Passive Revolution Revisited: From the Prison Notebooks to Our “Great and Terrible World”

TY - JOUR

T1 - Passive Revolution Revisited

T2 - From the Prison Notebooks to Our “Great and Terrible World”

AU - Roccu, Roberto

PY - 2017/10/1

Y1 - 2017/10/1

N2 - Building on the recent fertile season of studies on passive revolution, this paper argues for the (re-)increasing relevance of the concept in these times of capitalist crisis. However, it is also argued that this renewed relevance should be predicated on a narrower definition of passive revolution than the one generally used in recent debates in critical International Political Economy. Returning to the Prison Notebooks, four elements are identified here as the conceptual core of passive revolution, to which Gramsci’s admittedly varying uses of the phrase are implicitly anchored: an international precondition determining the necessity of restructuring on the national scale; a domestic precondition determining the specific form of this restructuring; a specific method through which passive revolution is effected; and a specific outcome which entails achieving the passivity of subaltern classes through the partial fulfilment and simultaneous displacement of their demands. Thus redefined, passive revolution becomes a valuable instrument for grasping the challenges facing the emergence of a subaltern bloc in the current organic crisis of capitalism.

AB - Building on the recent fertile season of studies on passive revolution, this paper argues for the (re-)increasing relevance of the concept in these times of capitalist crisis. However, it is also argued that this renewed relevance should be predicated on a narrower definition of passive revolution than the one generally used in recent debates in critical International Political Economy. Returning to the Prison Notebooks, four elements are identified here as the conceptual core of passive revolution, to which Gramsci’s admittedly varying uses of the phrase are implicitly anchored: an international precondition determining the necessity of restructuring on the national scale; a domestic precondition determining the specific form of this restructuring; a specific method through which passive revolution is effected; and a specific outcome which entails achieving the passivity of subaltern classes through the partial fulfilment and simultaneous displacement of their demands. Thus redefined, passive revolution becomes a valuable instrument for grasping the challenges facing the emergence of a subaltern bloc in the current organic crisis of capitalism.

KW - critical International Political Economy

KW - Gramsci

KW - hegemony

KW - organic crisis

KW - passive revolution

U2 - 10.1177/0309816817692120

DO - 10.1177/0309816817692120

M3 - Article

SN - 0309-8168

VL - 41

SP - 537

EP - 559

JO - Capital & Class

JF - Capital & Class

IS - 3

ER -