Movements post-hegemony: how contemporary collective action transforms hegemonic politics

Movements post-hegemony:

How contemporary collective action transforms hegemonic politics

// Alexandros Kioupkiolis

‘P ost-hegemony’ has become a cri de guerre among theorists who take issue with the modern politics of hierarchical organization, representation, unification, the state and ideology: the politics of ‘hegemony’ (see e.g. Arditi, 2007; Beasley-Murray, 2010; Day, 2005). The term ‘post-hegemony’ purported, initially, to capture transformations in both the dominant regimes of power and in various democratic resistances at the turn of the century (Arditi, 2007; Beasley-Murray, 2010; Lash, 2007). These transmutations seemed to spell the end of modes of domination and organization which could be grasped through the lenses ofGramsci’s (1971) andLaclau’s (2005) theoryofhegemony. ‘Hegemony’ turns on the construction ofa collective identity out ofa plurality ofgroups and demands, the interplay of force and consent, representation and discourse (or ideology), and the need to engage with both civil society and state institutions in order to bring about historical change.

The crux ofthe ‘post-hegemonic’ arguments is that neither the global nexuses of power nor the democratic mobilizations against them are now configured in such terms. They are networked, dispersed and immanent. They operate directly on bodies and they work through habits and affects, beyond discourse and representation (Arditi, 2007, pp. 212–224; Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. x, 7; Lash, 2007, pp. 55–56, 60). The label‘post-hegemony’ can be justifiablyextendedto awiderspectrum of contemporary thinkers and scholars who do not place themselves under this rubric but they assail the same dominant forms ofpower and theytrackthe emergence ofnewstructures in global networks and social initiatives (see e.g. Day, 2005; Hardt & Negri, 2004, 2009; Holloway, 2005; Maechelbergh, 2009; Newman, 2011; Nunes, 2014).

The paper will come to grips with those critiques ofhegemony which bear specifically on social movements and a nascent radical-democratic culture. ‘Post-hegemonic’ accounts hold that collective democratic agency today is horizontal, i.e. non-hierarchical, networked and plural, and it undertakes prefigurative politics which enact here and now the values of a radical democracy to come. These figures of political action are said to have superseded older, hierarchical forms ofagencyin political parties, governments and movements.

Critical responses to the ‘post-hegemonic’ thesis object that contemporary democratic resistances do not attain, in effect, a full rupture with hegemony or they should not attain it, lest they condemn themselves to insularity and inefficiency (Prentoulis & Thomassen, 2012, pp. 1–19; Stavrakakis, 2014).

The followingargumentseeks to recastthe post-hegemonic thesis, arguing that a movement beyond hegemonic politics drives, indeed, collective action and movement culture(s) over the last two decades (and much earlier, in effect). No doubt, constitutive elements ofhegemonic politics, such as representation, concentration of power and unification, are endemic to various instances of anti-hierarchical self-organization. But these gesture effectively beyond hegemony insofar as they transfigure its political logics in distinct ways, opening up representation, leadership and unity to pluralization and non-hierarchical interaction. A ‘bias’ in favour ofhorizontality marks them offfrom most modern types ofcollective organization in parties, trade unions and state institutions.

Post-hegemony (1): inaugurating the debate

‘P ost-hegemony’ was introduced as the description ofanew modality ofpower at a time when the era ofhegemony is ‘beginning to draw to a close’ (Lash, 2007, p. 55). The theory of hegemony was shaped mainly by the writings of Gramsci, Laclau and Stuart Hall (Lash, 2007, p. 56). Laclau’s conceptual elaborations used to provide the key reference, in cultural studies at least (Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. 40). ‘Hegemony’ captures aregime ofpower which dominates bycombiningcoercion and consent. It relies on discourse rather than ‘facts’, and it is exercised ‘extensively’ overits subjects ratherthan ‘intensively’ from within social relations (Lash, 2007, pp. 55–56). Lash (2007, p. 60) drew also a link between post-hegemonic politics and the self-constitution of‘multitudes’, who co-operate in political action and contemporary labour. But it was the work of Jon Beasley-Murray (2003, 2010) and Benjamin Arditi (2007) which popularized ‘post-hegemony’ as the name ofa new pattern of resistance and collective agencyin our times. Others, including Hardt andNegri andRichardDay, theorized the overcomingof hegemonic logics in the ‘multitude’ and newanarchist currents, although they did not endorse the terminology ofpost-hegemony itself(Day, 2005; Hardt & Negri, 2004, 2009).

