A gramscian perspective on field dynamics. The case of the privatization of Italian steel industry

Institutional fields are not static, they undergo times of fragmentation and times of settlement. Neo-institutional research has long explained the settlement of fields as either the effect of political manoeuvring of actors, or of discursive activity influencing cultural codes, narratives and symbols. But can these processes really be considered in isolation? In this paper, we propose to adopt a comprehensive view on fields’ dynamics, one that embraces the interaction of political and discursive manoeuvring to explain how fragmented fields manage to settle. To do so, we build on the Gramscian concept of hegemonic practices as discursive and political processes that integrate cultural equivalence among actors with political alliances based on aligned interests. Hegemonic practices align actors in a new historical bloc (a new settlement). Through this lens, we interpret the case of the Italian State steel privatization (1984–1995) and propose a process model explaining what yields fields’ dynamics from fragmentation to settlement. The model highlights the action of diffused agency in field dynamics, thus overcoming the obsolete challenger/incumbent view, and the need of becoming a historical bloc for alliances to stabilize a field.     

When food regimes become hegemonic: Agrarian India through a Gramscian lens

The concept of food regimes, as developed by Friedmann and McMichael, has proven useful in analysing how systems of food production, distribution, and consumption are linked to cycles of global capital accumulation and identifying the contradictions and conflicts that underlie them. A question that food regime analysis is relatively less able to address, however, is how food regimes become established and endure with the apparent acquiescence of those who are the victims of their contradictions and inequities. In this paper, I argue that a deeper engagement with Gramsci's theory of hegemony may help to address this lacuna in food regime analysis. To illustrate my case, I draw on studies of rural India from the colonial period to the present day, highlighting the ways in which the hegemonic mechanisms of consent and coercion have been crucial to the consolidation of each of the three food regimes identified by Friedmann and McMichael.     

论群众路线教育实践活动的意义——基于葛兰西政党观的视角

葛兰西作为西方马克思主义的开创者,其政党观在坚持无产阶级政党基本属性的基础上,坚持了无产阶级的群众观,又蕴含了无产阶级政党的持续改进的理念。以此出发,当前我党开展的群众路线教育实践活动,是无产阶级政党的根本所在,是我国适应新时期发展的必然要求,是不断改善党群关系的根本方法以及提升党员素质能力的最佳途径。     

Maintaining market principles: Government auditors,PPP equity sales and hegemony

The UK's government auditors, the National Audit Office (NAO), play a central role in the accountability relations surrounding government expenditure. Commonly portrayed as being independent, they carry out performance audits assessing value for money. To date, the emerging market for PPP equity transactions has attracted little attention. This paper explores that emerging market through a Gramscian framework utilising the concepts of ‘common sense’ and ‘good sense’, focusing on a dialogical analysis of a NAO report on the topic.In the process, the paper contributes to the debate about the nature and role of government auditors.     

The Social and Geopolitical Origins of State Transformation: The Case of South Korea

Recent debates surrounding state transformation in East Asia have tended to examine either how transformations in domestic social relations undermined the efficacy of the developmental state, or how mobilisation of coercion and consent at the international level led to the adoption of neoliberal policies. Through an examination of the case of Korea, however, this article seeks to move beyond this division between ‘domestic’ - and ‘international’ - centred analyses to provide a framework wherby mutually constitutive transformations taking place both at the level of social relations of production and at the level of the international order can be integrated to produce a conjunctural analysis of state transformation. Through deploying Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, an analysis of social and geopolitical underpinnings of korean late development is provided in order to provide an alternative explanation of the causes and nature of transition towards the neoliberal state since the latter part of the twentieth century.     

US Hegemony and the Origins of Japanese Nuclear Power: The Politics of Consent

This paper deploys the Gramscian concepts of hegemony and consent in order to explore the process whereby nuclear power was brought to Japan. The core argument is that nuclear power was brought to Japan as a consequence of US hegemony. Rather than a simple manifestation of one state exerting material ‘power over' another, bringing nuclear power to Japan involved a series of compromises worked out within and between state and civil society in both Japan and the USA. Ideologies of nationalism, imperialism and modernity underpinned the process, coalescing in post-war debates about the future trajectory of Japanese society, Japan's Cold War alliance with the USA and the role of nuclear power in both. Consent to nuclear power was secured through the generation of a psychological state in the public mind combining the fear of nuclear attack and the hope of unlimited consumption in a nuclear-fuelled post-modern world.     

《两骑士》的后殖民主题解读

乔伊斯认为《两骑士》是《都柏林人》中最好的故事之一,它揭露了爱尔兰社会的堕落。但该小说还未被充分认识。运用葛兰西霸权理论和法农及斯皮瓦克的后殖民理论剖析该小说,从政治社会、市民社会、属下阶层三个层面,可以揭示英国殖民者是如何通过＂政治高压＂和＂主动赞同＂来维护权力统治的。研究表明,殖民者的价值观变成全民共识,这种文化诱使被统治的爱尔兰人认同殖民者,有助于维护殖民统治地位而不是反抗压迫。     

葛兰西的市民社会理论意义和文化内涵

葛兰西是20世纪最富独创性的西方马克思主义理论家之一。“市民社会”概念是葛兰西哲学体系中的一个核心的范畴。他从文化层面上阐释市民社会理论的研究方式开创了研究市民社会的新路径。或许在对葛兰西“市民社会”理论与马克思“市民社会”理论的比较中,能达到对葛兰西市民社会思想更深刻的理解：和把握。     

The International Labour Organization and the ambivalent politics of financial inclusion in West Africa

This article examines the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in promoting ‘financial inclusion’ in West Africa. The role of the ILO in microfinance and financial inclusion has often been overlooked, in contrast to the role played by the World Bank, G20 and like institutions. The ILO is significant here because it suggests a number of ambiguities and important political dynamics that have gone overlooked in previous critical discussions of microcredit, which have often focused on the politics of commercialisation, indebtedness and accumulation by dispossession. This article draws instead on Gramsci’s concepts of subalternity and organic crisis to suggest that the politics of ‘financial inclusion’ in practice are often shaped as much by the political dynamics engendered by the erosion of postcolonial order as by the imperatives of accumulation. The argument is illustrated empirically by examining ILO activities on microinsurance and ‘inclusive finance for workers’ in West Africa, with an emphasis on Senegal.