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P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 1 3 VO L 6 1 , 7 3 1 – 7 4 7
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.01003.x

Building Consent: Hegemony, ‘Conceptions of

the World’ and the Role of Evangelicals in
Global Politics

Kyle Murray Owen Worth

Tennessee State University University of Limerick

Since Robert Cox’s early interventions in the 1980s, the work of Gramsci has been openly applied to the arena of
international politics, often superimposed on to the wider concepts of ‘world order’ and ‘transnational class’ formation.
While this has produced a great deal of commendable scholarly work, it has equally produced a growing number of
critics who have voiced concerns over the viability and feasibility of applying Gramsci’s key concepts to the realm of
the international. Rather than revisiting these charges, we argue that one of the main problems associated with the
‘neo-Gramscian’ interpretations of international relations (IR) is that they have tended to develop an ontology of their
own and have not pursued a re-reading of Gramsci’s actual work to explore a fresh opening towards applying Gramsci
to the international. We argue that by re-exploring Gramsci’s understanding of ‘conceptions of the world’ and by
re-examining Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, a greater scope can be achieved for understanding power relations
within global politics.We demonstrate the potential for this by tentatively looking at the role of increasingly popular
global evangelical religious groups in the fashioning of hegemonic consent across diverse parts of civil society, arguing
that it is such bottom-up studies of societal consent that are required in order for Gramscian theory and research to
move beyond their current ontological applications.

Keywords: hegemony; international relations; religion; Gramsci

The influx of ‘neo-Gramscian’ material within the area of international studies, particularly
in the disciplines of international relations (IR), has been such that it has almost acquired
the status of a paradigm in recent years. While debates continue over the validity of the
application of Gramsci (Femia, 2005; Germain and Kenny, 1998), over the manner in which
it is applied (Ayers, 2008;W. I. Robinson, 2005;Worth, 2008) and on its compatibility with
Marxist rigour (Bieler et al., 2006; Morton, 2006), the ‘neo-Gramscian’ approach is one that
has been utilised in order to demonstrate how power and consent are maintained in
international politics. Central to this has been the legacy of Robert Cox and his work on
‘world order’ and on the role of hegemony in international politics. From here, Gramsci’s
central concept of hegemony is transferred to an international level through a combination
of production, ‘transnational social forces’ and the inspiration of leading states (Cox, 1987;
1996). It has been this utilisation of hegemony at an international level that has often raised
as many problems as it has potential avenues for development. Rather than building upon
the complexities illustrated in readings of hegemony from other academic fields (Morley
and Chen, 1996; Mouffe, 1979), or indeed looking at some of the more authentic accounts
that have appeared in political theory (Ives, 2005; Thomas, 2010), the general trend has
been to understand hegemony as an elaborate extension of the state/class leadership,
building upon previous more conservative usages of the term (W. I. Robinson, 2005).
This article aims to look at an area that has often been neglected in such studies and that
is the area of religion, in which Gramsci placed significant interest when understanding
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consent. Religion and the formation of the Catholic Church in Italy became especially
important when he looked at how a hegemonic relationship was forged between repre-
sentatives of church and society at different levels. In keeping with recent accounts that have
called for a reassessment (or a clarification) of how hegemony can be used in a manner that
can open up new avenues of study (Saurin, 2008, p. 35;Worth, 2009), we analyse how the
global ‘Prosperity Gospel’ movement has helped to harmonise the processes of free market
capitalism and globalisation through mobilising popular consent within subaltern classes.
One way of understanding how this consent is mobilised is to look at Gramsci’s notion of
‘conceptions of the world’, which enables us to understand how different narratives can be
harmonised across different levels of international society.This allows us to understand the
dynamics of hegemony in a manner that moves beyond state-centric accounts and looks
at empirical socio-cultural forms of agency that are often underplayed within studies
of hegemony in IR (Pasha, 2008; Worth, 2011). By looking at a number of examples
of evangelical Christianity within sub-Saharan Africa, we can understand how levels of
consent can be forged at all levels so that they are compatible with the wider forces of
neo-liberal hegemony.

