Massimo Modonesi, "The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action​" (Haymarket, 2019)

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

New Books Network — Massimo Modonesi, "The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action" (Haymarket, 2019)
Host: Stephen Dozeman
Guests: Massimo Modonesi (author), Maria Vigneau
Date: October 20, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into Massimo Modonesi’s book The Antagonistic Principle: Marxism and Political Action. Modonesi, joined by research collaborator Maria Vigneau, discusses Marxist theory’s perspectives on political subjectivation, focusing on the triad of concepts: subalternity, antagonism, and autonomy. The conversation explores how these ideas are used to analyze collective action, social movements, and the shifting landscape of leftist politics—especially in South and Latin America. Gramsci’s theories and their contemporary relevance are central, with critical focus on dynamics like passive revolution and the ebb and flow of emancipatory movements.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Background and Theoretical Foundations

[03:49]

• Focus of Research: Modonesi studies social movements and the Marxist theory of collective action.
• Book Context: The new book builds on his earlier work, expanding the theoretical framework with updated empirical and methodological components.
  • “In that previous book, I retraced the theoretical efforts built around three concepts developed within Marxist reflection on the subject and political action, which characterize processes of political subjectivation—as you said, subalternity, antagonism and autonomy.” (Modonesi, [04:17])

2. The Retreat of Marxism in Academic and Popular Discourses

[07:44]

• Recent movements (e.g., Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street) are often analyzed for their use of social media rather than their class dynamics.
• Marxism has retreated as a framework for analyzing collective action, replaced by post- or anti-Marxist approaches that favor form over content.
  • “This reduction of the analytical capacity... is also related to the relative retreat of Marxism or Marxist analysis from the study of collective action and social sociopolitical movements.” (Vigneau, [08:17])
  • Centrality of class and class struggle is being lost, which the book seeks to restore.

3. Class, Subjectivity, and Struggle

[10:07]

• Recent Marxist analysis favors structure (exploitation, capital-labor relation) over the subjective (class struggle, agency).
  • “It is in struggle, in the subjective expressions of those structural tensions, that actors are configured as political subjects.” (Vigneau, [10:26])
  • Modonesi warns against understanding class as a “mere social nomenclature,” emphasizing its dynamic, antagonistic core ([11:52]).

4. Gramsci, Subalternity, and Hegemony

[13:33]

• Gramsci is often misread—as either fetishizing subalternity or focusing solely on hegemonic subjects.
• Modonesi insists that Gramsci’s key question is how subaltern classes become hegemonic, stressing autonomy, organization, and intellectual leadership.
  • “...the predominant interpretation of Gramsci thought are dislocated...between the emphasis on the exaltation of the subaltern...and...on the subject capable of exercising the gemn...In both readings I see an essentialism and a tendency towards simplification that lies precisely in not asking the Gramscian question...[of] how the subaltern can become...hegemonic.” (Modonesi, [14:10])

5. The Triad: Subalternity, Antagonism, Autonomy

[16:56]

• These concepts describe, respectively, subordination, insubordination, and self-determination within political subjectification.
• Modonesi and Vigneau argue for understanding them as dimensions that intermingle, rather than as separate stages or identities.
  • “Subalternity as the condition and experience of subordination and exploitation, antagonism as the experience of insubordination and autonomy as...self-determination. And in these processes...they are all usually combined unevenly...” (Modonesi, [17:16]; Vigneau adds, [19:08])

6. Resistance, Rebellion, and Their Interplay

[21:45]

• Resistance represents defensive struggle, while rebellion signals active insubordination—but both overlap in reality and theory.
  • “The distinction between the two and their respective placement in the field of subalternity and antagonism is useful as it refines and clarifies concepts… resistance and rebellion also intervene in corresponding from most struggles.” (Modonesi, [22:07])

7. The Centrality of Antagonism

[23:30]

• Antagonism has both structural (capital vs. labor) and subjective (conscious, organized struggle) levels.
• Modonesi’s focus is to deepen the subjective analysis, making antagonism the core driver of political subjectivation.
  • “I maintain then that the antagonistic principle is a starting point and at the same time the arrival of all Marxist…on the confirmation of political subjectivities…” (Modonesi, [23:46])
  • Vigneau highlights antagonism as the “bridge” between subalternity and autonomy ([25:44]).