In all these bodies ofthought, various figures ofegalitarian activism and social experiment are contrasted to a ‘hegemonic’ model of politics. In Gramsci’s thought, hegemony designates a political practice which seeks to construct a majoritarian national-popular will and to ‘become state’. This objective is pursued crucially through a gradual ‘war ofposition’ in civil society (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 181–182, 239, 418). However, the main antithesis against which contemporary post-hegemony defines itselfis Laclau’s recasting ofthe Gramscian concept (Arditi, 2007, pp. 207–210; Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. 40; Day, 2005, pp. 8–13; Hardt & Negri, 2009, p. 175, 305). In Laclau’s theory, hege-

mony articulates a contingent plurality ofautonomous struggles around a ‘chain of equivalence’, welding together a common political front. It is the political process whereby a new social formation is put in place through an antagonistic fight between the dominant regime and an oppositional coalition offorces, or between rival political projects (Laclau, 2000b, p. 207).

In political struggles, diverse demands, conflicts and activities may become equivalent through their common opposition to a particular enemy, forging thus a ‘chain ofequivalence’ that extends beyond their substantive differences. This chain will coalesce into a ‘collective will/subject’ ifa particular force within it rises to become a‘generalrepresentative’ ofallequivalentantagonisms and claims. To turn into a hegemonic power, the name or the aims of a particular member of the equivalential chain must be partly emptied of their distinct content in order to become a wider symbol that represents and binds together the entire communityofdifferences (Laclau, 2000b, pp. 210–211).

A particularity assumes thus the function of a universality, turning into a force that acts and speaks for a broader community ofinterests (Laclau, 2000b, pp. 207–212). Hegemony is premised on representation and the uneven distribution of power. Hegemonic practices are inherently processes ofrepresentation as they mobilize a particularity which takes up universal tasks in the name of an entire bloc of forces. Laclau has also insisted that political representation is all the more indispensable under actual conditions ofincreasing social fragmentation, whereby representatives play a key part in constituting a collective will out ofdisperse social identities (Laclau, 1996, pp. 98–100). Finally, hegemony implies asymmetrical power. Within the community of struggle, a particular agent must operate as the leading force of the counter-hegemonic bloc, and its enemy (‘the regime’) must be excluded and eventually overwhelmed (Laclau, 2000b, pp. 207–208). In sharp contrast to this picture oftransformative praxis, ‘[h]abit, affect, and the multitude are the three components ofa theory ofposthegemony’ (Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. x). The ‘multitude’, a term derived from Spinoza via Hardt and Negri, encompasses a heterogeneous collection ofbodies, resistances and agencies. This collectivity self-organizes, cultivates new habits and changes history. The immanent processes ofthe multitude ‘incarnate a logicfrombelowthatrequires neitherrepresentation nordirection from above’ (Beasley-Murray, 2010, p. x).

The same absolute dichotomy between the (post-hegemonic) multitude and the politics ofhegemony is asserted by Hardt and Negri. Their ‘multitude’ names anewmode ofsocial production, a collective subject and a political logic that have arisen from post-Fordist ‘biopolitical’ labour, which produces new common knowledge, communication and social relationships (Hardt & Negri, 2004, p. 66, 109, 114–115, 198, 219). The multitude embodies a distinctive figure ofcollective organization, which informs not only biopolitical labour but also contemporary resistances to imperial biopower from the Zapatistas onwards: the distributed network. In it, no principal agent stands vertically above other differences and represents the whole in the hierarchical manner ofGramsci and Laclau’s hegemony. Participation and collective decision-making take the place of unaccountable representatives and leaders (Hardt & Negri, 2004, pp. 337–340).

The ‘multitude’ captures also the ‘internal organisation ofthe latest Arab Spring, Indignant and Occupy movements’ (Hardt & Negri, 2012, p. 5). All these established ‘distributed networks’ in which connections expand horizontally, without definite boundaries and the command ofa single centre. In the 2011 insurrections, the multitude set in motion new constituent powers which strive to emancipate the self-government ofthe many from top-down leadership, closed ideologies and representation by political parties, enacting instead plural processes which ‘agglutinated’ divergent views in contingent ways (Hardt & Negri, 2012, pp. 44–45, 64). Hence, ‘the multitude is formed through articulations on the plane ofimmanence without hegemony’ (Hardt & Negri, 2009, p. 169).

Richard Daywas one ofthe first to proclaim the ‘death’ ofGramsci and hegemony. This dying logic pertains to ‘the politics ofrepresentation, recognition, and integration’ (Day, 2005, p. 18). Hegemony is animated by the desire to implement a universal model of social transformation and it is ready to enforce this model upon dissenters (Day, 2005, p. 14, 45, 65). Day illuminates, by contrast, a kaleidoscopic mix of tactics, organizations and initiatives which have surged forth over the last decades in the landless peasants’ movement in Brazil (MST), in indigenous communities in Latin America, in social centres across Europe and in various other sites. These enact new schemes of communal life and political interaction which evince an affinity ‘for non-hierarchical, non-coercive relationships based on mutual aid and shared ethical commitments’ (Day, 2005, p. 9).