Gramsci and ‘Conceptions of the World’ as the Terrain of Hegemony

Hegemony in IR has often been understood as a mechanism that has been traditionally
used to imply ‘dominance’ or ‘leadership’ by one specific state. While accounts in main-
stream IR have stressed the strength of such leadership through a study of specific historical
eras (Keohane, 1984; Kindleberger, 1981), the accounts used by neo-Gramscians have
argued that hegemony is forged through class alliances, or through ideologies that have been
inspired within the elites of leading states (Cox, 1983;Van der Pijl, 1998).This has provided
a fresh understanding of the articulation of hegemony at the international level, but still
suffers from the downplaying of complexities that were involved in Gramsci’s own elabo-
ration of the term. It also leads to top-down assumptions and generalisations concerning the
nature and positioning of civil society – in terms of the rather un-dialectical manner in
which neo-liberal social forces are asserted to have gained supremacy over agencies which
merely reinforce its overriding production.
Cox’s portrayal of US-inspired hegemonic leadership portrays world order as ‘nebuleuse’,
whereby states, productive forces and ideas interact to strengthen and consolidate (Cox,
2002). What is missing, however, is the capacity of seeing how hegemony is articulated at
all levels of international society. This can be done through a better understanding of the
complexities implicit within Gramsci’s own concept of hegemony and fully utilising
Gramsci’s framework for locating and analysing these subtleties. Broadly understood by
Gramsci, hegemony is the synthesis of class relations around a specific form of production.
However, the workings and expressions of hegemony contain a far more complex set of
relationships which are formed through a set of contrasting means.
As a functional process, hegemony is a both a structural and superstructural project of
consensual totality which can fuse contradictory ‘conceptions of the world’ held by the
popular masses and mobilise them at the level of consciousness so as to allow the ruling
classes to fashion and exert a specific brand of intellectual and moral leadership while
controlling and perpetuating economic production. While hegemony is the overarching
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theme of Gramsci’s political thought, Gramsci used the term ‘conception of the world’ to
articulate how certain social groups and individuals within them understand the world and
their place in them (Wainwright, 2010). Such conceptions are developed through processes
that produce forms of individual and collective ‘contradictory consciousness’ (Gramsci,
1971, p. 333).
It is upon this terrain that popular consent is built towards the perpetuation of the
intellectual and moral leadership of the ruling classes and productive forces to exercise
hegemony within a set of social relations during a specific historical period (Gramsci, 1971,
pp. 356–7). The dominant classes of politics and production must forge consent among
competing world views between the popular and subaltern classes by fusing aspects of the
world view of each class together in order to build a cohesive state–society complex in
which they may exercise supremacy. It is in civil society and upon the terrain of popular
consciousness that the consent for their intellectual and moral leadership is solicited for
hegemony and reinforced by coercion in the event of crisis (Gramsci, 1971, p. 33). As a
departure point for deeper analysis, Gramsci provides us with a conceptual model outlining
conceptions of the world and the way they are constructed through three interdependent
analytical levels or spheres of activity: philosophy, politics and production. As Gramsci
argues:
If these [philosophy, politics, production] are constitutive elements of a single conception of the
world, there must necessarily be, in the theoretical principles, convertibility from one to the
others, a reciprocal translation into the specific language of each constitutive part: each element
is implicit in the others and all of them together form a homogeneous circle ... For the
historian of culture and of ideas, this proposition leads to some important principles of research
and criticism (Gramsci, 1996, p. 196).

