A (Liberal) Sheep in (Marxist) Wolf's Clothing? Reassessing Antonio Gramsci's Conceptualisation of Hegemony

Antonio Gramsci's greatest contribution to Western political thought, arguably, is his conceptualisation of hegemony. Sadly, a widespread tendency to misinterpret the term as being analogous to 'leadership based upon consent', has reduced power to ideological control: an essentially liberal perspective. This paper aims to rectify this error, carrying out a more comprehensive analysis of Gramsci's conceptualisation of hegemony as expounded in his Prison Notebooks, set against the backdrop of his own political/intellectual evolution. Hegemony, as a result, is shown to be compatible with Marxist theories of power, i.e. necessarily materially-rooted and underpinned by coercion.