They strive to block, resist and render redundant both corporate and state power by carving out minoritarian alternative spaces. Theyseekto configure open and horizontal associations which manage directly their affairs through consensus and decentralized decision-making. They do not adhere to a master plan ofsocial restructuring nor do they seek to forcibly generalize their values and schemes (Day, 2005, pp. 24–45, 156–157, 172, 186–197). Day (2005, p. 215) does not advocate a ‘total rejection of reformist or revolutionary programs in all cases’.

These remain relevantinsofaras state andcorporate powerweigh heavily on our lives. To rule out revolution and reform would be also a paradoxical re-enactment ofthe ‘hegemony ofhegemony’ whereby the politics of‘affinity for affinity’ would seek to ‘hegemonize the whole field’ ofemancipatoryaction today.

Against post-hegemony

Critical ripostes to the post-hegemonic thesis do not deny that novel or alternative schemes of multitudinous politics have appeared at the turn of the century. They argue, rather, that hegemony and post-hegemony are not two self-standing, internallypure and fullyindependent poles. Negations ofpost-hegemony seek to destabilize the stark binary in three different ways. First, it is claimed that in order to achieve transformative effects it is not only possible but also necessary to ally horizontal, spontaneous and ‘non-representational’ action with vertical, centralized and representative politics. Second, the case is made that key components of allegedly ‘post-hegemonic’ politics were already part and parcel of Gramsci’s own take on hegemony. Finally –and this is the most radical challenge –critics have pointed out that vertical logics ofrepresentation, leadership, centralization and unification operate within the horizontal multitudes, belying any notion ofpure, autonomous counter-strategy. In the different variants of post-hegemony (1), ‘post-’ signifies a full break with hegemonic logics. Whether the contention is that hegemony is now dead and we have entered a new era or that it survives along with other modes ofpolitics, the collective assumption ofBeasley-Murray, Arditi, Hardt and Negri and, more hesitatingly, Day is that hegemony and post-hegemony denote two options which are separate and autonomous. Critiques have objected to this idea by pointing to the intertwinement of the supposedly opposite logics. But such objections could not defeat a different take on post-hegemony which understands the prefix ‘post-’ in accord with its standard uses in social and political theory.

François Lyotard (1984, p. 79) defined the postmodern as ‘a part ofthe modern…Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state’. The postmodern reinforces trends and dynamics of the modern without fully overcoming it (Lyotard, 1984, pp. 37–41, 79–82). Crouch (2004, p. 20) fleshes out the meaning ofthe ‘post-’ in ‘post-industrial’, ‘post-modern’ and his own ‘post-democracy’ as signifying ‘that something has come into existence to reduce the importance ofX by going beyond it in some sense … However, X will still have left its mark; there will be strong traces ofit still around’. More recently, in his inquiry into ‘post-representation’, Simon Tormey (2015, p. 9) understands the prefix as ‘indicating not the redundancy of the object in question, so much as it’s querying … an incipient problematization that evinces dissatisfaction but without presupposing the acceptance of a clear break or alternative’. Construing the ‘post-’ in post-hegemony in this way entails a reversal ofperspective in the relevant debate. It turns out that those advocates who announce a complete supersession ofhegemony or a clear-cut alternative to it deviate from the conventional usage ofthe prefix in contemporary theory. By contrast, those who oppose the post-hegemonic thesis byhighlighting the ‘interpenetration’ of horizontal andvertical logics in late modern struggles sustain in effect this thesis but they rearticulate it in line with the common sense ofthe ‘post-’. The critics acknowledge that there are indeed incipient gestures beyond hegemonic politics, but these tendencies do not amount to a total rupture or a fully fledged alternative. In other words, the critics submit that there are movements post-hegemony in the precise sense ofthe ‘post-’ we outlined above.

Post-hegemony(2): transfiguringhegemonic structures

Leadership, representation, unification and concentration of forces are emblems of the dominant, hierarchical mode of political organization which resurface in late modern activism. Buttheyare activelycontestedandtransfiguredin orderto foster horizontalism over and against any residual verticality. However, contemporary anti-authoritarian activism has embarked on an ongoingsearch for ‘another leadership’. This involves an endeavour to grapple reflectivelywith power and command, to mitigate their authoritarian implications as far as possible, and to experiment with diverse schemes ofcollective ‘leadership from below’ (Dixon, 2014, pp. 175–198; Rucht, 2015, pp. 66–67).

