A debate on the thought of Gramsci in the present times. Questions about the critics of Laclau

Abstract

Antonio Gramsci’s work has strongly influenced the political contemporary thought. His analytical categories are focus of different receptions. They mostly celebrate the originality of his work since he could capture the complexity of the modern societies and create an overcoming vision of the orthodox left. Ernesto Laclau, situated in the post structuralism, proposes a work in which he applauds the uniqueness of Gramsci’s work, but at the same time, he analyses certain difficulties that it interweave. He says that Gramsci goes back in the field of Marxist studies by basing his work on aprioristic notions. This paper aims to examine the reading that Laclau make of Gramsci’s work in order to think of the suitableness or not of his critics in base of two key notions: ideology and hegemony.