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Gramsci and Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Esteve Morera
Esteve Morera
Affiliation:
York University
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Abstract

In the Quaderni del Carcere, Antonio Gramsci provided the foundations for a socialist theory of democracy. This theory can be drawn from some of Gramsci's most important concepts: his views of intellectual activity on the one hand, and the conceptions of hegemony and civil society on the other. The former provides a general conception of a non-bureaucratic relationship between leaders and the led, the latter points to a participatory model of political activity. This thesis, however, is formulated within the framework of a realist epistemology in which the class structure is conceived as the long-term determinant of the general historical process. Hence, although Gramsci's thought sheds new light on a non-class domain of political activity, it is constrained by both socio-economic conditions and the realism of available knowledge.

Résumé

Dans les Quaderni del Carcere, Antonio Gramsci apporte, fondement, pour une théorie socialiste de la démocratic. Cette théorie peut se déduire de certains concepts les plus importants de Gramsci: celui, d'une part, de l'activité intellectuelle, et, de l'autre, ceux de l'hégémonie et de la société civile. Le premier offre une conception générale des rapports non-bureaucratiques entre les dirigeants et la base; les derniers préfigurent un modèle de participation à l'activité politique. Cette thèse pourtant se formule dans le cadre d'une épistémologie réaliste dans laquelle la structure de classes est considérée comme déterminant à long terme le processus historique général. Par conséquent, bien que la pensée de Gramsci jette une lumière nouvelle sur un domaine d'activité politique sans caractère de classe, ce domaine est circonscrit à la fois par les conditions socio-économiques, et le réalisme des données disponibles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 23 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1990

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References

1 Cunningham, Frank, Democratic Theory and Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 8–9.Google Scholar

2 See, for instance, Nemeth, Thomas, Gramsci's Philosophy: A Critical Study (Atlantic City: Humanities Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Nun, José, “Elementos para una Teoría de la Democracia: Gramsci y el Sentido Común,” Revista Mexicana de Sociología 49 (1987), 21–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Laclau, Ernesto and Mouffe, Chantal, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, trans, by Moore, Winston and Cammack, Paul (London: Verso, 1985).Google Scholar

4 See Morera, Esteve, Gramsci's Historicism (London: Routledge, 1990)Google Scholar, especially chaps. 1 and 2, for a discussion of the relevant literature and an interpretation of Gramsci's thought in the Quaderni.

5 Gramsci, Antonio, Quaderni del Carcere, ed. by Gerratana, Valentino, 3 vols. (Turin: Einaudi Editore, 1975)Google Scholar, Vol. 2, 1375. For an English translation, see Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, trans, and ed. by Hoare, Quintin and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 323.Google Scholar In subsequent references to the Quaderni the corresponding page references in this English translation will be given in parentheses.

6 Ibid., 1375–76 (323).

7 Ibid., 1505 (418).

8 Mills, Charles, “Getting out of the Cave: Tensions between Democracy and Elitism in Marx's Theory of Cognitive Liberation,” paper delivered at the thirteenth annual conference of the Caribbean Studies Association, Guadeloupe, May 25–27, 1988.Google Scholar

9 Gramsci, Quaderni, Vol. 2, 1382 (330–31).

10 Ibid., 1505 (418).

11 Ibid., 1384–85 (332).

12 Ibid., 1331 (315). For a valuable interpretation of Gramsci's educational theory, see Entwistle, Harold, Antonio Gramsci: Conservative Schooling for Radical Politics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979)Google Scholar, especially the section on “Education and the problem of the intellectuals,” 113–29.

13 Cain, for instance, has argued that Gramsci's historicism “transcends the distinction between absolutism and relativism” with the consequence, which she thinks to be a sound position, that the “verifying claims of reason” are rejected, for, “if there is no absolute knowledge there can be no truth.” In short, “Gramsci regards correct knowledge as historically specific and class specific.” See Cain, Maureen, “Gramsci, the State and the Place of Law,” in Sugarman, David (ed.), Legality, Ideology and the State (London: Academic Press, 1983), 105.Google Scholar In spite of some seemingly corroborating statements in the Quaderni, this is not Gramsci's epistemology, though it is an extremely popular interpretation of his prison work, one that is mainly based on simplistic assumptions and careless reading of his prison work.

14 Gramsci, Qnaderni, Vol. 2, 801 (261). See also, Vol. 1, 56.

15 Ibid., Vol. 1, 372 and Vol. 3, 2287 (52).

16 Ibid., Vol. 2, 763.

17 Ibid., Vol. 1, 117; Vol. 3, 2057 (238); and Vol. 2, 866.

18 Ibid., Vol. 1, 461, and Vol. 3, 1591 (161).

19 Ibid., Vol. 3, 1766 (244).

20 Ibid., Vol. 2, 800 (264).

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23 Femia, Joseph, Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 116Google Scholar; emphasis in the original.

24 Sassoon has argued that Gramsci “emphasized the unity between transformations in the economy and the rest of society. This unity was conceived in terms not of a reduction of different levels to changes in the economy, but rather in terms of the need to pose the possibility of a transformation of society within the context of the potential given by changes in the organization of production.” See Sassoon, Anne Showstack, “Gramsci: A New Concept of Politics and the Expansion of Democracy,” in Hunt, Alan (ed.), Marxism and Democracy (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980), 85Google Scholar; emphasis in the original.

25 Gramsci, Quaderni, Vol. 2, 859–60, and Vol. 3, 1615–16 (235).

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27 Lobel, Jules, “The New Nicaraguan Constitution: Uniting Participatory and Representative Democracy,” Monthly Review 38 (1987), 11–12.Google Scholar

28 Gramsci, Quaderni, Vol. 2, 802 (239).

29 Ibid., Vol. 2, 1254; Vol. 3, 1565–66 and 1570 (242, 239).

30 Ibid., Vol. 1, 662 (253).

31 Ibid., Vol. 2, 1273.

32 Ibid., 903.

33 Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 69.

34 Laclau, Ernesto, “Transformations of Advanced Industrial Societies and the Theory of the Subject,” in Hanninen, Sackari and Paldan, Leena (eds.), Rethinking Ideology: A Marxist Debate (Berlin: Argument Verlag, 1984), 42.Google Scholar

35 Gramsci, Quaderni, Vol. 3, 2139–40 (279).

36 Ibid., Vol. 1, 73.

37 Ibid., Vol. 3, 2148 (295).

38 Ibid., 2149 (296).

39 Ibid. See also Vol. 1, 73.

40 Ibid., Vol. 3, 2149–50 (296). See also Vol. 1, 73.

41 Ibid., Vol. 1, 29, and Vol. 3, 2084.

42 Ibid., Vol. 2, 1056.

43 Ibid., 1254.

44 Ibid., 802 (239).