lenin called the labour aristocracy) were further integrated
by the feeling of economic empowerment and partnership. Across Europe in
particular, these factors buttressed the conservative character of labourism and
social democracy. Keynesian policies aimed at both stimulating growth and
promoting the feeling of social participation and empowerment. The place of
social democracy in the post-war bloc was cemented by the construction of the
welfare state throughout Western Europe. Welfarism, consumerism and full
employment provided the ideological cement for this new hegemonic order. It
was so successful that the Conservative forces had to reinvent themselves. Only
recently has neo-liberalism been able to start the dismantling of the welfarist-
state and its underlying historical bloc.
This dismantling began once growth started to founder. Although Marx tells
us that contradictions are inherent in the capitalist system, these tendencies may
be partially overcome by the exercise of counteracting tendencies (methodolo-
gically we may point to the realist distinction between structural tendencies
analysed in isolation (capital in general) and the complexities of an open social
context where various structures and mechanisms operate together). The post-
war order was based on the guarantee of accumulation and the ability to over-
come inherent tendencies towards crisis. When, in the 1960s, productivity growth
and capital value began to decline, the mechanisms of regulation were unable
to deal with the resulting crisis. Although Fordism had facilitated the post-war
recovery, its methods were now exposed as cumbersome and inflexible.
The policies pursued since the late 1970s reflect the need to resolve the conflict
between the process of capital accumulation and the post-war hegemonic blocs.

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 197
The reorganisation of the social conditions of production has been matched by
attempts to construct a new historical bloc based around neo-liberal capital-
ism. The Reagan-Thatcher project succeeded in bringing about the deregulation
and flexibilisation of capitalism, breaking it from the Keynesian-Fordist model of
accumulation. However, the political nature of this project must be examined
within the wider context of a neo-liberal restructuring of capitalist relations
encouraging as well as being facilitated by government policies. New work prac-
tices and management techniques have developed. Labour flexibilisation has
occurred alongside the creation of mass unemployment. Collective bargaining
and union powers have been attacked. Now, finally, welfare benefits and provi-
sion are under fire.
This provides the context for understanding the crisis of social democracy
and the project of the Third Way as outlined by Blair and Giddens. In Britain
the traditional ideas of labourism that have held a hegemonic grip over the
working class have been discredited by the failure of Keynesian policies, the
collapse of Stalinism and the dominance of the neo-liberal model. The Labour
Modernisers and Third Way theorists reject the old role of the Labour Party
and trade unions. They have attacked what they call old Labour, while at the
same time giving critical support to the neo-liberal policies of Thatcherism. The
Third Way represents an attempt to transform social democracy by coming to
terms with neo-liberalism and what is termed globalisation combined with an
attempt to reconstruct a new hegemony around a radical centre.
It might be claimed that Blair and his supporters are attempting to destroy
social democracy from within, but this is not an easy project given the organic
composition of the Labour Party and its historical and institutional ties. These
in turn have been the undoing of the British Conservative Party, reflecting the
vulnerable nature of its make-up. Many elementsin particular those affected
by the petit bourgeois little Englander mentalityhave proved unable to adapt
to the new economic changes taking place throughout the European Union.
This is a deep irony not only because of the support for the EU among British
business, but also because many of the policies of Thatcherismthose that
encouraged deregulation, flexibilisation and attacks on welfare and labour
were exactly in line with the demands of the EU project. It is an irony that the
British Tories would seem to be a casualty of a new Europe-wide hegemonic
bloc, the conditions for which are dependent on precisely the policies that they
pursued. We can only account for this by noting how the stratification of structures,
agents and their interests has created a series of contradictions, not least at the
heart of the Tory party itself.
We might summarise this process as an attempt to move from national models
of state regulation to a Europe wide hegemony based on a single market and
currency, on cross-border political bodies, and on the ideological legitimation of
Third Way neo-liberalism. This has led to complex reactions across different
layers. The general contradictions of capitalism have led to a reorganisation of

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198 Jonathan Joseph
production relations while the reorientation of capital and the moves towards a
new Europe-wide hegemonic project has led to conflicts with the specific interests
of different hegemonic groups.

