The Post-Marxist Gramsci

Gramsci’s ideas, particularly his formulation of cultural and ideological ‘hegemony’, have been a vital reference point in post-war Marxism and radical political thinking generally. Laclau and Mouffe’s recasting of hegemony in a post-Marxist idiom continued a wider tendency to amplify a specific aspect of Gramsci’s work, largely by neglecting consideration of his historical context or political and organisational commitments. By expanding hegemony into a radical theory of social constitution, I argue, Laclau and Mouffe drew upon Gramsci effectively to distance themselves from much of his legacy. This, I suggest, exemplified an interpretive attitude of ‘mourning’ that contrasts with the tendency to a ‘left melancholia’ that seeks an authentic radical subject prior to politics.