Summary

This chapter begins with an exegesis of Antonio Gramsci's conception of leadership in order to outline how several of his key concepts and ideas might be relevant for the present historical moment, in terms of understanding both the endurance of neoliberal governance and the intellectual and organizational imperatives for building a viable alternative politics. The chapter seeks to provide the conceptual groundwork for other chapters of this book by outlining, for example, concepts that are invoked and developed in these other chapters that consider our present predicament. These concepts include hegemony and ‘common sense’; the political party (‘The modern prince’); the role of organic intellectuals; and Gramsci's views on democratic, collective leadership versus charismatic leadership.

Democratic leadership emphasizes the collective nature of identifications through a political party, constituted on the basis of pedagogical exchange between leaders and led, so that, ultimately, there is no distinction between the two. By contrast, undemocratic leadership relies on individual charisma and never develops an organizational capacity for broader participation. Without ever denying the supreme importance of political organization, Gramsci saw political leadership as a form of radical democracy that encompassed the development of the popular capacity in order to create new forms of state and society – and, by implication, world order. He therefore rejected not only right-wing authoritarianism but also left-wing, élitist or vanguard political tendencies.