Construct of Hegemony: Productive or Not?

      After reading both Gareth Williams’s The Other Side of the Popular: Neoliberalism and Subalternity in Latin America and excerpts from Jon Beasley-Murray’s Posthegemony: Political Theory and Latin America, I have noticed important differences in the ways that both writers discuss the concept of hegemony.  While Williams questions and deconstructs the use of the term hegemony and any kind of hegemonic binary, Beasley-Murray seems to take Antonio Gramsci’s notion of hegemony and run with it.  In the Introduction of his book, Beasley-Murray defines his use of the words hegemony and posthegemony as follows:

“By ‘hegemony,’ I do not mean mere domination.  To say ‘posthegemony’ is not to say that domination is at an end.  Command and control, exploitation and oppression, still manifestly continue… Nor by hegemony do I mean the concept in International Relations of a single dominant world power.  It may be that such a power no longer exists, but this is more a symptom of posthegemony than the main issue.  By hegemony I mean the notion, derived from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, that the state maintains its dominance (and that of social and economic elites) thanks to the consent of those it dominates.  Where it does not win consent, this theory suggests, the state resorts to coercion.  By contrast, in stressing the role of habit (rather than opinion) I point to processes that involve neither consent nor coercion” (x)

      Here, Beasley-Murray is defining his use of these words and fleshing out his perspective on hegemony and posthegemony within the context of Antonio Gramsci’s model.  Clearly, these terms prove to be productive and useful in Beasley-Murray’s discussion—they form the foundation for his theory in regards to what he terms as “habit” but also to his opinions on the larger subjects of power, politics, order, society, etc… In fact Beasley-Murray goes so far as to admit to advancing the concept and term posthegemony on the next page: “I am not the only person to have advanced a concept of posthegemony, though this book is the first to define it at such length and in these terms” (xi).  This open agenda runs in sharp contrast to that of Williams, who problematizes the use of the terms and concepts of hegemony and posthegemony.  Over and over again Williams shows the instances in which political moments in Latin America cannot be confined to such terms and binary lines of thinking.  Williams problematizes not only the use of these terms, but the entire approach that such analysis would tend to advance.  Especially in the first section of his book, “Closure,” Williams provides a long catalogue of failed analyses of Latin American socio-political life in his quest for a viable discourse and approach to this subject.  The question that I would posit is this: to what extent are these terms helpful and to what extent are they stifling?  Is there a possible alternative paradigm that is missing from the equation?  What would the alternative look like?