In terms of utilising this conceptual model for understanding the production and repro-
duction of hegemony at the global level, a key departure point is that the world as a whole
consists of contrasting ‘conceptions of the world’. Thus, the production of any form of
hegemony on a global stage necessitates forging popular consent within and between
contrasting popular world views across different states, societies and markets. Understanding
how popular consensus is produced along the terrain of contrasting cultures and conscious-
ness is quintessential for understanding how hegemony develops on a global stage. The
triangular composition of a conception of the world is to a degree implicit within Cox’s
own triangular models put forth to describe global production and world order in his 1981
piece: ‘material capabilities’ (production), ‘forms of state’ (politics) and ‘ideas’ (philosophy)
(Cox, 1981).Yet placed within the paradigm of production, politics and philosophy it allows
us to think beyond the more state-focused studies towards new areas of empirical research.
More poignantly, if we are to comprehend better the workings of hegemony on a global
level and gain a fuller understanding of the myriad processes of global political economy,
then social forces and state–society complexes need to be situated among competing
conceptions of the world.
Gramsci subdivides his own conceptual model even further as other sub-levels are
analysed in terms of where they fit into the dialectic of these three larger sectors of his
paradigm, depending on their place along the class spectrum (Gramsci, 1971, p. 325; 1985,
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pp. 188–91; 2007). While the notion of competing conceptions of the world sets out the
imagined reality of a specific social group, hegemony binds this reality together through sets
of interconnected agents that are utilised within and between the realms of production,
politics and philosophy. Individuals and social groups may indeed strive ‘to have a sole
organic and systematic world outlook but, since there are many deep-rooted cultural
differentiations, society presents a bizarre kaleidoscope of currents that give a religious or
political colouring according to historical tradition’ (Gramsci, 1995, p. 115).
Production encapsulates the respective roles of service, agency, consumption and/or
ownership. Under the heading of politics we place emphasis on those governmental
superstructures of the modern state, which become the instruments of the ruling classes.
State superstructures are characterised by the social relations implicit within and explicit in
how specific governments interact with the outside world. Under politics we can also locate
the so-called ‘private’ forces of society that intervene in the aggregation of interests. It is
under the umbrella of philosophy that Gramsci situates religions, in all their forms and
manifestations, with his expansive concept of the term – along with folklore and common
sense (Gramsci, 1985, pp. 188–91).The fruition of hegemony occurs when consent for the
intellectual and moral leadership of the ruling classes of production/politics is thus granted
by the subaltern classes and popular masses. In addition, as Gramsci elaborates in the fourth
notebook in describing the ‘relations of force’, just as the popular masses accept roles of
submission in terms of this synthesis of interconnected agents, it is also at specific or
multiple points within these overlapping levels that resistance and dissidence spring forth
during a crisis of hegemony (Gramsci, 1996, pp. 173–4).
Thus, hegemonic production is a multifaceted process, but its maintenance and repro-
duction are generated by similarly complex processes which are facilitated at contrasting
levels of society. The neo-Gramscians have often focused on the top-down processes of
global free market hegemony with respect to the thought and practice of transnational
institutions like the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and/or
Bilderberg meetings (Gill, 2003, pp. 159–80; Van der Pijl, 1998). This portrays Gramsci’s
concept of hegemony as a very top-down elitist process. Hegemony, however, must be
understood as a much more consensual set of processes. Hegemony is an intellectual, moral,
political and economic order that the majority of the popular and/or subaltern masses
subscribe to, often quite willingly. This is precisely because hegemony establishes a nexus
between the interests of the ruling classes and the forces of production within and between
the conception(s) of the world of the popular and/or subaltern masses.
For hegemony even to exist, it is requisite that popular masses consent to the form of
intellectual and moral leadership that the ruling classes have composed within and/or
between different sets of social relations.Thus, the popular and subaltern classes have been
co-opted into the system of thought and practice, or been subsumed into the ideological
superstructures attached to the base of production.The various and variegated conceptions
of the world across the class spectrum have been channelled towards the ends of production
and the status quo represented by the dominant classes.
Organic links, or conduits of hegemony, are forged by intellectuals. Intellectuals are
representative of different socio-cultural/economic/class interests and reinforce specific
conceptions of the world held by individuals and social groups.These include language(s),
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common sense, folklore, popular religion, philosophy and religions of the intellectuals
(Fulton, 1987; Gramsci, 1971, pp. 419–25; 1985; 1995; A. Robinson, 2005).Therefore, it is
upon these six levels that the bonds are established by the intellectuals between the classes
in order to fuse respective conceptions of the world into a singular hegemonic reality. It
must also be clarified that these six levels are, in reality, not isolated from one another, but
are indeed overlapping and constitute the sum of dialectical activity within and between
each other.When analytically isolated and re-synthesised, these levels stand as the intellec-
tual and psychological terrain upon which we may observe the intricate production and
reproduction of hegemony. These six realms of consciousness and activity represent the
molecular chemistry of ‘hearts and minds’ upon which consent is manufactured (Gramsci,
1971, p. 333).
Thus, hegemony does not imply one segment of the class spectrum merely dominating
the others, but rather the synthesis of these various elements into a ‘political constellation’,
led intellectually and morally by the ruling classes and the forces of production. Philoso-
phies and religions of intellectuals, such as theology, political/economic/social theory,
science, etc. all inform the character and expression of the brand(s) of intellectual and moral
leadership exercised by the dominant classes in the functioning of hegemony (Gramsci,
1971, pp. 187–8).This ‘constellation’ is synthesised at the lower end of the class spectrum,
through the interrelated elements of folklore, vernaculars/dialects (language),1 common
sense and popular religion. Class struggle, laden within these contradictions, is averted and
hegemony is produced when these realms are organically linked throughout the variegated
class structures of a socio-political/cultural entity. Furthermore, these realms of conscious-
ness and activity are channelled towards the ends of the dominant classes of production
through a form of consensual subscription to a particular brand of intellectual and moral
leadership. Hegemony remains the central process that binds the ‘political constellation’ of
the interests of different classes, the philosophy and religion(s) of the intellectuals who
consensually exercise moral leadership, and is translated through language to the levels of
common sense and folklore for the purpose of gaining consent.
For us, hegemony takes up a central role in understanding the dynamics of politics.
Rather than the term hegemony being dependent upon its measurement at the state or
institutional level (as argued by Germain and Kenny), it should be expressed in different
ways and at different levels – including global politics. Gramsci’s primary concern was to
demonstrate ‘how’ and ‘why’ contemporary Marxist-Leninism had failed to take root as the
dominant world view of the subaltern/popular masses (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 419–20).2 Yet in
developing the concept, its complexities have allowed generations in different academic
fields to provide a way of understanding the concept at different levels and through different
media of study.
For us, this should be paramount to its usage within IR. While we can understand the
character of global hegemony as being one that is ‘neo-liberal’ in its orientation, this
prescription of ‘neo-liberalism’ is articulated in different ways and at different levels of
society. This articulation initially stems from moulding contrasting conceptions of the
world so that they appear compatible towards (neo-liberal) hegemony (Bates, 1975, pp.
351–3).These conceptions can be constructed at the national, sub-national or transnational
level and can be articulated through philosophy, religions of the intellectuals, popular
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religion, common sense, language(s) or folklore.Yet for them to be understood at a global