8. Gramsci’s Passive Revolution

[26:59]

• Passive revolution describes top-down transformation—change without popular initiative, designed to preserve hegemony.
  • “Passive revolution, Gramsci argued, often occur to remedy a crisis of hegemony… while promoting certain changes ultimately aimed to the conservation of substantial power relations.” (Modonesi, [27:20])
• It’s used by ruling classes to absorb pressures from below without real emancipation.

9. Passive Revolution vs. Dictatorship Without Hegemony

[31:04]

• In Latin America, the concept of “dictatorship without hegemony” was more commonly used, but it lacks the nuance of passive revolution, which better captures the reconfiguration of consensus even by progressive governments.
  • “The formula of dictatorship without hegemony is used only in...the case of Italian unification... While the passive revolution is a recurring resource in world history...” (Modonesi, [31:26])

10. South and Latin American Social Movements: Cycles and Responses

[32:55]

• Late 20th/early 21st-century anti-neoliberal movements were diverse, mixing “old forms” of struggle with new agendas for autonomy and self-determination.
  • “The anti-neoliberal mobilization...had a popular component, politicized the resistance agenda... They emerged from the defensive phase, resorted to new formats of struggle and organization, but they did not disdain the old one.” (Modonesi, [33:17])
• Progressive governments co-opted movements, leading to demobilization, though organizational bases still remain.
  • “These governments installed processes controlled from above, that did not modify the systems of domination or the power relations.” (Vigneau, [38:10])

11. Current Dynamics and Future Outlook

[39:50]

• Both the right and post-progressivism are limited in vision, but grassroots organizing and resistance reserves persist.
  • “I would say that the capacity for self-organization and mobilization from below that has accumulated in resistance against both neoliberal and progressive governments is also revitalized…” (Modonesi, [40:18])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the core agenda of the book:
  • “The main goal of this book emerges, which is to recover and re-articulate that agenda. And in that sense, the element that distinguishes Marxism from this other post Marxist or anti Marxist theories of social movements is the concept of social class and class struggle occupying a central place.” (Maria Vigneau, [08:17])
• On Gramsci and subalternity:
  • “He’s a theorist not of subalternity, but of the escape from subalternity, of the historical construction of an autonomous social and political subject capable of contending against hegemony.” (Stephen Dozeman paraphrasing the book, [13:33])
• On subjectivation:
  • “In struggle, that they enter in conflict that they organize… it is in struggle that political subjectivities are formed.” (Maria Vigneau, [10:26])
• On the endurance of popular struggle:
  • “There remains in Latin America a notable resistance reserve of the organized sector of subaltern classes.” (Massimo Modonesi, [37:04])
• On passive revolution:
  • “These are the key to this operation aimed to re establish domination on the firm ground of hegemony, i.e. obtaining the active or passive consensus necessary to stabilize the social order.” (Massimo Modonesi, [27:20])

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Key Segment Timestamps

• [03:49] — Author’s research and book context
• [07:44] — Marxism’s retreat & analysis of contemporary movements
• [13:33] — Gramsci’s theory and subalternity
• [16:56] — Introduction of the triad: subalternity, antagonism, autonomy
• [21:45] — Resistance vs. rebellion
• [23:30] — Dual nature of antagonism
• [26:59] — Gramsci’s “passive revolution”
• [31:04] — Latin American appropriation: “dictatorship without hegemony”
• [32:55] — Anti-neoliberal movements in Latin America
• [36:46] — Co-optation and demobilization of emancipatory movements
• [39:50] — Current cycles: rightward turn and enduring resistance
• [42:03] — Future work: Gramsci’s prison notebooks

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Tone & Style

Throughout, the tone is analytical but accessible—reflecting academic rigor without jargon overload. Modonesi’s voice anchors the theoretical depth, while Vigneau’s comments clarify and supplement, tying abstract frameworks to empirical developments. The conversation is collegial, with Dozeman guiding the dialogue and posing sharp, clarifying questions.

