Editing Hegemony (section)

== Political science ==
{{Main|Cultural hegemony}}
[[File:North Atlantic Treaty Organization (orthographic projection).svg|thumb|[[NATO]] countries account for over 70% of [[List of countries by military expenditures|global military expenditure]],<ref name="sipri1">{{cite web|url=http://milexdata.sipri.org/ |title=The SIPRI Military Expenditure Database |publisher=Milexdata.sipri.org |access-date=2010-08-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100328072123/http://milexdata.sipri.org/ |archive-date=March 28, 2010 }}</ref> with the United States alone accounting for 43% of global military expenditure in 2009.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/resultoutput/15majorspenders |title=The 15 countries with the highest military expenditure in 2009 |access-date=2010-08-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100328104327/http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/resultoutput/15majorspenders |archive-date=2010-03-28 }}</ref>]]
[[File:Gramsci.png|thumb|upright|left|[[Antonio Gramsci]] (1891–1937), the [[Intellectual|theoretician]] of [[cultural hegemony]]]]

In the historical writing of the 19th century, the denotation of ''hegemony'' extended to describe the predominance of one country upon other countries; and, by extension, ''hegemonism'' denoted the Great Power politics (c. 1880s – 1914) for establishing hegemony (indirect imperial rule), that then leads to a definition of [[imperialism]] (direct foreign rule).

In the early 20th century, the Italian [[Marxist philosophy|Marxist philosopher]] [[Antonio Gramsci]] used the idea of hegemony to talk about politics ''within'' a given society. He developed the theory of [[cultural hegemony]], an analysis of [[economic class]] (including social class) and how the [[ruling class]] uses [[consent]] as well as force to maintain its power. Hence, the philosophic and sociologic theory of cultural hegemony analysed the [[Norm (sociology)|social norms]] that established the [[social structure]]s to impose their ''[[Weltanschauung]]'' (world view)—justifying the social, political, and economic ''status quo''—as natural, inevitable, and beneficial to every social class, rather than as artificial [[Social constructionism|social construct]]s beneficial solely to the ruling class.<ref name="TheColumbia"/><ref name="Fontana"/><ref>{{cite book |first=K. J. |last=Holsti |title=The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory |url=https://archive.org/details/dividingdiscipli0000hols |url-access=registration |year=1985 |location=Boston |publisher=Allen & Unwin |isbn=0-04-327077-8}}</ref>

From the Gramsci analysis derived the [[political science]] denotation of hegemony as ''leadership''; thus, the historical example of [[Prussia]] as the militarily and culturally predominant province of the [[German Empire]] (1871–1918); and the personal and intellectual predominance of [[Napoleon I|Napoleon Bonaparte]] upon the [[French Consulate]] (1799–1804).<ref>{{cite book |first=Chris |last=Cook |title=Dictionary of Historical Terms |year=1983 |location=London |publisher=MacMillan |page=142 |isbn=0-333-44972-X}}</ref> Contemporarily, in ''[[Hegemony and Socialist Strategy]]'' (1985), [[Ernesto Laclau]] and [[Chantal Mouffe]] defined hegemony as a political relationship of [[power (philosophy)|power]] wherein a sub-ordinate society (collectivity) perform social tasks that are culturally unnatural and not beneficial to them, but that are in exclusive benefit to the [[Imperialism|imperial]] interests of the hegemon, the superior, ordinate power; hegemony is a military, political, and economic relationship that occurs as an [[Articulation (sociology)|articulation]] within political [[discourse]].<ref>{{cite book |first1=Ernest |last1=Laclau |first2=Chantal |last2=Mouffe |title=Hegemony and Socialist Strategy |url=https://archive.org/details/hegemonysocialis00lacl |url-access=limited |edition=2nd |year=2001 |location=London |publisher=Verso |pages=[https://archive.org/details/hegemonysocialis00lacl/page/n57 40]–59, 125–144 |isbn=1-85984-330-1}}</ref> Beyer analysed the contemporary hegemony of the United States at the example of the Global War on Terrorism and presented the mechanisms and processes of American exercise of power in 'hegemonic governance'.<ref name="Beyer">{{cite book |last=Beyer |first=Anna Cornelia |title=Counterterrorism and International Power Relations |year=2010 |location=London |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-1-84511-892-1}}</ref>