level, they have to be seen as how they are expressed through a wider neo-liberal content.
One particular example of this can be seen with James Ferguson’s studies of African (and
in particular Zambian) civil society. Here he illustrates how a ‘topology’ of civil society is
used within modern Africa in order to forge different methods of neo-liberal consent.
Consent at the top level might be reached through state and globalised agencies such as the
World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) and through the role of foreign invest-
ment, but consent further down is facilitated through grassroots organisations and forms of
popular engagement (Ferguson, 2006, pp. 100–4).
Therefore, we argue that a Gramscian analysis for the study of IR should be one that
stands on the premise that hegemony is fashioned through the synthesis of ‘competing
conceptions of the world’. As we have argued in this section, this synthesis is realised
through the triangulation of politics, philosophy and economics and is articulated at
different levels through folklore, common sense, popular religion, religions of intellectuals
and language. Rather than being expressed as a singular ideology, hegemony is expressed
through contrasting understandings and interpreted through a variety of different mean-
ings. It cannot be tested merely through the expression of states and classes, but instead
through its various functioning parts and agents that can be understood through a topo-
logical process of power. It is through the study of the different parts of this process that a
Gramscian ontology can be explored which we believe stands up to current ‘neo-
Gramscian’ criticisms.

Global Politics, Hegemony and Religion

We argue that an alternative understanding of global politics can be asserted, drawing from
Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony and conceptions of the world. How then can we
reformulate this configuration within the study of IR so that we can move to a position that
goes beyond the concepts of world order and transnational classes (Worth, 2009)? Such a
task must be able to locate the political, economic and philosophical nature of the moral
leadership espoused by the leading classes, as well as the manner in which consent is
articulated by subaltern classes via the media of folklore, common sense, popular religion,
religions of intellectuals and language.
To date, empirical neo-Gramscian studies have often used transnational organisations
such as the Trilateral Commission and the World Social Forum, in the context of either
facilitating or contesting the thought and practice of neo-liberalism (Cafruny and Ryner,
2007; Fisher and Ponniah, 2003; Gill, 1990;Van der Pijl, 1998). Here they provide us with
a means through which neo-liberalism is facilitated, but do not give us much insight into
the processes of hegemony from the bottom up in terms of class structure – that is, the role
the popular masses play in enabling the hegemonic process through accepting and inform-
ing the expression of the brand of intellectual and moral leadership promoted and exercised
by the dominant classes. The Trilateral Commission and the World Economic Forum
represent institutions of intellectuals, as they engage the higher institutional levels of the
conception(s) of the world implicit within a larger hegemonic order.
Many of the neo-Gramcisan discourses on world orders and transnational classes
provide empirical richness to studies that illustrate social forces operating at the higher
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levels of the overall hegemony of free market global capitalism. However, the realms of
common sense, folklore and/or religious beliefs in which consent for globalisation is
fashioned between productive forces and the subaltern and popular classes are often
neglected (Worth and Kuhling, 2004). Accounts of hegemony on a global stage must
better account for the diverse and contradictory conceptions of the world of the popular
masses which are organically channelled towards the ends of production and consent for
globalisation. Accounts of global neo-liberal hegemony must move towards more objec-
tive understandings of the consent of the popular masses, which is won precisely in the
realms of individual consciousness and group activity: common sense, folklore and
popular religion. It is within and between these interacting areas that we can observe
how culturally diverse groups coordinate similar conceptions of the world through the
use of specific forms of hegemonic agency.
Many such groups are not necessarily defined by spatial territoriality or within state
boundaries, but are cohesive through cultural or social hegemonic processes which repro-
duce the larger economic ideologies of globalisation. Present empirical examples of the
consensual processes that weld popular conceptions of the world with global macro-
economic neo-liberal policies and philosophy include various global strains of fundamen-
talist, charismatic and evangelical Christianity. The multifaceted function of religion was
central to Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony, with Gramsci separating different cat-
egorisations of consent to religion (Gramsci, 1995). Gramsci’s emphasis on religion also
reflected his own experience of the traditions of civil society in Sardinia where the Catholic
Church was instrumental in the reproduction of its popular culture and subaltern folklore
through its role in the fashioning of common sense (Gramsci, 1992, pp. 162–3).3 Indeed,
religion was such that it fulfilled an ambiguous role for Gramsci as it had the potential both
to comply with and to contest hegemonic relationships. In stressing its purpose as a key
socio-cultural tool of the ruling classes, he also acknowledged the potential role it could
have in building consenting and alternative hegemony projects.This position was one of the
decisive concerns he had with the rejectionist position of religion tendered by leading
Soviets at the time (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 182–4).
Gramsci largely focused upon the importance the Catholic faith had in Italy, but he also
focused upon the role of the Church in other countries. Furthermore, he was increasingly
interested in the Protestant ‘pan-Christian movement’ and proselytising activities at the
international level (Gramsci, 1996, p. 386). In contemporary terms, religious movements
have maintained this level of importance and agency in global politics and society. Certain
groups can and have sought to challenge the principles of global capitalism from a religious
perspective. There have been several accounts, for example, that have highlighted how
Islamic fundamentalism appears as a form of hegemonic contestation at a global level
(Evans, 2011). From the other perspective, there are many forms of Christianity that are
specifically contributing to the consensual hegemonic processes of neo-liberalism. While
these groups contain specific religious intellectuals and intellectual networks, they are
deeply rooted in populism and thrive among the subaltern and new middle classes across
states, societies and markets worldwide.Analysing such movements can provide us with one
such bottom-up understanding of how consent is fashioned in order to comply within a
wider hegemonic framework.
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The fastest growing segments of contemporary global Christianity are characterised by

