ABSTRACT
Hegemony is one the most powerful concepts that is required to understand reality in any social scientist's toolbox. Hegemony comes from the term hegemon – meaning leader. Gramsci's works presented the provocation: how can power be won, and how can it be sustained. The answer to this question is about the mechanism of leadership. The far-Right and populists have ascended to power through manufacturing leading ideas through culture, media and education to infiltrate the consciousness of the masses. Importantly hegemony is always open for contouring ideas to become emergently dominant, and this is the optimism that Gramsci provides for social change. The synthesizing of culture, common sense and struggle are elaborated in this entry.
