State, Civil Society and Hegemony in Gramsci's Political Thought

This paper focuses in the Gramscian concept of hegemony and its relationship with the main political concepts of his thought. We face up to the interpretations that place hegemony exclusively in the field of civil society and show the theoretical complexity of the Gramscian concept of State, which integrates dialectically civil society with political society. This reveals the way in which coercion and consensus are articulated in Gramsci's political thought, as well as the need to dominate the political structures of the State in order to consolidate the hegemony achieved in civil society.