prosperity-centred strategies of aggressive proselytisation across states, societies and markets
throughout the world. Global strategies, such as ‘church growth’, the development of
‘mega-church’ networks, along with the universal habitus of ‘charismatic’ Protestantism and
Pentecostalism have produced popular conceptions of the world among middle and
subaltern classes worldwide (Coleman, 2000; Coleman and Collins, 2000).The Pew Forum
has referred to this phenomenon as ‘renewalism’, and contextualised it as a decentralised, yet
singular, global movement converging as a global demographic group with a common
world view (Pew Forum, 2006a; 2010). The emergence of this worldwide demographic
group has taken place within the structures and processes of globalisation over the past three
decades.
During this time, the charismatic Christian movement has proliferated throughout the
world. The world’s 500 million Pentecostals now make up one-quarter of the global
Christian population (Pew Forum, 2006a). A significant feature of this rapidly growing
movement is its mass popularity in and across areas of the developing world (Anderson,
2004; Hunt, 2000a; Martin, 2002). Throughout a century of emergence and evolution,
Pentecostalism and charismatic forms of worship have thrived most among the urban and
rural poor (Freston, 2004; 2005; Gifford, 1994). Similarly, they have historically been an
instrumental social force within large rural–urban population movements (Holt, 1940).

Forging Hegemony in the Global Religious Economy

Many of the decentralised religious institutions and movements discussed above are con-
verging through globalisation to produce a singular popular world view and culture which
actively works towards the engineering of popular consent for global free market policies
(Marsden, 2008; Pew Forum, 2006a). The corresponding social forces and intellectuals of
these groups play specific roles in the production of global free market hegemony in both
developed and developing states and societies throughout the world.The global charismatic
Christian movement has come to establish itself as a key presence in policy making and
culture creation within and between many states, societies and markets (Marsden, 2008).
What makes charismatic factions of evangelical Protestantism different from the more
traditional global Orthodox and Catholic enterprises or Protestant traditions, such as
Lutheranism, Methodism or Anglicanism, is that these emergent charismatic branches of
global evangelicalism developed largely in isolation and among the subaltern and popular
classes (Holt, 1940; Maxwell, 1999). Pentecostalism emerged at the turn of the twentieth
century among the rural and urban poor, and its intellectual foundation was constructed by
‘organic’ intellectuals rather than ‘traditional’ intellectuals (Anderson, 2004; Holt, 1940;
Martin, 2002).
Some argue that Pentecostalism grew from popular and subaltern North American
society and emerged in the first decade of the twentieth century as a centrifugal proselytis-
ing force (Brouwer et al., 1996). Others, however, have made the case that it was a
spontaneous, organic global movement from its very beginning (Adogame, 1999; Martin,
2002; 2006). Regardless of the historical narratives, Pentecostal and charismatic forces today
constitute a rapidly growing global phenomenon characterised by countless decentralised
institutions with a worldwide reach and growing popular appeal in both the developed and
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the developing world (Pew Forum, 2006a). Continuous engagement with the popular and
subaltern classes around the world has come through a wide communications network
which includes a globalised popular media and social networks from the grassroots level up
(Marsden, 2008).
Charismatic Christian traditions like Pentecostalism developed in complete isolation
from Enlightenment-era trends such as rationalism, humanism and the gradual assimilation
of the natural sciences – all of which had been fostered by traditional Protestant, Catholic
and Orthodox institutions (Bailey, 2006, pp. 69–73; Waldrep, 2006, pp. 73–9). For these
charismatic groups, the Bible alone, as a source of world view, represents the chronological
boundaries of human history, as well as the limits for scientific and intellectual inquiry.The
anchor of this popular culture and conception of the world is biblical inerrancy, or the belief
that the Bible is to be interpreted literally and applied to structures, spaces and situations of
everyday life as such (Coleman and Collins, 2000; Pew Forum, 2006a). Furthermore, it
mandates the refutation of any knowledge or intellectual activity that stands in contradic-
tion to biblical history/teachings (Marsden, 2008; Pew Forum, 2006a).
Along with biblical inerrancy, these various independent charismatic groups share other
core beliefs with Pentecostals which correspond to the overall convergence of global
charismatic Christianity, its popular culture and world view (Coleman and Collins, 2000;
