The ideas contained in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks have gone on to inspire political thinkers on both the left and the right.
Following the defeat of fascism in the Send World War, a new movement emerged within the far-right that adopted many of the strategies of Antonio Gramsci. In a process of what Roger Griffin calls "meta-politicization," a group collectively called "the new right" developed the fascism into an ideological discourse of its own that has been able to infiltrate mainstream politics (Griffin 2000, 170). They share Gramsci's conviction that cultural hegemony precedes political hegemony, and promote their views in publications that emulate academic journals. A prominent new-right publication was the Nouvelle Droite, which introduced the idea of "ethno-pluralism," which holds that while all cultures are equal, they should be segregated (Mudde 2019, 27). This idea has now entered into mainstream politics.
John McDonnell MP is a British Member of Parliament for the Labour Party. Under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, he became Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Gramsci saw the movement behind Corbyn, known as "Corbynism," as a counter-hegemonic project. In the 2017 General Election in the United Kingdom, he viewed the Labour Party manifesto as a crucial document which would introduce new ideas into the political mainstream. In 2017, he said “Hegemony is about dominating the debate, and it’s about transforming the whole reality as well. It’s about winning the argument first – and that’s what we did in the [2017] manifesto..." (Cowley 2018).
Neo-Gramscianism, developed by the economist Robert Cox, seeks to apply Gramsci's theories to the study of International Political Economy. Cox analyzed the global liberal economic order that emerged after the Second World War. This order, and the position of the United States within it, has become hegemonic on a global scale. According to Cox, this was not done by force, but through consent. Keystone International Economic Institutions (KIEO), such as multinational corporations, banks, and other international organizations, function as the civil society that secures the consent of the governed (Cohn 2020, 112). In this order, certain ideas, such as the free flow of capital, are not only viewed as positive, but common sense. In order to overturn this order, a counter-hegemony on a global scale needs to be created.
Works Cited
Cohn, Theodore H. 2020. Global Political Economy: Theory and Practice. 8th ed. London, England: Routledge.
Cowley, Jason. 2018. “Who Is the Real John McDonnell?” New Statesman. September 5, 2018. https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2018/09/who-real-john-mcdonnell.
Griffin, Roger. 2000. “Interregnum or Endgame? The Radical Right in the ‘Post-Fascist’ Era.” Journal of Political Ideologies 5 (2): 163–78.
Mudde, Cas. 2019. The Far Right Today. Oxford, England: Polity Press.
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