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This episode is essential for anyone interested in Marxist theory, political subjectivity, and the ongoing dynamics of resistance and power in Latin America and beyond. It bridges rigorous philosophical reflection with urgent contemporary relevance.

Transcript

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[Marshall Poe]

Hello everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network and if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and You will see a link to NBN Productions, click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Welcome back to the New Books Network. I'm your host, Stephen Dozman. Today I'm joined by Massimo Modenese and Maria Vigneau to discuss Modenessi's book the Antagonistic Principle, Marxism and Political Action. Published as part of the Historical Materialism book series from Brill and Haymarket Books. The book takes on the theories of Marx and Goromski to develop a philosophical triad of subalternity, antagonism and autonomy as a way of studying political subjectification under oppressive conditions and the potential for resistance. The book then looks at political developments in south and Latin America. Massimo Modenessi is professor and Chair of the Political and Social Sciences FACULT at the Autonomous National University in Mexico and is the author of numerous books on political theory and history in Latin America, his most recent in English being Subalternity, Antagonism, Autonomy, Constructing the Political Subject. He is a member of the Coordinating Committee of the International Gramsci Society. Maria Vignal served as a research assistant under Modanesi and now teaches while working on her PhD at the University of Washington in Seattle.

[Massimo Modenessi]

So.

[Stephen Dozeman]

So, Maria and Massimo, welcome to the New Books Network.

[Massimo Modenessi]

Thank you.

[Stephen Dozeman]

So, to kind of kick things off, Massimo, we always like to introduce our authors or have them introduce themselves. So could you maybe give us a sense of what your research tends to focus on?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Well, you say it enough. I'm a full professor at UNAM in Mexico and I'm working on social movement and also in Marx's theory of collective action.

[Stephen Dozeman]

You write in the introduction that this book is a sort of expansion and development of an earlier book you wrote titled Subalternity, Antagonism, Autonomy. So to contextualize this newer book a bit, could you give us a brief summary of the main ideas you put forward there?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Yeah, well, this new book actually contains a brief revision of the mains idea presented in the early one was published in 2014. In that previous book, I retraced the theoretical efforts built around three concepts developed within Marxist reflection on the subject and political action, which characterize processes of political subjectivation. As you said, subalternity, antagonism and autonomy. After reviewing this, their origin and the debates around them, I argued that it is possible to articulate them as complementary and analytical tools for a study of the formation and configuration of political subjectivities. And those ideas serves as a stepping stone for the arguments presented in the newer book. In this new book, I begin by Exploring the possibilities of reconfiguring a Marxist perspective of analysis of collective action and social movements vis a vis the dominant theories in the academic field and establish an agenda and especially Marxist conceptual heritage. That it is explicitly placed in the debate, which I think is opposed to existing theories, but also serves as a counterpoint, you can say, and establishes points of contact with them, since even when they're with their limits, they have the advantage of being not only more diffused but also more developed at a theoretical and methodological level. In the field of political sociology. Marxism, or you can say Marxisms in plural, in their epochal crisis, retreated from the terrain of the analysis of the phenomenon processes of collective action much more, I think, than from any other fields, such, for example, the critique of capitalism, the understanding of state forms or of culture or ideology, as you say, in the Marxist perspective. Thus, I maintain that the class struggle formula contains elements that need to be not only updated, but deployed in their own connotation. I struggle, as you can say, your repertoires of action class as the sphere of confirmation of the subject, but I insist, with its own accents and from Marxist roots. In this sense, a step forward is, in my opinion, adding a battery of concepts such as subalternity, antagonism and autonomy, whose analytical potential in the study of processes of political subjectivation was explored in my previous book. As I mentioned before, in this sense I also include in the book a new part, a methodological section to give clues about the concrete application of my proposal and centering the field of empirical research for a triadic reading of the processes of political subjectivation. An application that I will have to say that incidentally, I've been taken up by many case studies by colleague and co workers.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Early in the book, you look at Marx's place in contemporary discourse around sociology, political movements and economics and see a huge gap where Marxist theory once was. And one example you bring up is in analysis of events such as the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall street, where most of the analysis is focused on their use of social media to organize. The result is a lot of study of the form at the expense of the content of these movements. And can you explain what you mean here and how it's indicative of the larger trends you describe in this section?