Martin, 2002). In line with Pentecostal interpretations of Armageddon and the importance
of keeping Israel as a prominent Jewish settlement, the state of Israel has won great support
from within the global charismatic movement. In developing states, such as Zambia, this
conception of the world has directly influenced foreign policy (Shah, 2006). Furthermore,
the institutions and intellectuals of the movement also engage in policy-making processes
in many states and societies with particular regard to pushing socially conservative positions
on moral issues, health care, education and the politics of the family, and challenging the
scientific community (Human Rights Watch/Africa, 2005; Marsden, 2008).
Engaging states and societies in order to create a bloc presence in the aggregation of ideas
and interests corresponds directly to charismatic and Pentecostal Christians’ belief in
perpetual ‘spiritual warfare’. ‘Spiritual warfare’ is their ontological belief that the forces of
God and Satan are constantly battling for control over the structures and spaces of everyday
life (Wagner, 2011). States, societies and markets are thus viewed as spaces and structures that
require activism on the part of believers in order for God to triumph in extra-dimensional
warfare (Marsden, 2008; Pew Forum, 2006a; Wagner, 2011). Through their activities,
charismatic Christian and Pentecostal social forces have effectively added their conception
of the world to the overall nature, administration and behaviour of several states and
societies. In doing so they have managed to force consent at the different levels of society
Ferguson refers to in his model of topological power (Ferguson, 2006, pp. 89–97).
This power is formulated in several ways. Pentecostal and charismatic Christians believe
in the omnipresence of the Holy Spirit within material structures and spaces, thus bridging
the material world with the spiritual beliefs of their conception of the world (Coleman and
Collins, 2000; Pew Forum, 2006a, pp. 49–52). According to this ontology, the Spirit is
entirely capable of providing good health or material wealth if the believer is faithful
enough to invoke its power (Hunt, 2000a).This belief system, referred to as the ‘Prosperity
Gospel’, is based on shared elements of biblical folklore, common sense and expressions of
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popular religion. By encouraging faith investments, the holiness of material gain, and
self-help through common expressions of popular religion, it constitutes assimilated and
popularised neo-liberal philosophy as it has developed predominantly over the past three
decades and within the structures and processes of globalisation (Hunt, 2000a; Marsden,
2008).
The ‘Prosperity Gospel’ represents a neo-liberal ‘reboot’ of more traditional forms of
Protestantism and constitutes a ‘neo-liberal Protestant ethic’ of individualism geared more
towards globalisation and twenty-first-century capitalism.The message of the movement is
that Christian faith and individual wealth are intertwined, with one leading to the other
(Hunt, 2000a; 2000b). Business investments are promulgated as acts of faith by many of the
various ministers of this trans-denominational Christian trend (Hunt, 2000a; 2000b). The
movement began within post-war US civil society, largely spearheaded by Pentecostal
figures such as Oral Roberts, but its widespread popularity grew during the economic
prosperity of the 1990s and the advent of globalisation (Harrell, 2006; Marsden, 2008).
The Prosperity Gospel was used, in US civil society, as a means of justifying the pursuit
of individual wealth, and added a distinct neo-liberal character to various popular expres-
sions of North American Protestantism (Marsden, 2008, pp. 66–9). Even seemingly more
moderate intellectuals of world evangelicalism, such as popular Southern Baptist pastor
Rick Warren, advocate global free market principles and individual prosperity (Warren,
1995; 2002). Warren’s global bestseller, The Purpose-Driven Life (Warren, 1995), as well as
Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking through to the Blessed Life (Wilkinson, 2000),
are examples of these prosperity-centred trends being replicated and commodified as part
of a popular culture based on a common conception of the world.
One particular facet of the Prosperity Gospel addresses the church congregation as a
whole.The philosophy of ‘church growth’ has served as a business model for the expansion
of the charismatic Christian movement over the past two decades throughout the world
(Iannaconne et al., 1995). ‘Church growth’ essentially frames the individual church as a
business and the preacher as a chief executive officer (CEO), and contextualises the church
within local, national and even expansion into transnational markets (Iannaconne et al.,
1995). The congregation proselytises by using marketing techniques, media and social
