Class dynamics and ideological construction in the struggle over fairness: a neo-Gramscian examination of the Fairtrade initiative

This paper develops a neo-Gramscian conceptual framework in order to examine the ideological constructs and political dynamics that frame the day-to-day workings of the certification-based Fairtrade initiative. To accomplish this goal, the paper resorts to the notion of a ‘comprehensive concept of control’, which accounts for the main ideological elements that constitute the Fairtrade vision of the world. The analysis of these imaginaries is complemented with an examination of the concrete ways in which they have been institutionalized in the Fairtrade system and the specific power relations between class fractions they promote. This is followed by an exploration of the way in which Fairtrade articulates the contradictory interests of a variety of class fractions, bringing them together under the shared objective of advancing the situation of small producers and workers in the global South. The paper finishes with a reflection on the main limitations inherent to Fairtrade’s concept of control and the political dynamics it entails.     

Spain: from the indignados rebellion to regime crisis (2011-2016)

Since 15 May 2011 Spain has progressively entered a political and regime crisis in which the main institutional pillars of the political system constructed in 1977-1978 during the transition from the Franco dictatorship to parliamentary democracy suffered from serious wear. This can be analysed following Gramsci's notion of hegemony crisis whose main features fit well with the current situation in Spain. The regime crisis has passed through different stages – the last being the emergence and rise in the polls of Podemos, which emerged in a context marked by the deepening of the crisis and the difficulty of securing significant social victories. To understand the meaning of this current regime crises it is useful to read history, following Walter Benjamin as an open process full of bifurcations with no linear trajectory. Spanish regime crisis opens for the first time since the seventies the possibility of a social and political change whose final sense is still uncertain.     

State–peasant movement relations and the politics of food sovereignty in Mexico and Ecuador

This contribution argues that the articulation between the state and peasant organizations’ internal structures – the class characteristics of their mass bases, their leaderships and the modes of interaction between the two – is critical for determining the nature of contemporary struggles guided by the discourse of food sovereignty. It will show that that counter-hegemonic demands are not synonymous with counter-hegemonic practice; rather than struggling to replace the neoliberal food regime, many peasant organizations employ the food sovereignty discourse as a political tool in their negotiations with the state in order to access resources from within the prevailing neoliberal model, not to transform it.     

The legacy of subalternity and Gramsci’s national–popular: populist discourse in the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Drawing on Laclau’s concept of populist discourse and Gramsci’s ‘national–popular collective will’, and using the case of Iran, this article puts forward the idea of the legacy of subalternity in the context of post-revolution governments. The concept of ‘national–popular collective will’ facilitates an understanding of how the popular subject is constructed and the meanings embedded in that process. It is argued that Islamic Republic elites articulate a populist discourse that constructs the ‘self’ (the Islamic Republic) as synonymous with ‘the people’. Embedded in this discursive construction is a legacy of subalternity that goes back to the 1979 Revolution’s populist discourse.     

Overcoming the division bloc and its limitations: a Gramscian approach to South Korean social formation

Abstract

Colonialism affects post-colonial social formations in a variety of ways. Japanese colonial rule had a far-reaching influence on South Korean post-colonial social formation. Most legacies of colonialism diminished as time went by, but one legacy of colonialism continued or even increased its effects on the South Korean political economy from the 1960s – namely, the division of Korea. This article provides an alternative Gramscian approach to the analysis of the social formation of South Korea, with due consideration of the division of the peninsula. For that purpose, it introduces the concept of a division bloc, adapting Gramsci’s concept of a historical bloc to develop an analysis of a social formation that is unique to South Korea. Then, I explicate the two events that have been most damaging for the division bloc – the 1997 economic crisis and the 1998–2007 inter-Korean reconciliation – describing them as an organic crisis and a hegemonic project, respectively. Following this, I present reasons why the counter-hegemonic efforts of liberal nationalists to overcome the division bloc failed.     

