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Gramscian hegemony: an absolutely historicist approach

One might think that Gramscian 'hegemony' has already been discussed far too much, yet the results, at least so far as Gramsci himself is concerned, have been less than conclusive. Partly this lies in the nature of the idea. 'Hegemony' lies at the centre of Gramsci's thought, but it is (to borrow his own term) a passive centre. It is defined not by its activity and autonomy but as a linking or bridging idea, which stands in some relation to virtually every other major feature of his thinking. If we are uncertain as to its primary meaning, this will be further obscured by the variety of contexts in which it occurs. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that Gramsci was not the sort of thinker, who made a fetish of defining his terms. On the contrary, the deliberate blurring or reworking of concepts handed down by previous theorists was one of his central preoccupations as, with the rude energy of the autodidact, he sought to build bridges between Lenin, orthodox Marxism and his own changing Italian situation. The recent shift in our analytical perspective, which has replaced Gramsci the exponent of "Western Marxism" with Gramsci the product of Italian tradition, 1 though welcome in many ways, has made but little difference at this central point. The established understanding of 'hegemony' as a primarily cultural phenomenon was. congenial to those seeking to portray Gramsci as in some original