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Hegemony is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; or more broadly, that cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group.

Throughout history, cultural and political power in any arena has rarely achieved a perfect balance, but hegemony results in the empowerment of certain cultural beliefs, values, and practices to the submersion and partial exclusion of others. Hegemony affects the perspective of mainstream history as written by the cultural victors for a sympathetic readership. The official history of Christianity, marginalizing its defined " heresies", provides a richly-exampled arena of cultural hegemony.

Jás Elsner in Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (1998) has written:

"Power is very rarely limited to the pure exercise of brute force.... The Roman state bolstered its authority and legitimacy with the trappings of ceremonial — cloaking the actualities of power beneath a display of wealth, the sanction of tradition, and the spectacle of insuperable resources.... Power is a far more complex and mysterious quality than any apparently simple manifestation of it would appear. It is as much a matter of impression, of theatre, of persuading those over whom authority is wielded to collude in their subjugation. Insofar as power is a matter of presentation, its cultural currency in antiquity (and still today) was the creation, manipulation, and display of images. In the propagation of the imperial office, at any rate, art was power." (quoted at [1])

1 Theories of hegemony

Theories of hegemony attempt to explain how dominant groups (known as hegemons) can maintain their power -- the capacity of dominant classes to persuade subordinate ones to accept, adopt and internalize their values and norms.

Antonio Gramsci devised one of the best-known accounts of hegemony. His theory defined the State by its coercion combined with hegemony; according to Gramsci, hegemony consists of political power that flows from intellectual and moral leadership, authority or consensus, as distinguished from mere armed force.

Recently critical theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have re-defined the term "hegemony".

2 Hegemonies in history

The word "hegemon" originated in ancient GreeceGreece formally called the Hellenic Republic (in Greek: ) Hellenike Demokratia , is a country in the southeast of Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. It is bounded on land by Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania, and derives from the word hegeisthai (meaning "to lead"). An early example of hegemony during ancient Greek history occurred when SpartaThis page is about the ancient and modern Greek city of Sparta. For other uses see: Sparta (disambiguation Sparta was an ancient city in Greece, the capital of Laconia and the most powerful state of the Peloponnesus. The city lay at the northern end of th became the hegemon of the Peloponnesian LeagueThe Peloponnesian League was an alliance of states in the Peloponnese in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. By the end of the 6th century, Sparta had become the most powerful state in the Peloponnese, and was the political and military hegemon over Argos, the in the 6th century BC7th century BC 6th century BC 5th century BC other centuries) ( 600s BC 590s BC 580s BC 570s BC 560s BC 550s BC 540s BC 530s BC 520s BC 510s BC 500s BC other decades) ( 2nd millennium BC 1st millennium BC 1st millennium AD) Events Cyrus the Great conquere. Later, in 337 BCCenturies: 5th century BC 4th century BC 3rd century BC Decades: 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC Years: 342 BC 341 BC 340 BC 339 BC 338 BC 337 BC 336 BC 335 BC 334 BC 333 BC 332 BC Births King Demetr, Philip II of MacedonPhilip II ( 382 BC 336 BC), King of Macedon ( 359 BC 336 BC) Olympionike, was the father of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon) and Philip III of Macedon. Coin with likeness of Philip II Born in Pella in 382 BC, he was King Amyntas III of Maced became the personal Hegemon of the League of CorinthThe League of Corinth was a federation of Greek states created by Philip II of Macedon during the winter of 338 BC/ 337 BC to facilitate his use of Greek military forces in his war against Persia. The major provisions were: Member states' constitutions in, a position he passed on to his son Alexander the Great.

To the extent that hegemony appears as a cultural phenomenon, cultural institutions maintain it. The Medici maintained their hegemony in Tuscany through control of Florence's major guild, the Arte della Lana. Modern hegemonies also maintain themselves through cultural institutions, often with allegedly "voluntary" membership: the Boy Scouts of America or the National Rifle Association — one might adduce countless modern associations.

In more recent times, analysts have used the term hegemony in a more abstract sense to describe the " proletarian dictatorships" of the 20th century, resulting in regional domination by local powers, or domination of the world by a global power. China's position of dominance in East Asia for most of its history offers an example of the regional hegemony.

The Cold War (1945 - 1990), with its main avenues of coercion -- the Warsaw Pact led by the USSR and NATO led by the United States -- often appears as a battle for hegemony. Details of the parties' respective ideologies have no relevance to the concept of hegemony: both sides featured superpowers (supported by their clients) battling to dominate the arms race and become the supreme world superpower.

Since the end of the Cold War, analysts have used the term "hegemony" to describe the United States' role as the sole superpower (the hyperpower) in the modern world. However, some scholars of international relations (such as John Mearsheimer) argue that the United States does not have global hegemony, since it lacks the resources to impose dominance over the entire globe.

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