It is now more widely acknowledged that inequalities of power cannot be just wished away by calling a movement ‘leaderless’. Contemporary collective action has addressed issues of asymmetrical power by first recognizing its presence and, second, by seeking to institute forms of explicit leadership which do not engender domination and contribute to the collective sharingofskills, knowledge and responsibility. Developing ‘another leadership’ entails essentially a ‘growing attempt to be clear, conscious, and collective about leadership’ (see also della Porta & Rucht, 2015, pp. 223–229; Dixon, 2014, p. 186).

Present-dayhorizontalism is not a finallyachieved condition in which hierarchies have been fully eradicated. It constitutes, rather, a horizon and a regulative principle for which egalitarian movements endlessly strive through critical reflection, political processes and experiments that fight domination and work to minimize or, at least, to control any concentration of power amidst their ranks. Their internal struggle against inequality is sustained through spaces ofongoing reflection in which questions ofdomination and influence are openly debated and unwarranted authority gets effectively challenged (della Porta & Rucht, 2015, p. 225, 231; Dixon, 2014, p. 72). Such ‘agonistic horizontalism’ contrasts to Gramscian and Laclauian logics of organization which entrench centralization, top-down direction and asymmetrical power as essential structures (see e.g. Laclau, 1996, pp. 54–57, 98–100; Gramsci, 1971, pp.152–153, 181–182).

The democratic ‘squares movements’ of 2011 took aim at this institutionalized separation and the sovereign rule ofrepresentatives. They set out, instead, to open up the political representationofthe people to ordinarycitizensbystrikingdownbarriers to participation in collective deliberation. The very choice of public squares and streets to set up popular assemblies, in its contrastto decision-makingbehindcloseddoors, highlights the will to publicity, transparencyand free accessibilityofpolitical power to all (Nez, 2012, p. 131). Occupied squares were reconstructed as ‘spaces to do politics without politicians … spaces without money, leaders and merchants’, available to ordinary citizens, poor, non-experts and marginalized people (Dhaliwal, 2012, p. 263). Furthermore, the rejection ofideological closures and set programmes fostered inclusionary openness to diverse multitudes through a spacious discourse (Dhaliwal, 2012, p. 265).

The anti-representative rhetoric of the 2011 democraticmobilizationstargetedlong-established institutionsandlogicsofrepresentativegovernance. Insofar as they pretended to represent the ‘people’ or the ‘99%’, they made, indeed, a representative claim. This, however, was premised on radically different processes ofrepresentative decision-making, which were designed to empower anyone to participate and to be accountable to the many, sketchingthe rudiments ofan open, collective and egalitarian mode of governance which would be more fully representative of the many as many.

In recent years, however, egalitarian movements have also engaged in broader coalition-building, addressing society at large, constructing collective identities and seeking to amass enough power to alter the prevailingbalance offorces. The Occupy Wall Street, the Spanish and the Greek Indignant, along with a multiplicityofanti-authoritarian groups in the U.S. and elsewhere, are again a case in point.

These instances of grassroots political activity have coalesced around common ends, practices and signifiers (such as ‘the 99%’ and ‘the people’). They have centralized the co-ordination ofaction in certain ‘hubs’ (such as the Puerta del Sol in Madrid or Zuccotti Park in New York). They have tried to reach out to broader sectors ofthe population affected by neoliberal governance. Theyhave sought to bringtogetheravariety ofactors. They have voiced aspirations to deep socio-political change (e.g. ‘real democracy’, ‘global justice’). And they have confronted dominant structures ofpower with vast collections ofhuman bodies and networked actions (Dean, 2012, pp. 207–250; Fominaya, 2015; Giovanopoulos & Mitropoulos, 2011, pp. 274–340; Prentoulis & Thomassen, 2012). Accordingly, they have replicated signal traits ofhegemony in tandem with their non-hegemonic horizontalism.

The simple blending ofunity and concentration with autonomous multiplicity would not suffice, however, to qualify a certain type ofpolitics as post-hegemonic. As suggested above, Gramsci’s counter-hegemony and Laclau’s radical populism appear likewise to endorse a certain combination of horizontality/ autonomywithverticality/hegemony. Yet, contemporaryhybrid instances ofhorizontalism gesture effectivelybeyond hegemony insofar as they turn the scales in favour ofplurality, egalitarianism and decentralization. In that sense, they differ significantly from the most balanced and diversified variants ofhegemony.

