In a Tortoiseshell
This paper systematizes and applies Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to the Nicaraguan Revolution, exploring how hegemonic systems suppress dissent and how movements transition into violent resistance. In this excerpt, I examine the nuances of Gramsci’s framework of hegemony and revolutionary strategy, focusing on the dynamics of consent, coercion, and the wars of position and maneuver. Furthermore, I explore the concept of organic crisis, where structural failures expose contradictions in ruling ideology, providing the grounds for revolution to occur.
Excerpt
Hegemony functions through the dual process of 1) generating a normative cultural order that secures consent for the system’s rule, alongside the 2) traditional mechanisms of coercion that manifest through an array of repressive repertoires.1 This consent is rooted in the establishment and maintenance of institutional power, through means of education, media, religion, and other networks. Through these institutions, the prevailing hegemonic power establishes the perception that its rule is at least the only choice or, at best, the moral imperative. This duality is well paralleled by the relative nature of repression and concession.2 Regimes employ repressive tactics to engage in coercion, in addition to, while less directly related, concessions to strengthen mass consent to their rule. It is important to note that repression manifests as direct, often violent actions aimed at the suppression of oppositional ideology, while coercion is a broader concept that can include further subtle mechanisms, like legal and economic tactics, that strengthen dominance. The hegemonic power combines these tactics to limit accessible political opportunities and close potential institutional gateways that movements depend on for success.3
The Gramscian response to this system is a subsequent counter-hegemonic framework. As hegemony is described as dependent on a constructed culture that affirms the rule of the elite, counter-hegemony proceeds by the development of a competing worldview that challenges their legitimacy.4 This process of building an alternative ideology intends on exposing the inherent contradictions of the ruling classes dominance that is preserved through manufactured consent. Thus, through the mobilization of existing like-minded movements, counter-hegemonic tactics engage with cultural institutions in an attempt to reshape the narrative of society, primarily through means of grassroots efforts. It is important to recognize the relevance of the framing of these efforts in a way that strategically appeals to the subjective perceptions of the masses, with the goal of ideologically converting as many people as possible through emotional appeals.56
This struggle is well articulated by Gramsci’s relative frameworks for revolutionary strategy—the wars of position and maneuver.7 The war of position is characterized by a long-term struggle against the oppressing class, methodologically challenging its cultural and ideological dominance. In this case, like-minded groups network in a way that focuses on the genesis and cultivation of counter-hegemonic institutions within civil society, using diverse repertoires from protest to education and media in order to slowly erode the prevailing ideologies legitimacy.89 The war of maneuver, however, takes on a more conflict-oriented approach directly confronting the hegemonic system — often through physical struggle.
To further delineate the two revolutionary tactics, it is important to clarify: the war of position involves a struggle “within and against” the ruling system,10 while the war of maneuver is that of explicit conflict with the government. Depending on how we interpret this, movements with revolutionary aims theoretically need not engage in a war of maneuver if the war of position is successful enough in the erosion of this established hegemonic consent and mobilizes the population effectively. For example, Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle against British colonial rule highlights how, under the right conditions, the war of position can be effective at producing the intended changes of a movement.11 In this case, the British Empire’s post-World War II decline and its inability to readily engage in coercive action allowed Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance to prevail with the absence of a war of maneuver. However, this process can easily collapse into violence through excessive and increasingly indiscriminate violence perpetrated by the prevailing regime.12 In cases such as the Nicaraguan Revolution, where the Somoza regime’s manufactured consent had not been extensively enough eroded and coercive control was still well maintained, a war of maneuver was an inevitable necessity for systemic change. The transition between these two phases of conflict, the wars of position and maneuver, can be well conceptualized in what Gramsci refers to as an organic crisis.13 This generalized term characterizes the point in which something “organically,” or naturally occurs that exposes the underlying contradictions within the ruling ideology. This crisis arises through a combination of economic, political, and social factors that strain the present system, like widespread poverty in the case of the Nicaraguan Revolution, or through other more external factors such as foreign affairs or natural disaster. Gramsci’s emphasis on the organic nature of these events both breaks from and synergizes with the structuralist theories of revolution,14 which assert that revolutions are not deliberately generated but rather solely the byproduct of structural conditions over time. By framing crises as contingent, he acknowledges the pivotal role of revolutionary agency in the outcomes of movements, while still accepting certain structural culminations in the genesis of political opportunity. This emphasis on the organic nature of events involving movements allows us to critically conceptualize the forces at play in the pivotal points that shape the evolution of revolutionary struggles.
Footnotes
- Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 207, 242. ↩︎
- Karen Rassler, “Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution,” American Sociological Review 61, no. 1 (1996): 132—136, 144—146. ↩︎
- Herbert Kitschelt, “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Activism in Four Democracies,” British Journal of Political Science 16, no. 1 (1986): 57—60, 62—64. ↩︎
- Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 210-211. ↩︎
- Charles Kurzman, “Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunity in Social-Movement Theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979,” American Sociological Review 61, no. 1 (1996): 153—156. ↩︎
- James M. Jasper, “Recruiting Intimates, Recruiting Strangers: Building the Contemporary Animal Rights Movement,” in Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties, ed. Jo Freeman and Victoria Johnson (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 66—70. ↩︎
- Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 238-239. ↩︎
- Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758—1834 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 40—45. ↩︎
- Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation (New York: The New Press, 2012), 1—6, 54—56. ↩︎
- Kojin Karatani, “War of Maneuver vs. War of Position,” P2P Foundation, accessed February 26, 2025, https://p2pfoundation.net/war-of-maneuver-vs-war-of-position. ↩︎
- Karatani, “War of Maneuver vs. War of Position.” ↩︎
- Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 146—150, 172—174. ↩︎
- Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 210-211. ↩︎
- Theda Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 100—102, 110—112. ↩︎
Works Cited
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers.
