The concept of hegemony
Integral to any Gramscian analysis of US foreign policy, the concept of hegemony underpins this study. Gramsci himself provided a broad definition of hegemony, describing it as ‘the “spontaneous” consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group’.7 He attributed this consent to the ‘prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production’.8 The concept of hegemony rests on the assumption that:
within a stable social order, there must be a substratum of agreement so powerful that it can counteract the division and disruptive forces arising from conflicting interests … that is, on the values, norms, perceptions and beliefs that support and define the structures of central authority.9
In contrast to realist theory, which broadly views hegemony as the leadership or dominance of one state over others, Gramscian theory offers a more complex, nuanced interpretation.10 This is achieved by distinguishing between coercive and consensual mechanisms of social control. In the context of the Middle East, it is possible to differentiate between contemporary authoritarian Arab states, which are heavily reliant on coercion, and the elite-based democracies the US seeks to eventually encourage in the region, which are based on more consensual forms of governance. The latter is a feature of the institutionalisation which characterises contemporary liberal democratic systems, which provides the means, in the context of forums, practices and procedures, for managing or resolving conflicts, as for example through periodic elections. It is important to note that democracies do utilise coercive force, but as a secondary measure, deployed in the absence of successful hegemonic practices. Gramsci referred to this as ‘hegemony protected by the armour of coercion’.11
The attainment of hegemony is dependent on the active consent of the governed, and their internalisation of the promoted ideology as logical or natural. As Robinson argues:
A Gramscian hegemony involves the internalization on the part of subordinate classes of the moral and cultural values, the codes of practical conduct, and the worldview of the dominant classes or groups – in sum, the internalization of the social logic of the system of domination itself.12
This occurs when elite groups ‘articulate a social vision which claims to serve the interests of all’, using incentives to mobilise support from subordinate groups, as well as preclude any opposition.13 It is achieved ultimately when the promoted ideology is voluntarily assimilated by society itself. It is worth noting that Gramsci perceived hegemony as fluctuating: from strong hegemony, which incorporates a high level of social integration and direct consensus between elites and masses, as for example in the US or the United Kingdom (UK), through to weak hegemony, which is characterised by a high level of elite integration, but with little incorporation of the masses, as for example in Greece or Pakistan.14 This is particularly relevant to the Middle East, given the nascent state of democratisation there.
The ideology of liberal democracy
The essence of hegemony lies in the ideology promoted. As part of the hegemonic process, Gramsci stated:
Previously germinated ideologies … come into confrontation and conflict, until only one of them, or at least a single combination of them, tends to prevail, to gain the upper hand, to propagate itself throughout society – bringing about not only a unison of economic and political aims, but also intellectual and moral unity, posing all the questions around which the struggle rages not on a corporate but on a ‘universal’ plane, and thus creating the hegemony of a fundamental social group over a series of subordinate groups.15
Gramsci saw ideology as a ‘spontaneous philosophy’.16 He argued that it is found first in ‘language itself, which is a totality of determined notions and concepts and not just of words grammatically devoid of content’.17 Second, it is found in ‘ “common sense” [conventional wisdom] and “good sense” [empirical knowledge]’.18 Finally, in ‘popular religion and, therefore, also in the entire system of beliefs, superstitions, opinions, ways of seeing things and of acting, which are collectively bundled together under the name of “folklore”’.19 Rather than simply a ‘system of ideas and ideals’, as it is commonly defined, ideology is more appropriately described by Anthony Giddens as the ‘shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups’.20 This is supported by Joseph Femia, who argues that ‘the reigning ideology moulds desires, values and expectations in a way that stabilizes an inegalitarian system’.21 An ideology ultimately provides the moral foundations for a system of government. Over the course of the twentieth century, imperialist, fascist and communist governments sought legitimation, domestically and internationally, based on their respective ideologies. For America, liberal democratic political values and free market economic principles, deriving from a broader Western legacy, constitute the primary elements of its ideology, and the basis of its efforts to promote it across the world.
This has involved a fundamental re-interpretation of the prevalent understanding of the term ‘democracy’ in the West. Christopher Hobson notes:
The original connotations of the term demokratia [democracy] … have been obscured by the tendency to translate it simply as the people (demos) exercising power (kratos). While demos can be read as being the whole political community, it was generally understood in a more narrow sense as one class of people: the poor multitude. This interpretation was found notably in authors such as Plato and Aristotle, and would structure the concept of democracy well into the 19th century. Kratos, meanwhile, has a forceful and almost violent dimension to its meaning that has been wholly lost. The term kratos ‘refers to might, strength, imperial majesty, toughness, triumphant power, and victory over others, especially through the application of force’.22
Hobson concludes that:
What were thus taken as the defining elements of the Athenian experience – the direct and forceful exercise of power in a small polity by the poor many – formed the backbone of complaints and concerns which condemned democracy to disuse and irrelevance for centuries.23 This fear of a ‘tyranny of the majority’ led America's founders to reject the notion of democracy at independence in 1776. Reflecting the predominant views of the time, none other than James Madison claimed that ‘democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths’.24 It was only after President Wilson's unprecedented call for the world to be ‘made safe for democracy’ in 1917, that the concept truly began to be rehabilitated in the West. And despite the fact that this rationale was not initially welcomed by the other Allied powers, it served to frame and justify the Allied war effort, and their subsequent vic...
