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Towards a Theory of the Integral State
In: Historical MaterialismThis review assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Peter Thomas’s long-awaited study of The Prison Notebooks, based on his extensive research and philological reconstruction of the critical edition. I distinguish three senses in which the ‘moment’ in the book’s title can be understood: as the historical moment around 1932 in which Gramsci proposed the outline of his distinct brand of the philosophy of praxis; as the moment or momentum that still lies in wait for a future research programme in Marxist philosophy; and as a methodological principle for understanding the dialectic as a theory in which entities such as state and civil society, but also coercion and consent, far from allowing the kind of Eurocommunist or post-Marxist instrumentalisations in which they are seen as part of a chain of binaries, are actually moments of a unified larger structure that in Gramsci’s work comes to be associated with the idea of the integral state. This impressive reconstruction of Gramsci’s notebooks, however, also reveals some major lacunae, above all, in terms of the lack of attention given to Gramscian developments in the non-European world, in places such as India or Latin America. This omission is all the more surprising given the longstanding tradition, particularly in Latin America, of viewing Gramsci as a theorist of the integral state more so than of hegemony.
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Abensour Miguel Blechman Max Democracy against the State: Marx and the Machiavellian Moment 2011 Cambridge Polity Press
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Althusser Louis Goshgarian G.M. Philosophy of the Encounter: Later Writings, 1978–1987 2006 London Verso
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Anderson Kevin Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies 2010 Chicago University of Chicago Press
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Aricó José M. La cola del diablo: Itinerario de Gramsci en América Latina 1988 Caracas Nueva Sociedad
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Aricó José M. Crespo Horacio Nueve lecciones sobre economía y política en el marxismo. Curso de El Colegio de México 2011 Mexico City El Colegio de México/Fondo de Cultura Económica
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Beasley-Murray Jon Posthegemony: Political Theory and Latin America 2011 Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press
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Burgos Raúl Los gramscianos argentinos: Cultura y política en la experiencia de ‘Pasado y Presente’ 2004 Buenos Aires Siglo Veintiuno
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Chibber Vivek Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital 2013 London Verso
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Coutinho Carlos Nelson Palos Ana María Introducción a Gramsci 1986 Mexico City Era
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Coutinho Carlos Nelson Sette-Camara Pedro Gramsci’s Political Thought 2012 Leiden Brill Historical Materialism Book Series with a Foreword by Joseph A. Buttigieg
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Coutinho Carlos Nelson & Nogueira Marco Aurelio Gramsci e a America Latina 1988 Rio de Janeiro Paz e Terra
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De Ípola Emilio Althusser, el infinito adiós 2002 Buenos Aires Siglo Veintiuno
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Della Rocca Mario Gramsci en la Argentina: Los desafíos del kirchnerismo 2013 Buenos Aires Dunken
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De Riz Liliana & de Ípola Emilio Labastida & del Campo ‘Acerca de la hegemonía como producción histórica’ 1985 1985
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Gago Verónica Controversia: Una lengua del exilio 2012 Buenos Aires Biblioteca Nacional
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García Linera Álvaro Del Estado aparente al Estado integral: La construcción democrática del socialismo comunitario 2010 La Paz Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional
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Kanoussi Dora Los estudios gramscianos hoy 1998 Puebla Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla/Plaza y Valdés
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Kanoussi Dora Poder y hegemonía hoy: Gramsci en la era global 2004a Mexico City Plaza y Valdés
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Kanoussi Dora Ortega Kanoussi Cristina Gramsci en Río de Janeiro 2004b Mexico City Plaza y Valdés
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Labastida Julio & del Campo Martín Hegemonía y alternativas políticas en América Latina (Seminario de Morelia) 1985 Mexico City Siglo Veintiuno
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Laclau Ernesto Labastida & del Campo ‘Tesis acerca de la forma hegemónica de la política’ 1985 1985
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Lahtinen Mikko Politics and Philosophy: Niccolò Machiavelli and Louis Althusser’s Aleatory Materialism, Historical Materialism 2011 Chicago Haymarket Books Book Series
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Macherey Pierre Ruddick Susan M. Hegel or Spinoza 2011 Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press
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Mignolo Walter Srivastava & Bhattacharya ‘Mariátegui and Gramsci in “Latin” America’ 2012 2012
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Mocca Edgardo Juan Carlos Portantiero: Un itinerario político-intelectual 2012 Buenos Aires Biblioteca Nacional
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Morton Adam David Unravelling Gramsci: Hegemony and Passive Revolution in Global Political Economy 2007 London Pluto Press
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Morton Adam David Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development 2011 Lanham, MD. Rowman & Littlefield
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Munck Ronaldo P. Rethinking Latin America: Development, Hegemony, and Social Transformation 2013 Basingstoke Palgrave Macmillan
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Nun José & Portantiero Juan Carlos Ensayos sobre la transición democrática en la Argentina 1987 Buenos Aires Puntosur
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Pocock John Greville Agard The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition 2003 Princeton Princeton University Press
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Portantiero Juan Carlos Sirvent ‘Gramsci para latinoamericanos’ 1980 1980
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Portantiero Juan Carlos Los usos de Gramsci 1983 Puebla Folios
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Sirvent Carlos Gramsci y la política 1980 Mexico City Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
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Srivastava Neelam & Baidik Bhattacharya The Postcolonial Gramsci 2012 New York Routledge
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Tapia Luis ‘De la catarsis al transformismo’ El estado de derecho como tiranía 2011 La Paz CIDES/UMSA
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Thomas Peter D. The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism 2009 Leiden Brill Historical Materialism Book Series
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Zermeño Sergio Labastida & del Campo ‘Los referentes históricos y sociológicos de la hegemonía’ 1985 1985
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1
Thomas 2009, p. xix.