[Maria Vigneau]

This reduction of the analytical capacity to make those features visible and the political dimension, sort of like more central in contemporary social movements, is also related to the relative retreat of Marxism or Marxist analysis from the study of collective action and social sociopolitical movements. Its place was taken up instead by other post Marxist or anti Marxist perspectives, whose focus was sometimes much more on the elements of form that you mentioned, Stephen, like the use of social media, often overstating their importance and the central place that they had or didn't have. And there are different reasons behind the relative retreat of Marxism from this field. Some of them are related to the losses suffered in historical process. I'm thinking of the defeat of revolutionary socialist movements in the final 20 years of the 20th century and the relegation of Marxism from universities and other spaces of creation and dissemination of knowledge. But there are more substantive reasons related to this retreat that are more central to the argument of this book, which is the absence of a systematic and specifically Marxist agenda to think about political action. And it is from that diagnosis that also the main goal of this book emerges, which is to recover and re articulate that agenda. And in that sense, the element that distinguishes Marxism from this other post Marxist or anti Marxist theories of social movements is the concept of social class and class struggle occupying a central place.

[Stephen Dozeman]

You write that much Marxist analysis in recent years has focused on class and the dynamics of capital. What's been lost here is class struggle and related questions of subjectivation and agency. Can you explain this struggleless approach and how your analysis is intended as a corrective supplement?

[Maria Vigneau]

This is related, I think, to the two levels in which Marxist analysis always moves. Which is a more structural one, like Massimo said, the one that sort of like focuses on exploitation and the contradiction between labor and capital, and a more subjective one, the expression of those structural contradictions. Right. And then there's obviously the dialective relationship between the two. And it's true that in recent analysis, like you say, Stephen, Marxist studies or Marxist thought on class has focused more on the structural terrain and the many complexities that those analysis entail, which are many and are complicated. However, I don't think there has been a corresponding revival in the study of subjective dimension of class, which is class struggle. And this is important because it is in struggle, in the subjective expressions of those structural tensions, that actors are configured as political subjects. It is in struggle that they enter in conflict that they organize. The book recovers the formulation by E.P. thompson to talk about this issue in which he says that it is actually class struggle that leads to the conformation of classes. And the book sort of adds to that idea by stating that it is in struggle that political subjectivities are formed.

[Massimo Modenessi]

Oh yes, well, I think that the class perspective should not be essentialized, but there was a reaction that led to denying or denying it or relegating it to the point of making mostly invisible. There is also a tendency to think that it's of it statically as a mere social nomenclature. And its fundamental aspect was lost, which is that class relations or relation of struggle. In this sense, class seen as a state of things, as a situation of inequality, as a static asymmetry cannot be take us to the relationship that underlies, that is those structural ones derived from exploitation and the struggle for the appropriation of material wealth and the conditioned relationship and also processes of its production. So at the same time, and that is the aspect that most interests me, the antagonism, the confrontation in subjective terms on the part of social sector that identify and related to each other based on the struggle, not as objective data, but as subjective factor, as subjectivity. It is this field that the analysis must be deepened and fully deployed. I guess Maria, surely I have something to add, because she had a research on the concept of social classes to when she was working with me in Mexico.

[Stephen Dozeman]