CONCLUSION

Those who would limit a conception of hegemony to its inter-subjective, consen-

sual or agential aspect cannot explain the reasons for its occurrence or account
for why particular groups become dominant or are able to offer leadership. A
theory of hegemonic projects must look at the necessary conditions that give rise
to such activity. Our argument is that hegemonic projects are possible precisely
because hegemony is a necessary feature of society at a more basic level of social
relations. It is the necessity of hegemony at the level of the conditions for social
reproduction that allows for the possibility of specific hegemonic projects. These in
turn help realise the social function of hegemony, but they are not reducible to
it. This, therefore, is the analytical basis for the distinction between the intrinsic
or structural aspect of hegemony and its manifest or agential role. Together, we
can say that hegemony represents a contingent development of essential relations.
The hegemonic process represents the political moment in the reproduction of
the structures of the social formation, combining the structural aspect of repro-
duction with the political moment of agency. The fact that social structures need
to be reproduced and that this is done through varying degrees of intentional
activity, gives hegemony its important social place. While the process of social
reproduction has an automatic element to it, society is an open system that
requires an increasingly sophisticated level of co-ordination. Some sort of hege-
mony or political intervention is required if the ensemble of social structures,
generative mechanisms, social institutions and human practices is to function
smoothly. This gives the state an important role and under capitalism it must act
to ensure that the accumulation of capital can be facilitated. We have argued
that the state has a functional relation to the economy and must secure the
hegemony of society in this deeper, structural sense in order to facilitate the
process of capitalist accumulation. In doing this it has to put in place the neces-
sary political and ideological conditions. However, the success of this function is
not given. Because of the stratification of society and the fact that the cohesion of
the social formation must be realised through the complex projects of different
class fractions, conflicts may emerge between hegemonic class interests and
the process of capital accumulation. Because the state also provides the strate-
gic terrain for securing and developing political hegemony, these two aspects
may not function in harmony. This, we argued, is the basis for the tension
between the construction of a Europe-wide historical bloc best suited to the needs
of a trans-European capital, and the political interests of particular class fractions.
Hegemony (operating through the state) organises the relations between different
social groups within a ruling bloc and also the relation between the ruling bloc

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 199
and wider layers in society. Some groups, for example, sections of capital, the
military and layers of the bureaucracy, are closely implicated in the bloc while
others (like the petit bourgeoisie and peasantry) lend a degree of support. Other
groups, like sections of the working class or different ethnic or national groups,
may require more direct coercion. Hegemony must relate to these different
layers and it must also relate to other (sub- or counter-) hegemonic processes.
Some of these may feed off the dominant hegemony while others may come into
conflict with it. A hegemonic project must relate to this territory in a strategic
way. By spreading itself across the stratified layers of society, hegemony becomes
a geographical as well as a historical bloc. The idea of hegemony as command
over space and territory is graphically illustrated by Gramscis talk of wars of
position and manoeuvre reflecting the process of negotiation, regroupment and
conquest. It represents a process of colonisation by means of strategic inter-
ventions, confrontations and resolutions, each consolidated through a system of
fortresses and earthworks. Hegemony must operate across the stratified, layered
and overlapping terrain of reality itself. However, hegemony, within structural
limits, can rework this space and develop it. It must attempt, firstly, to operate in
accordance with the underlying terrainthe slower more enduring unity and
cohesion of the social totalityout of which arises the possibility of particular
hegemonic projects. Such projects represent a more concrete, actual or surface
level realised through a process of emergence, and are reliant on the spatio-
temporal possibilities of location. This is well grasped in Henri Lefebvres notion
of space when he asks:

Is not social space always, and simultaneously, both a field of action (offering its extension to the
deployment of projects and practical intentions) and a basis of action (a set of places whence
energies derive and whither energies are directed)? Is it not at once actual (given) and potential
(locus of possibilities)? (Lefebvre, 1991: 191)

These different locations and possibilities relate to the fact that some structures,
practices and generative mechanisms carry more weight and influence than others.
This poses questions for transformatory activity and requires that a hegemonic
project must take account of the different aspects of the social terrain through a
process of strategic selection. The problem with the critical realist model of the
TMSA is that most social activity can be seen as transformatory in some way or
another. The question is to distinguish activity that is genuinely transformatory
in the sense of fundamentally altering the social totality. The TMSA must there-
fore incorporate a theory of hegemony that introduces the leading and directing
role that it plays in seeking to transform the most strategically important social
structures and relations. A hegemonic strategy is required to select the key struc-
tures within society, as well as the main transformative agents in relation to
those structures. It must then seek to unite these agents and engage them in
transformative practice. This must take account of other mediating factorsnot
just the connections between different structures and different agents but also the