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2
Thomas 2009, p. xxv.
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3
Thomas 2009, p. 131.
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4
Thomas 2009, p. 442.
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5
Thomas 2009, p. 265.
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6
Thomas 2009, pp. 25–6.
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7
Thomas 2009, p. 69, n. 89.
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8
Thomas 2009, p. 136.
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9
Thomas 2009, p. 137.
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10
Thomas 2009, pp. 143–4.
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11
Thomas 2009, p. 167.
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12
Thomas 2009, p. 175.
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13
Thomas 2009, p. 176.
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14
Thomas 2009, p. 180.
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16
Thomas 2009, p. 170, n. 39.
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17
Thomas 2009, p. 333.
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18
Thomas 2009, p. 106, n. 53.
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19
Thomas 2009, p. 45.
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20
Thomas 2009, p. 57, n. 46.
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21
Thomas 2009, p. 156, n. 59.
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22
Thomas 2009, p. 15.
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23
Thomas 2009, p. 15, n. 58.
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24
Thomas 2009, p. 201.
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25
Thomas 2009, p. 216.
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27
See Anderson 2010. There exists at least one anthology that seeks to go in this direction, namely, The Postcolonial Gramsci, edited by Srivastava and Bhattacharya. For the case of Latin America, the voice representing Gramsci in this volume is that of Walter Mignolo, who quickly moulds Gramsci beyond recognition into a plea for his own decolonial agenda. For a discussion of the shortcomings of this collection, see the review forum in Postcolonial Studies 16.1 (2013).
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29
See Aricó 1988. Burgos distinguishes three periods in the reception of Gramsci in Argentina: the period of the search for a militant alliance with the working class; the period of exile and self-criticism during the dictatorship; and the reconsideration of the link between socialism and democracy under Alfonsín. For the second of these periods, see also the analysis of the Mexican journal Controversia edited by several of the Argentine Gramscians, in Gago 2012. More recently, for the return to Gramsci in the context of Kirchnerism in Argentina, see Della Rocca 2013. See also the anthologies edited by Dora Kanoussi (Kanoussi 1998, 2004a and 2004b). Gramsci plays a pivotal role in Aricó’s posthumously published seminar on the relation of Marxist politics and economics. See ‘Gramsci y la teoría política’ in Aricó 2011, pp. 245–318. In English, see also the recent work of Ronaldo Munck, especially the chapter on ‘Hegemony Struggles’ in Munck 2013.
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30
See Labastida and del Campo (eds.) 1985. Interestingly, this volume contains an early version of Ernesto Laclau’s hegemony theory as well as a detailed rebuttal by Sergio Zermeño. Shortly before the Morelia conference, another international Gramsci conference was held in Mexico with the participation of Buci-Glucksmann, Macciocchi and Portantiero, the proceedings of which are published in Sirvent (ed.) 1980.
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32
Aricó 1988, pp. 16 and 63. Aricó believes that the label ‘Argentine Gramscians’ may have been the invention of Ernesto Laclau in an article for the journal Izquierda Nacional in 1963, titled ‘Gramsci y los gramscianos’ and signed with the pseudonym of Ricardo Videla. See Aricó 1988, p. 67.
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34
See de Riz and De Ípola 1985, p. 66.
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35
See Coutinho 1986, pp. 108–29.
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36
See Tapia 2011. See also Coutinho 1986, p. 93. Already in 1988 Aricó observes that the list of works on ‘transformism’ and ‘passive revolution’ in Latin America is too long to enumerate. In English, see also the recent work of Adam David Morton (Morton 2007 and 2011).
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37
See García Linera 2010, p. 13.
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39
Thomas 2009, p. 289.
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This review assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Peter Thomas’s long-awaited study of The Prison Notebooks, based on his extensive research and philological reconstruction of the critical edition. I distinguish three senses in which the ‘moment’ in the book’s title can be understood: as the historical moment around 1932 in which Gramsci proposed the outline of his distinct brand of the philosophy of praxis; as the moment or momentum that still lies in wait for a future research programme in Marxist philosophy; and as a methodological principle for understanding the dialectic as a theory in which entities such as state and civil society, but also coercion and consent, far from allowing the kind of Eurocommunist or post-Marxist instrumentalisations in which they are seen as part of a chain of binaries, are actually moments of a unified larger structure that in Gramsci’s work comes to be associated with the idea of the integral state. This impressive reconstruction of Gramsci’s notebooks, however, also reveals some major lacunae, above all, in terms of the lack of attention given to Gramscian developments in the non-European world, in places such as India or Latin America. This omission is all the more surprising given the longstanding tradition, particularly in Latin America, of viewing Gramsci as a theorist of the integral state more so than of hegemony.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 457 | 68 | 2 |
| Full Text Views | 288 | 18 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 111 | 27 | 2 |