You take a brief detour through Gramsci's theory of the subaltern class, where you write. Gramski is a theorist not of subalternity, but of the escape from subalternity, of the historical construction of an autonomous social and political subject capable of contending against hegemony. His interest in understanding subalterns is to foment their spirit of chishon, to develop and follow the red thread of their autonomous initiative, not to idolize it or take it for granted. Can you unpack this a bit in how Gramsci sees subalternity in its relation to subjective interpolation?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Yes. I will start from the observation that the predominant interpretation of Gramsci thought are dislocated between subalterni's reading and Germanistic readings, that is, between the emphasis on the exaltation of the subaltern as the place of the oppressed resistance, but always defeated and an existing but always unfinished subject. And to the antipodes, the emphasis of the subject capable of exercising the gemn given subject capable of expansion and politically effective, in the words of Gramsch himself, leader and dominant. In both readings I see an essentialism and a tendency towards simplification that lies precisely in not asking the Gramscian question and of how the suburb turn can become a Germanist or hegemonic. In this passage, a series of questions unfold that Gramsci finds in embryo in the subaltern classes in its contradictory conscientiousness, in its conception of the world, attached to common sense, in its spontaneity. Issues that can potentially be developed through A spirit of splitting, separation, independence and autonomy in the progressive generation of a collective will, national and popular, says Gramsci, through diffuse organic intellectual emerging from within them, who led and guided a war position in the cultural field, which is intervened with the political, which implies leadership and organization. And the point of articulation is the central point that of autonomy, independence and class self organization, that I think it became a blind spot and I believe largely due to the defeat and crisis of the socialist and communist revolutionary movement in the 20th century. At the same time, I think the keys to Gramsci is reading of the process of political subjectivation at theoretical level lies in this precise dimension as well as, should we say, the cartoonist, coordinates of possible recomposition of a mass anti capitalistic movement in our time, which will not be born only for an accurate theory, but neither, I would say, in the absence of it.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Moving on, you put subalternity in a tripart dynamic, along with antagonism and autonomy that work together to form a particular form of political subjectivity. Can you explain these two other terms and how you see them working together to form this kind of particular form of political subjectivation?

[Maria Vigneau]

Yes.

[Massimo Modenessi]

Well, for my part, contributing with my own grain of sand, I wanted to point out that just as Marxism views reality in a tripartite way, based on relation of domination, dynamics of conflict and processes of emancipation, there are correlates to think and understand processes of subjectivation that correspond to them. These correlates have already been tried, but separately, as theories of subalternity, theories of antagonism or theories of autonomy. And I believe, for my part, that each of these concepts designates a condition, or you will say, a dimension of the processes of political subjectivation. So subalternity as the condition and experience of subordination and exploitation, antagonists as the experience of insubordination and autonomy as the that of self determination. And in these processes of subjectivation, they. They are all usually combined unevenly and evenly, in different proportion, depending of the circumstances, prompting different trajectories and configurations as a whole. I think they form a triple tape reading length that allows us in synchronic terms to appreciate the contradiction and to decipher the combination and at dichronic level to account for non linear processes. This is very synthetic term because it is a theoretical proposal that has a certain degree of complexity. Also, basically, in this basic formulation it is quite simple. Maybe Maria can help me to be more clear.

[Maria Vigneau]

At this point I can add a little bit more about the background of this argument, which was the subject of that Other book that you guys mentioned at the beginning of the interview. These three concepts of alternative antagonism and autonomy are part of the Marxist lexicon, the Marxist vocabulary that has been used within Marxism both in its academic variance and its more political expressions. To think about phenomena of political subjectivation, like Massimo was saying, right. Each one of them referring to a different experience of the relationship with capital, domination, conflict or emancipation. Their usage, however, sort of like, has not been so straightforward in the field of like subjectivities. And additional, these concepts emerged at different times from different authors. You know, they emerged from different concerns and very particular agendas. They had their own development within Marxism and their own issues or controversies. And I think Massimo's proposal finds a way to articulate them in a single theoretical perspective, which is sustained by the recognition that these are homologous categories. Right. In the sense that they analyze the same phenomenon and complementary because they each, you know, captured specific experience. And the. Yeah, the final element of this recognition is what Masmah was saying, sort of political subjectivities are uneven combinations of the three experiences and the three types of relations with capital. And the theoretical framework or theoretical proposition, like Massimo said, it was used some years ago by a working group back at UNAM which analyzed a series of social movements in Mexico and Latin America using the conceptual triad, adapting for empirical analysis. That was the last thing that I worked on before I moved here to the US for grad school. But anyway, a chapter on the operationalization of the theoretical framework is actually included in this book.

