Unlike other books on political theory, The Prison Notebooks are not an abstract treatise on political concepts, but rather a practical manual that attempts to explain the rise of fascism and the failure of the socialist movement during the interwar years. Through his explanation, Antonio Gramsci repurposes pre-existing political terms into wholly original concepts. The most famous and influential of these redeveloped concepts is Gramsci's idea of hegemony. Simply put, hegemony is the dominance of one state or group over others, and is usually understood as dominance through the use of force. However, through a reconceptualization of the state, Gramsci redevelops hegemony into a theory of dominance not only through force, but through consent. 

Gramsci's Idea of the State

The idea of the state is one of the most important concepts in political theory, because it is understood as the principle unit by which societies are governed and through which international relations are conducted. In political science today, the most widely used definition of the state comes from the German sociologist Max Weber, who defines it as a group which has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a given territory (Munro 2013). This definition analyzes a state solely through its ability to control society by coercive means. However, Gramsci criticizes this approach, and argues that a state maintains hegemony not primarily through force, but through consent as well. 

In The Prison Notebooks, Gramsci expands the idea of a state to include not only the political apparatus, but private institutions in civil society such as universities, trade unions, and the mass media (Schwarzmantel 2015, 191). In Gramsci's view, the purpose of these institutions is the secure the general population's acceptance of the existing political order. This idea of the state as a combination of the political system and civil society is what Gramsci calls the "integral state." In this integral state, the hegemony of the dominant class is not secured primarily through political fore, but through the prevailing culture manufactured by civil society organizations that guarantees the consent of the people. 

The Intersection of Culture and Class

In order to understand how the Marxist emphasis on social class intersects with Gramsci's understanding of hegemony, an understanding of the theory of "base" and "superstructure" is needed. In Marxist theory, the economic system is understood as the key driver of social and political development. The economic system that a society has at any given time is referred to as the base. The superstructure is the mass of institutions that emanate as a consequence of this base. These include religious, political, and other civil society institutions (Singh 2013, 76). According to Orthodox Marxists, the base is the most important element of the society, and all superstructural elements are mere embellishments. However, Gramsci places a critical importance onto both the base and superstructure. According to him, the hegemony of a dominant class is based primarily on the economic system. The superstructural elements that emanate from this base create a culture and "common sense" that secures the legitimacy of the economic system and the position of the dominant class within it (Schwarzmantel 2015, 194). From Gramsci's perspective, the superstructure is critical in securing the consent of the people in any state. 

Gramsci's conceptualization of hegemony as domination not primarily through force, but through consent, is a dramatic departure from traditional understandings of the state and civil society. Rather than the state being a purely political and coercive body, it is an organism which produces a culture that secures the consent of the lower classes to the existing order. Unlike other communists, who sought to establish a new order through direct action and violence, Gramsci saw the development of a new culture and "common sense" as critical to creating a socialist society. Gramsci termed this struggle to create a new culture, or "counter-hegemony," as a "war of position," a term which will be explored further.

 Works Cited 

Munro, André. 2013. “State Monopoly on Violence.” In Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence.

Singh, Rana Indrajit. 2013. “Base and Superstructure Theory.” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention 2 (3): 75–77.

Schwarzmantel, John. 2015. The Routledge Guidebook to Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. London, England: Routledge.