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200 Jonathan Joseph
effect of established historical practices, social institutions, political bodies and
social ideologies.
If a counter-hegemonic project is to be truly successful, it must transcend
surface hegemonic battles and the particular activities of certain groups and
try to fundamentally alter the deeper hegemony of society. It has to challenge
the relatively enduring space and time generated by the underlying social struc-
tures, the relatively non-conscious character of these relations and engage in a
process of transformation. When such struggles truly move to the deeper hege-
monic level, conflicts emerge between agents and the structures themselves. Be-
cause of the weight that deeper, structural hegemony has over actual hegemonic
practices, a transformative project is not easy and is really only achieved under
conditions of structural crisis. Then the gaps and fractures that start to open
up allow counter-hegemony more of a chance to squeeze out its own space.
The examination of the application of hegemonic strategy is more properly
the task of a specific scientific enquiry. This article has instead concentrated
on establishing the objective basis on which hegemonic strategies operate. The
functional role that hegemony has within society guarantees the strategic role
that hegemony can play. Different strategies may succeed or fail. But hegemonic
strategy is a permanent feature of society.
It can be concluded that the status of the concept of hegemony depends
largely upon how we conceive of society. An overly hermeneutic account of
society that reduces it to its conceptual aspect or an inter-subjective perspect-
ive that reduces society to the activities of different groups cannot provide the
necessary space for a functioning concept of hegemony. If, however, society is
conceived of as objectively structured with underlying causal mechanisms and
dominant processes, then the structural aspect of hegemony must be explored.
Because of this close connectedness between conceptions of society and concep-
tions of hegemony (as securing the reproduction of society) we can steal Bhaskars
description of society and apply it to hegemony in both its structural and agential
aspects. Thus the objective basis of hegemony can be said to rest on the fact that
it is both the ever-present condition (material cause) and the continually repro-
duced outcome of human agency.
Jonathan Joseph
Centre for Continuing and Community Education (PACE)
Goldsmiths College
New Cross
London SE14 6NW

NOTES

1
The culturalist view of Gramsci as a theorist of civil society is also undermined by
Gramscis statement that: The normal exercise of hegemony on the now classical

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 A Realist Theory of Hegemony 201
terrain of the parliamentary regime is characterised by the combination of force and
consent, which balance each other reciprocally . . . to ensure that force will appear to be
based on the consent of the majority (Gramsci, 1971: 80 n.49). This makes the double
point that hegemony involves force as well as consent (it is not merely cultural or idea-
tional but physical) and that hegemony belongs to the state (traditionally regarded as a
coercive apparatus) as well as to civil societyhence hegemony is not just cultural but
political.
2
This contrasts with Kings argument that Porpora and Bhaskars belief in emergence
is a thinly disguised form of social reification which involves an embarrassing commit-
ment to the antinomy that society is both dependent on and independent of individual
practices and beliefs. (1999: 278). As we have tried to show, the stratification of structure
and agency means that structures are reproduced by intentional activity and in this sense
are dependent on human activity which in turn is dependent on the actors having certain
intentions that cause them to act. However, this intention to act is not the same as the
intention to reproduce the structure. The reproduction of structures does not depend on
our intention to reproduce them. Rather, they are reproduced through the unintentional
consequences of intentional acts. We can also say that the reproduction of the basic
relations of capitalist society is independent of our conceptions of them. However, this
reproduction does require that agents have the intention to work or earn a wage. The fact
that critical realism stresses that social reproduction requires such conscious intentions is
entirely different from saying that agents must be able to conceptualise the workings of
the capitalist system before it can be reproduced.
3
Poulantzas has written about post-war hegemony in his essay Marxist Political Theory
in Great Britain. Here he criticises Anderson and Nairn for developing a concept of
hegemony too closely linked to the class consciousness of the groups involved. His altern-
ative structuralist conception argues that: the internal unity of the dominant ideology
derives from the fact that it expresses the Marxist unity of a social formation as a whole
founded as a determinate mode of production . . . its internal coherence, comprehensible
if related to the overall unity of the formation, corresponds to the political hegemony
not to the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie. (Poulantzas, 1969: 6768). The corres-
ponds to the kind of structural arguments advanced in this article. However, we have
distinguished between this structural aspect of hegemony based on the need to secure the
unity and reproduction of the social formation, and the emergent, agential aspect of hege-
mony reflected in hegemony projects and actions. In addition, the critical realist concept
of the TMSA restores the active role of agency in the reproduction/transformation of
social structures. Poulantzass formulation lacks this latter element and therefore becomes
a static, functional and undialectical account.
4
Archers point is that by giving equal weight to structure and agency and claiming
their instantiation in social practices Giddens disallows the pre-existence of structures
rules and practices, leading to a sociology of the present tense (1995: 9799). A similar
point is made in the earlier work of Derek Layder who criticises Giddens for identifying
structure with the doings and productions of interactants (instantiated rules and resources)
while no room is left for prior structures of power since structure cannot be constituted
outside of human agency (1981: 66).

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