networking in order to expand its base of constituents and wealth in the aspiration of
becoming a ‘mega-church’. This has led to the development and global expansion of
‘mega-churches’, with the construction of satellite congregations through ‘church planting’
(Marsden, 2008; Martin, 2002).The advent and success of the expansive ‘mega-church’ from
the late 1980s, which has been exacerbated through globalisation, has radically altered the
organisation of religion within and between many states, societies and markets (Murray,
2012).
The Prosperity Gospel phenomenon is a stark example of the consensual processes that
meld popular social forces with neo-liberal hegemony at the local and global levels. It is
producing sets of truly ‘hegemonic’ structures and agents in the wider context of globali-
sation as it successfully merges a specific lifestyle and popular world view with the larger
macroeconomic policies often associated with the concept of neo-liberal hegemony. This
nexus of folklore/common sense/popular religion and macroeconomic philosophy has
been instrumental in the production of global free market hegemony within and between
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many states and societies in the developing world, with the institutions and intellectuals of
fundamentalist and charismatic global evangelicalism playing specific functionary and
maintenance roles (Freston, 2004; 2005; Gifford, 1994; Hunt, 2000b; Maxwell, 1999).
The social partnerships forged between international organisations such as the World
Bank, governments, NGOs, mega-churches and the intellectuals of the charismatic move-
ment have thus contributed much to the engineering of popular consent, while developing
world governments have sought to implement neo-liberal structural adjustments (Pew
Forum, 2006b). This phenomenon is an avenue for understanding how the forces of civil
society can forge hegemonic consent for engagement within a complex global economy.
Such interactions allow for the fusion of common sense, populism and the reinforcement
of folklores, which Gramsci stressed were all necessary for hegemonic production (Gramsci,
1971).
In rapidly urbanising regions, charismatic and Pentecostal social forces have seen unprec-
edented growth (Anderson, 2004; Martin, 2002). In fact, every major expansion of char-
ismatic Christianity since the turn of the twentieth century has been typified by its
relationship to eras and locations of class-structure transformation and played an integral
role within mass population movements from rural to urban locations (Holt, 1940;
Maxwell, 1999). Christian institutions and intellectuals stand as beacons to migrants and
provide a conception of the world that can socialise individuals with the structures and
conventions of their new social, political and economic environment (Holt, 1940; Martin,
2002). Furthermore, these Christian forces act as intermediaries between believers, markets
and government.
Since the 1990s, many charismatic and Pentecostal forces within Uganda have gained an
increasing influence over public policy making and within the Museveni regime in several
key areas, including education, HIV/AIDS prevention and health care (Human Rights
Watch/Africa, 2005). Likewise, the Kagame regime of Rwanda, since the late 1990s, has
attempted to incorporate facets of the movement into its overall hegemony within a
country recently torn by ethnic conflict (Driscoll, 2006). Kagame declared, alongside a
visiting Rick Warren, that Rwanda will be a ‘purpose-driven’ nation, applying Warren’s
moderate prosperity theme to the overall development of Rwanda (Driscoll, 2006). In its
worldwide survey on global charismatic Christianity, the Pew Forum (2006a) analysed three
states within sub-Saharan Africa: South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.The 2006 study has been
augmented by a 2010 survey, which focuses specifically on sub-Saharan Africa as a region,
in relation to the belief sets of Christians and Muslims (Pew Forum, 2006a; 2010). These
two studies give the most approximate portrayal of the realities of the current religious
landscape and religious economy within sub-Saharan Africa.
In relation to markets, the Pew Forum measured many of the economic attitudes of
sub-Saharan Christians. According to its 2010 study, ‘in most countries, more than half of
Christians believe in the prosperity gospel’ (Pew Forum, 2010, p. 2). Furthermore, 56 per
cent of all Christians, as a median of sub-Saharan Christianity, believe in the Prosperity
Gospel, with vast majorities in some countries: Nigeria (77 per cent), South Africa (70 per
cent), Zambia (68 per cent), Kenya (57 per cent), Rwanda (54 per cent) and Uganda (52 per
cent) (Pew Forum, 2010, p. 31). The Pew Forum attributes this intensity of belief, with
regard to the Prosperity Gospel, as being directly linked to the overall influence and growth
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of Pentecostalism and other related independent charismatic congregations throughout the

