Local Governance in Timor-Leste - Secretaria de Estado da Arte e ...

Gramsci's account of hegemonic power provides a seductive explanation for howpower relations become entrenched and institutionalised within a community.Building on this view, institutions carry out their normative function because theyreflect norms and values that through the consent of 'the masses' have becomehegemonic. However, as Anderson argues, Gramsci's formulation also carries withinit "conceptual slippage", where he effectively "collapses coercion into consent"(1976: 49). In so doing, he fails to account for the reality of coercion—the exercise ofpower by the ruling class over the subordinate class, but where the subordinate classdo not willingly consent to being dominated. By contrast, Scott (1985: 315-16)focuses on the dynamics of coercion, arguing that Gramsci's view of hegemony asideological domination can encourage an overly simplistic account of the subordinateclass' understanding of, and resistance to, power relations within a community. Scottargues that the subordinate class' reliance on the ruling class for material wellbeing,coupled with their inability to effect significant change to existing structures thatperpetuate inequality, means that while the subordinate class may not consent, theyare not in a position to openly defy the ruling class. However, this apparentacceptance of social inequalities occurs in the realm of behaviour. The subordinateclasses need not accept the legitimacy of the power exerted by the ruling class, andthey often do not:The realm of behaviour—particularly in power-laden situations—is precisely wheredominated classes are most constrained. And it is at the level of beliefs andinterpretations—where they can be safely ventured—that subordinate classes are leasttrammelled. The rich… can usually insist on conforming public behaviour and get it;they can neither insist on private ideological conformity, nor do they need it. (Scott,1985: 322)Because of their reliance on the ruling class and their own correlativedisempowerment, the subordinate classes must conform. If there is any hegemony inthis dynamic, Scott (1985: 326) argues, it is simply that of external forces shapingwhat subordinate classes consider is possible and what is not. What the poor ordisempowered can change, they will; what they cannot, they will endure. However,this does not mean that the subordinate classes do not exercise their own forms of68