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[Stephen Dozeman]

Moving along, you look at. You look at two terms, resistance and rebellion. While you do distinguish between the two, you also see them as more closely related than first glance might suggest. So can you unpack these two terms and how they function as expressions or dispositions of the subaltern subjectivity we've been developing?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Yes, I will be. I will have a short answer on this. I think the notion of resistance has been recovered and placed at the center of the analysis, starting from the retreat and the defeats of the socialist and communist movements in the 20th century, since it characterizes a defensive phase of the struggle, particularly against neoliberalism and the notion of rebellion in Marxism at a critical connotation, since it designate uprising classes, but without sufficient their direction and politicity. But he has recovered certain values as long as always in the period of retreat mentioned. It accounts to for the juncture or moments that went daily resistant to more forceful action of insubordination. So I think that the distinction between the two and their respective placement in the field of subalternity and antagonism is useful as it refines and clarifies concepts. At the same time, as you point out, and as I maintain, insofar as subalternity and antagonism intersect in the processes of political subjectivation, resistance and rebellion also intervene in corresponding from most struggles.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Turning to the topic of antagonism specifically, which was developed a lot in Marx's own work, you argue that there are a couple level to it, one more structural or systemic, and the other subjective. So can you kind of unpack this dual understanding of antagonism?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Yes, because I would say that all Marxism, since Marx, is founded on the idea of class antagonism, that is, of class struggle. However, it is a principle that has different levels and has given rise to different interpretation of the social constitution of capitalism. In the first place, it designates a structural plane in which classes are opposed to the extent that they embody the question between capital and labor. In this sense, it is a conflict that lies in the social relation of production and that corresponds to the existence of the classes in themselves. But secondly, the contrast translates into the subjective confrontation between classes constituted as subject, you will say, classems for themselves. I consider that for the purpose of clarity and in order to deepen the analysis, particularly in relation to the processes of subjectivation, the concept should be deployed exclusively, I think, on the subjective level, not to separate it for a structural one, but to give it its specificity and to be able to develop the Marxist question of political subjectivation. And this is because the same etymological root and many users of the concept point in it in this direction. And I think I maintain then that the antagonistic principle is a starting point and at the same time the arrival of all Marxist tellerization on the confirmation of political subjectivities that have arisen and in the class struggle that characterize capitalist society. Maybe Baria can add something about this.

[Maria Vigneau]

I can say something sort of about the idea of the centrality of antagonism in the Marxist theory of political subjectivation, as has been proposed in this book, and the other one even sort of related to the title, the antagonistic principle and that's just that when thinking about the conceptual triad, we find or we recognize that antagonism is this subjective notion that refers to the experience of insubordination and struggle that we've talked about. Antagonism is a bridge between subalternity and autonomy, right? It's the necessary passage between them, both in a synchronic way, when we think about uneven combinations of these three experiences in specific moments, and also in a diachronic way, when we think about processes, right? Thinking about sequences in the confirmation of political subjectivities. I don't know. Going from subalternity to antagonism to autonomy, back to subalternity, other combinations. So antagonism can be thought of as this connection between the two. And in that sense it is the dynamic element that gives mobility to the. To the triad, and thus the centrality of it.

[Stephen Dozeman]