Jasper, James M. 1999. “Recruiting Intimates, Recruiting Strangers: Building the Contemporary Animal Rights Movement.” In Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties, edited by Jo Freeman and Victoria Johnson, 65—82. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Karatani, Kojin. n.d. “War of Maneuver vs. War of Position.” P2P Foundation. https://p2pfoundation.net/war-of-maneuver-vs-war-of-position.
Kitschelt, Herbert. 1986. “Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Activism in Four Democracies.” British Journal of Political Science 16 (1): 57—85.
Kurzman, Charles. 1996. “Structural Opportunity and Perceived Opportunity in Social- Movement Theory: The Iranian Revolution of 1979.” American Sociological Review 61(1): 153—70.
Rassler, Karen. 1996. “Concessions, Repression, and Political Protest in the Iranian Revolution.” American Sociological Review 61 (1): 132—52.
Sharp, Gene. 1994. From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. Cambridge: The Albert Einstein Institution.
Skocpol, Theda. 1994. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tilly, Charles. 1995. Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758—1834. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Author Commentary / Aeden Fraley
The course that I wrote this paper for, Social Movements and Revolutions, briefly mentioned Gramscian analysis as one of the less commonly used theories for conceiving of the role of culture in mobilization. However, Gramsci’s conceptualization of the synthesization of a false consciousness in deeply entrenched hegemonic systems piqued my interest, so I decided to inquire further with my term paper. Thus, writing the paper became a balance of carefully articulating the theoretical framework while also applying it to a specific historical event—the two major sections mirror each other in structure, first outlining the theory and then in the same order working through the case itself.
The research portion of the paper was somewhat multifaceted, with the course itself having already distilled most of the academic literature on social movement theory. However, when it came to Gramsci’s thought, it was much more difficult to parse through his noticeably more difficult Prison Notebooks. To achieve the intended structure of the paper, I chose to first outline a framework for Gramsci’s key concepts, while then logically mapping them onto the historical events of the Nicaraguan Revolution, outlining a progression from nonviolent resistance into armed conflict. The construction of this framework itself was very rewarding, alongside its connection to the case itself. It was interesting to see exactly how the individual concepts within Gramscian hegemonic theory functioned, from the dual use of consent and coercion to the wars of maneuver and position divided by organic crisis, specifically in the context of the Somoza regime’s chronic repression of the struggling Nicaraguan populous.
This excerpt from the essay represents arguably the most important movement within the overall argument, as it outlines the vital theoretical framework and provides the grounds for mapping itself onto the historical event. The writing itself required careful attention to and revision of rigorous definitions of the theoretical concepts. As I outlined them in order, the following analysis in which they were applied manifested through a similar logic (e.g. the war of position is first established while then building into the war of maneuver).
While the essay was a great experience in developing my writing skills, I found it very difficult at times to maintain the scope of the argument, as well as the balance between explanation and analysis. I had to amend the topic a few times to limit the scope for a paper of this length, which helped me learn to take executive steps to ensure the final product was not convoluted or incapable of fully grasping the topics I introduced. For example, there were other concepts both in the current excerpt (Gramsci’s organic intellectuals), and in the analysis (the role of foreign influence) that I had to exclude, as well as the overall focus on the logic of transitioning into violence from nonviolence. These choices helped me improve the analysis of my paper, as well as provided insight into proper writing technique.
Editor Commentary / Mya Koffie
One of the most prevalent characteristics of strong academic writing produced in a collegiate setting is the ability to synthesize theories that are not one’s own, apply those theories to a relevant or sensible situation previously not considered by the original theorists, and use information from the selected situation to extend or enrich the selected theory. Aedan’s use of this “inventive intervention” process in his piece on the Nicaraguan Revolution exemplifies deft scholarship. Theories rooted in political science, such as Gramsci’s theory on hegemony that is explored then expanded in Aedan’s except, are often extremely complicated and require careful orienting. Aedan’s orderly illumination of dual processes—consent as it exists with coercion, position as it diverges from maneuver—breaks complex political ideas into understandable classifications and applies those classifications to real-world events with clear impacts.
It proves critical to insert ourselves into a field or attempt to contribute meaningfully within it only once we ourselves have a firm grasp on the operating frameworks that underpin foundational field theories. Yet, the writer’s role is seldom finished at the point at which they conceptualize existing frameworks correctly for themselves. The act of parsing out details and information in a way that makes sense of niche field understandings and theories for the benefit of a more general audience is paramount when making creative interventions as an academic writer.
In this excerpt, the context, history, and theoretical underpinnings of social movements and political science cannot be left unaddressed even as Aedan intends to contend primarily with the specific situation of the Nicaraguan Revolution. One of the most important practices for writers is to resist in certain ways as they delineate a circumstance or historical instance about which they are passionate. Here, in order to make a creative scholarly contribution, Aedan successfully resists the urge to unpack the Nicaraguan Revolution and launch into his main argumentative ‘cogs’ until after the metaphorical machine’s wiring is all set up. How is hegemony understood within the field? What types of wars might be classified as wars of position versus wars of maneuver? These are issues of categorization that Aedan effectively addresses before he asserts his own ideas, having given himself a strong, clear conceptual basis on which to stand.
