1. IR2501 THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Lecture 15
Gramscian Theory

2. Antonio Gramsci ( )
Founder of the Communist Party of Italy (1921)
Elected to the Italian Parliament (1924)
Imprisoned by Mussolini’s Fascist Government in 1926
Principal work: Quaderni de Carcere—Prison Notebooks ( )

3. Intellectual Roots Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Karl Marx ( )

4. Philosophy
Radical social ontology—an ontology of praxis, an understanding of social reality as the conscious creation of human history

5. Philosophy (Continued)
Gramsci: Reality is a product of the application of human will to the society of things, and this process of producing reality entails the historical transformation of human beings and their social lives.

6. TWO PRINCIPAL SOURCES
MARXISM
ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY

7. Conventional Marxist Model
SUPERSTRUCTURE
BASE

8. Major Elements of Gramscian Theory
Critique of Economic Determinism
Concept of Hegemony
Theory of Hegemony

9. Critique of Economic Determinism
Significance of culture and social consciousness
Background: Success of revolution in the East (Russia), failure in the West
Implicit critique of false consciousness thesis

10. Concept of Hegemony
Distinction between mainstream and Gramscian understandings of hegemony
Mainstream: power as capability or power as a relation

11. Gramscian Concept of Power
Dual nature of power
Centaur: half-man, half-beast
Coercion and Consent (capability and moral leadership)

12. Gramscian Theory of Hegemony
Dual nature of power
Distinction between Dominance and Hegemony
Political society/Civil society nexus

13. Theory of Hegemony (Continued)
Significance of Civil Society
Institutions of Civil society
Moral education

14. SUMMARY Expanded notion of power Significance of cultural hegemony
Civil society/State nexus