You turn to Gramsci's idea of passive revolutions, which would seem to be a contradiction in terms. And this becomes even more clear in some of the other ways he phrases it, saying it's a revolution without a revolution or a conservative innovation. Can you explain what passive revolutions are and how they function to re subalternize subjects?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Well, the notion of passive revolution tries to synthesize and reveal an apparent contradiction, the idea of process of transformation that at the same time does not imply an activation from below, but an initiative from above, nothing. While promoting certain changes ultimately aimed to the conservation of substantial power relations. Passive revolution, Gramsci argued, often occur to remedy a crisis of hegemony, an organic crisis in which the ruling classes cannot dominate as before, but at the same time the subordinated, the subaltern classes cannot overthrow them. And in past that remembers the one that led Marx to develop the idea of Bonapartism. However, the notion of passive evolution has the virtue of including the dimension of the lack of prominence of the super classes, that is their deficit of activity. Kermschi maintains that they are limited to sporadic and inorganic subversive versus subversive action, which allows the ruling classes to take the initiative, retake control and passivate them, receive alternative them by making concessions in exchange for demobilization concessions, social control and Bonapartist format, which we can associate to the certain formats of populism, both progressive or or conservative. These are the key to this operation aimed to re establish domination on the firm ground of hegemony, I.e. obtaining the active or passive consensus necessary to stabilize the social order. I believe that this critical formula of Gramsci allows us to decipher ways of solving a Germanic crisis to weigh degrees of transformation and conservation and activation and passivization, which reveals what appears contradictory as a dialectical synthesis that offers us also an important key to reading at the historic historiographic level, since that allows characterizing medium term processes that occur in different regions of the world under different formats, more or less totally Thorian, more or less progressive. But also since we can also recognize passive revolution as ongoing political projects before they become historical processes, this can be an analytical tool to think about one of the possible responses to the COVID 19 crisis in terms of new formats. State intervention and populism driven from above, with a certain degree of reforms and concessions, but substantially oriented towards social control to guarantee the preservation of the basic foundation of the existing relation of domination. The passive revolution is a resource of the ruling classes. They do not always occur, but they usually occur to face a challenge that destabilizes their dominance, which can be challenged posed by the lower classes, an endogenous or partially exogenous systemic crisis as they're currently, as is currently the case.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Turning to south and Latin American developments in Marxist and Gramscian scholarship, you find that passive revolution has been largely absent from a lot of discussion around hegemony. One concept we get in its place is the dictatorship without hegemony, which has certain parallels, but also some points of difference. Can you speak to this development a bit?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Yeah, it will be just a bit, because it's a punctual question. What happens here is that this is a concept that has been mostly used to account for processes of a conservative, or I will say reactionary nature. It's true that Gramsci, recovering it from the 19th century, use it to understand fascism, but also the New Deal and Fordism in the United States. In relation to fascism. He was interested in observing behind the reactionary and coercive form social reforms and the construction of consensus of hegemony. The formula of dictatorship without hegemony is used only in the prison notebooks, only in the case of Italian unification under the Kingdom of Piedmont. State operation based on territorial annexation and conquest, although not exempt from national support. But it is an exceptional case. While the passive revolution is a recurring resource in world history in particular, I think it is an excellent and unequal tool to see not so much the dictatorship, but e brick formats that formats that serves to reconfigure hegemony, that is domination based fundamentally on consensus, also by governments that we can generically call progressive.

[Stephen Dozeman]

In more recent decades, you point out that there have been substantial anti capitalist and anti neoliberal movements in South And Latin America, which has given Marxist scholars new historical material to enter into a dialogue with. Can you speak to some of the key elements of these movements and how Gramscian scholarship has responded to them?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Well, yes. The anti neoliberal mobilization of the 19 and 2000s in Latin America had a popular component, politicized the resistance agenda. They emerged from the defensive phase, resorted to new formats of struggle and organization, but they did not disdain the old one. The old ones, and not infinitely used the recourse of uprising and rebellion. Its eruption marked the regional political scenario. In many ways. It led to a political turn that settled in the electoral sphere and a change of governments that went from being led by neoliberal parties to progressive ones, including in various countries, with the almost complete modification of the party system. And in free country in particular, there were new constitution that was written. This had an impact on the academy in terms of a wave of studies on social movements, which were highly illustrative, but which, with few exceptions, I have to say, did not depart from the dominant methodological theoretical frameworks. Gramsham studies did not always respond to the challenge, but when it did occur, it was on the basis of studies and subalternative classes based on the identification of hubs of organic intellectual, the capacity to build a popular national collective will and the counter hegemonic capacity, that is to say, the expansion of an hegemonic alternative. I would say maybe Maria has something to add with this.