Post-hegemony (2): turning the scales towards open diversity

In the spirit ofhegemonic strategies, the foregoing struggles sought, indeed, to overcome sheer dispersion and ‘spontaneity’ by welding together broad coalitions which aspired to large-scale transformation (Dean, 2012, pp. 207–250; Dixon, 2014, pp. 4–5, 118–119, 140, 221; Giovanopoulos & Mitropoulos, 2011, pp. 274–340). But their mode ofco-ordination was inflected by a strong commitment to diversity which counters tendencies towards homogeneity and closure. Open pluralism has been persistently pursued through a multiplicity ofnorms, ethical practices and organizational choices. The following offers a list ofsalient tactics, norms and forms which are chosen and pursued so as to foster openness and plurality in collective alliances.

The construction of open spaces of convergence for collective deliberation and coordination is a key practice for the promotion ofdiversity (Juris, 2005; Nez, 2012, pp. 131–134). Again, the Indignados and the Occupy in 2011 offer telling examples. Their popular assemblies in squares and streets intended to function as ‘areallybigtent’ where individuals and groups

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can operate autonomously‘while beingin solidaritywith something much broader and far-reaching … [which] connects all those struggles’ (Klein & Marom, 2012). Moreover, the assemblies forswore ideologies and strict programmatic definitions in order to appeal to all citizens in their diversity (Dhaliwal, 2012, p. 265; Harcourt, 2011).

The network form which is widespread among democratic militancy today is also crucial for fostering diversity, openness and decentralization. Pace Hardt and Negri (2004, pp. xii–xv, 288, 336–340), most actual network formations are not fully horizontal. Usually, in extended networks a number of highly connected ‘hubs’ is surrounded by long chains ofother nodes with decreasing connections and impact. However, distributed network systems are not ruled by solid hierarchies or a single leadership. They attain flexible, varying combinations of dispersion and unification in different ways, such as swarming and diverse parallel tactics. As hubs can increase and decrease and new hubs can appear, centralization remains relative, distributed, contestable and mutable. Present-day organizations such as the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca in Spain and the Movimento Passe Livre in Brazil illustrate how a more coherent organizing core can tie up with a loose group of diverse agents who participate in different degrees, making up an open ‘network system’ which allows for plurality and resists strong centralization and fixed hierarchies (Nunes, 2014, p. 29, 31–33, 39, 43; Tormey, 2015, pp. 110–115).

Finally, in horizontalist schemes of collective confluence, pragmatism facilitates forms of convergence and common identity which uphold diversity and openness. A heterogeneous assemblage ofagents and practices can more easily cohere around strategic wagers and practical objectives rather than around group identities and definite political programmes or ideologies. Collective action can avoid thereby both the fragmentation of‘identity politics’ and the conflicts which tend to erupt among closed identities that assert themselves. Moreover, sustained interaction which advances shared objectives can build a community of practice and, thus, a practical identification which does not rest on common dogma or a collective tradition. Such communities of action can help to minimize exclusions and offset pressures towards homogeneity (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014, pp. 239–240; Hardt & Negri, 2004, pp. 86–87, 337–340; Nunes, 2014, pp. 42–44).

This pragmatic spirit treats big and divisive issues, such as the relation between the state and grassroots movements, as open questions which should be tackled contextually, variously and practically rather than uniformly and abstractly. Recent history shows, for example, that confrontation or collaboration with the state or maximum distance from it can variably constitute the best option in different situations (de Sousa, 2008, pp. 266–267; Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014, p. 81).

This conscience and the ethos it animates seem to be spreading today among the ranks ofvarious ‘horizontal’ activists in Spain and elsewhere. An emerging political subjectivity has come to acquire a taste for pragmatic hybrid politics which deploys a heteroclite mix of tools, including participation in formal representative politics in order to open up sovereign institutions to an unruly multitude outside them. Hence, the rise ofnewcitizens’ parties and initiatives such as PartyX, Podemos and PAH (Amin & Thrift, 2013, pp. 150–153; Tormey, 2015, pp. 110–119, 149). An affirmation ofcontamination, heterogeneity and complexity counters radically the trends towards dogmatic closure andhomogeneous unification, even unification around horizontal practices as a singular strategy.

Such strategies of‘another politics’ mix horizontalism and verticalism with a clear emphasis on the former, combining heterogeneous spatialities and temporalities. Theyare anchored in the here and now; this world, its urgent needs and its ordinary people. Yet they are also oriented towards new worlds offreedom and equality, which pertain to the long term and require arduous processes ofreflection, struggle and invention.

// This is a shortened version of an article previously appeared on the Journal Social Movement Studies, 17:1, 99-112, 2017.

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