Religion and inter-ethnic violence in Indonesia

Commentators have long struggled to understand state-society relations in Asia within the framework of the dominant liberal-democratic conceptualisation of civil society. This article examines the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's theory of civil society for understanding contemporary Cambodia and Vietnam, with reference to both legal and social frameworks. Such an analysis illuminates important aspects of state-society relations in Southeast Asia that tend to be overlooked by dominant liberal and Marxist perspectives. This article argues, however, that the utility of Gramsci's conception of civil society for understanding state-society relations in Cambodia and Vietnam, by retaining the notion of civil society as a realm associatively separate from the state, is limited.     

葛兰西对克罗齐国家理论的批判与超越

葛兰西的“完整国家”理论实现了对克罗齐“伦理国家”理论的批判与超越。实践哲学强调政治实践，超越了处于思辨层面的伦理政治史观；“完整国家”将市民社会和政治社会相结合，突出个人的作用，超越了“伦理国家”忽视人的活动和把国家完全机构化的缺陷；“阵地战”将组织系统、工业系统纳入整个战争，实现政治、经济和军事的一体化，超越了“消极革命”的不现实性。葛兰西和克罗齐关于建立文化国家的构想，实现了国家理论研究的意识形态转向，对西方马克思主义的发展产生了重要影响。     

相互依存式霸权：“第二世界”和金砖国家的崛起透析

在全球化背景下,以金砖五国等新兴国家为代表的“第二世界”崛起对全球产生广泛影响,并由此带来了国际关系与国际政治经济的变迁。葛兰西的核心理论框架——“霸权”概念以及以考克斯为代表的新葛兰西主义学派对探究新兴国家崛起的问题是有启发作用的,但是全球化与跨国资本主义的深化对新葛兰西主义学派提出了挑战。在整合新葛兰西霸权理论和后霸权批判理论,并将“第二世界”和“相互依存”加入分析框架之后,理论界提出一种新观点,即新兴国家作为一种新型反霸权的国际政治经济力量,在全球资本主义时代,尚不能建立起替代性的独立霸权,而“相互依存式霸权”将主导当今这个时代。“相互依存式霸权”定义为根植于金砖国家的崛起所带来的基于地区合作所形成的联盟型关系,这一联盟型关系的形成主要为了牵制并超越由单一国家或单一权力中心（西方）所产生的霸权。届时在国家利益、地区走向、共同政治议程、政治联盟以及潜在危机管控等方面,“第一世界”（西方国家）和“第二世界”（新兴国家）将相互影响、相互制约,共同重塑国际安全与国际政治经济秩序。     

Charles Stelzle: Apostle to labor

The great British miners' strike of 1984–1985 began 30 years ago. This personal reflection centres on the debate over trade union strategy during the strike. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CP) had long been an important influence in the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers, but the strike also coincided with and exacerbated divisions within the CP and the wider left about how to respond to the ‘New Right’ Thatcher Conservative Government. This article focuses on the distinctive Eurocommunist analysis of the journal Marxism Today. The political atmosphere of the time is recalled, and then the Gramscian industrial relations strategy of winning the political argument through a ‘broad democratic alliance’ is reconstructed. Arguably, this ‘social movement’ approach could have produced a better outcome to the strike, while it provides lasting lessons about the limitations of a narrowly economistic view of trade union power.     

Not throwing the baby out with the bathwater: a Gramscian response to post-hegemony

This article offers a Gramscian response to the theory of post-hegemony, suggesting that its rejection of Gramsci rests on misrepresentations of his work. Through a closer engagement with this work, the article outlines the ways in which Gramscian analysis can in fact complement the insights of post-hegemony in analysing the ways in which the social order is secured and the strategies of resistance to this order. This combination of Gramscian and post-hegemonic insights, the article argues, offers a more nuanced and comprehensive insight into power, radical politics and resistance in the twenty-first century, an insight which risks being lost in post-hegemony's rejection of Gramsci and his work. The utility of this combined approach is illustrated via four short vignettes from contemporary Latin America: the emergence of the student protest movement in Chile since 2011; the Caracazo in Venezuela; the Argentine crisis in 2001; and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.