[Maria Vigneau]

Sure. I think this cycle of struggles in Latin America from mid-90s to mid-2000s, like Massimo said, brought forth new and old elements in the social movements that emerged. For example, they had a popular component, resorted to uprising and rebellion. But new elements were, for example, that they included a demand for autonomy, right, as a practice of self determination, and then notions of altered territoriality as well. And all of these, like we said, reactivated an agenda for analysis and studies that try to get at to understand these movements that swept the region and led to what has been called by some people a sort of change of epoch. And as we mentioned at the beginning, other post Marxist or anti Marxist theoretical perspectives have been more dominant, at least in the academy, in their interpretations and attempts to explain and understand these politicizations and these mobilizations. And the place where Gramsche scholarship, which, like you said, Stephen, in your question, sort of like where does Gramschen scholarship, you know, what have they had to say is in these, in the analysis of how those social movements led to the installation of progressive governments in the region, using the concept of passive revolution, that Massimo explained before.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Even more recently, you see this cycle of more emancipatory political movements as having perhaps come to an end, or at least having found themselves blunted in their efforts, subverted and diverted in terms of their energy. What are some of the general trends you see happening in this regard?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Well, this cycle ended with the installation of series of progressive governments in most of the countries of the region. Governments that undertook different forms of passive revolution, but with a common pattern demobilization, dispersed the accumulated force. Although some experience and organizational trenches remain. The great mobilization that occur later were from different actors, without the popular and classic trait of the previous one, or simply dispersed without the politicization and anti neoliberal articulation of the previous decade. However, due to past experience and those that took place then, there remains in Latin America a notable resistance reserve of the organized sector of subaltern classes. I don't know what. Maybe Maria, maybe Maria has something to say about this.

[Maria Vigneau]

Yeah, I think it's interesting how the question, right, how you say that these emancipatory political movements found themselves blunted in their efforts. And I think, yeah, the concept of the Gramscian concept of passive revolution helps us understand how, you know, a series of progressive governments emerged from these political movements and to understand also the relationship between the two after that. These governments in Latin America, while they included some of the voices and demands of actors in social movements, they did enact a criticism of neoliberalism. They expanded an agenda for social justice, for economic regulation, for redistribution. While they did all that, they also deactivated and demobilized to alternate, we can say, subjects and actors that had been the protagonist of the struggles, right. They absorbed or even negated other types of protests. We can think about indigenous or autonomous protest or movements. And in general, these governments installed processes controlled from above, that did not modify the systems of domination or the power relations. And additionally, sort of more towards the later years of these governments, or the governments that remained, at least around 2013 or so, they took even a more regressive profile.

[Stephen Dozeman]

To bring this discussion to a close, you end the book discussing some key dynamics of the current situation in south and Latin America, both the recent turns to the right with intensified programs of austerity and extractivism, as well as a resurgence in certain emancipatory critiques and political movements. So can you maybe give us both a sense of the increasing issues the recent the region faces, as well as some of the movements in their efforts to combat these issues?

[Massimo Modenessi]

This is a difficult question, but I will say very quickly That I think that the demobilization promoted by progressive governments, as well as their limits and their own crisis, opened a door that has allowed return of the rights in a significant number of countries in recent years. At the same time, the rights, new and old, quickly show that they do not have the capacity to establish a new agenda. So progressivism itself regains a certain strength by being associated with governments that promoted a moderate return of the regulatory intervention of the state, a certain national pride, sometimes with anti imperialist overtones, a certain capacity for redistribution at the time of the boom of commodities. But I would say that the capacity for self organization and mobilization from below that has accumulated in resistance against both neoliberal and progressive governments is also revitalized and maybe may find favorable situation to sustain demands and exigencies revindication in this context of generalized crisis that has always threatened to affect the popular sectors much more.

[Stephen Dozeman]

All right, that brings us to the end of the book. So, as a final question, Massimo, what are you working on now?

[Massimo Modenessi]

Well, I'm working on a book when I'm just doing the research now on Gramsci theory of political subjectivation, but with a special insight on concepts that are in the prison notebooks. So it is an investigation on the prison notebooks as the center of Gramti thought on political subjectivation. And I'm just doing some trying to settle some links on concept that are not linked enough because the Gramscius writing was not easy in jail and he was sick. So a lot of connection has to be established. And so this is my actual work.

[Stephen Dozeman]

Wonderful. Well, Massimo Modenessi and Maria Vignau, thank you so much for being with us.