region (Pew Forum, 2010).
The 2006 Pew study points to a worldwide trend of mass/popular conversion from the
ranks of mainline and traditional institutions over the past three decades, and particularly in
sub-Saharan Africa (Pew Forum, 2006a, p. 34). It also indicates a growing popular appeal for
liberalised markets. In Kenya, 87 per cent of all Kenyans surveyed believe that Kenya is
better off with a free market system, including 83 per cent of Pentecostals, 87 per cent of
charismatics and 85 per cent of other Christians (Pew Forum, 2006a, p. 57). In Nigeria, 88
per cent of all Nigerians surveyed believe strongly in free markets, including 89 per cent of
Pentecostals and 86 per cent of charismatic and other Christians. In South Africa, 74 per
cent of South Africans believe strongly in the free market economy, including 74 per cent
of Pentecostals, 84 per cent of charismatics and 73 per cent of other Christians (Pew
Forum, 2006a, p. 57).
In Kenya, 88 per cent of all Christians surveyed expressed that faith was a key to success,
which included 92 per cent of Pentecostals, 95 per cent of charismatics and 83 per cent of
other Christians. Of the Nigerians surveyed, 95 per cent viewed faith as a key to financial
success, with 94 per cent of Pentecostals and 91 per cent of other Christians in agreement
(Pew Forum, 2006a, p. 57). In South Africa, 74 per cent of South Africans also agreed with
faith being a cornerstone of material success, including 89 per cent of Pentecostals, 82 per
cent of charismatics and 76 per cent of other Christians (Pew Forum, 2006a, p. 57). In both
reports, the Pew Forum concludes that charismatic and/or Pentecostal groups/
denominations and renewalist belief sets are rapidly proliferating throughout sub-Saharan
Africa (Pew Forum, 2006a; 2010, p. 13).
Activism in markets and politics throughout the world on the part of this social force is
uniformly based on a universalised package of beliefs anchored by the omnipresence of the
Holy Spirit (Anderson, 2004; Martin, 2006; Pew Forum, 2006a). Activism is conducted
through the agency of individuals, small study groups, university associations, small/
medium/mega-church congregations, denominational associations/organisations, inter-
denominational organisations, trans-denominational associations/organisations, provincial
organisations, national organisations, regional organisations, international organisations,
NGOs, and transnational networks and associations within and between states and societies
around the world (Adogame, 1999; Marsden, 2008; Pew Forum, 2006a).
Another way by which congregations engage with markets is through a widening
practice of micro-lending schemes, particularly with regard to the developing world. Bishop
Thomas Muthee’s Word of Faith Church, a mega-church located just outside Nairobi, and
his Word of Faith Bible College, purport to be a training ground for young Christian
businessmen and businesswomen (Word of Faith Church Kenya, 2010). Word of Faith
Church Kenya is a significant example of many of the aforementioned patterns in action
with regard to engaging markets.
Not only has Muthee’s ministry successfully planted 400 new churches throughout
sub-Saharan Africa, but Muthee, like many other organic pan-Christian proselytising forces
in the developing world, facilitates micro-lending schemes in an effort to kick-start a
Christianised form of economic development (Word of Faith Church Kenya, 2010). For
Muthee, economics is one of the major realms in need of being Spirit-filled, and is ‘part and
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parcel’ of the fabric of society along with state structures, education, media and the
churches. All of these areas are equally important realms in need of being Spirit-filled for
‘community transformation’ to be realised (Muthee, 2005). Muthee’s overall narrative is
reflective of both the larger ontology of ‘spiritual warfare’ and the dimensions of the
Prosperity Gospel.
There is already present within global, national, local and regional marketplaces an entire
industry that caters to charismatic Christian consumers (Marsden, 2008; Pew Forum,
2006a). Thus, the movement is already considered to be, by those who market to it, a
transnational demographic group within the global economy. Its intellectuals and institu-
tions continue to produce fictional and non-fictional literature, periodicals, a thriving
education industry, home-educational curricula, television programming, music, film, greet-
ing cards, internet businesses, Christian business associations, and so on (Marsden, 2008; Pew
Forum, 2006a).These all cater to this transnational demographic group within the context
of global consumerism, and create products reflective of its conception of the world. Such
products also generate a wide-ranging transnational popular culture. International travel,
through mission projects and biblical tourism, is another way in which organic pan-
Christian forces engage and generate market activity.
Some have reduced this global phenomenon to American expansionism, or the interna-
tionalisation of the US state–society complex (Brouwer et al., 1996; Marsden, 2008).
Charismatic Christianity and Pentecostalism have multiple global origins and sources of
funding, however, which provides doubts that this phenomenon is simply a global form of
Americanisation (Adogame, 1999; Martin, 2006). In fact, many of the mega-churches that
have grown out of the developing world are now establishing satellite congregations in states,
societies and markets in the world’s economic core.The increasing manifestation of ‘reverse
agency’, in terms of proselytising, reveals that this truly is a global phenomenon (Adogame,
1999). It is evidence of an increasing global demographic group which needs to be assessed
and situated within the overall narratives on globalisation and portraits of world order.
The growing body of scholarship on charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity articulates
this as a global phenomenon within the context of the ‘global religious economy’ (Ander-
son, 2004; Martin, 2006). Given the scale and activist nature of this social force, we are
engaging with the empirical findings of the Pew Forum and the scholarship on the global
religious economy in order to illustrate some of the true complexities of the global political
economy and the production of global forms of hegemony. We argue that Gramsci’s
framework for analysing conceptions of the world allows us to situate better such trans-
national social forces and popular movements within the contexts of and the narratives on
neo-liberal hegemony. Such analyses illustrate the production of popular consensus, as well
as the processes of its harmonisation with the leading classes. Not only does it reveal the
imprint of the world of production on the popular world view, but it also reveals the
impression that a particular conception of the world can make on the activities within and
between specific states, societies and markets.

Conclusion
This article has argued that there are a number of forms of hegemonic agency that are
utilised within global politics. Neo-Gramscian accounts have been used to articulate the
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nature of consent within world order or as a hegemonic process used by transnational

capitalist classes in order to understand how certain practices have been implemented.This
has served as a departure point for understanding the general dynamics of power within
world politics and to augment what is often missing in expressing how consent is reached
from the bottom up as opposed to the top down. The attraction of Gramsci is that he
presented us with a method of understanding how influential agents can articulate passive
relationships between social classes in a manner that ultimately seeks to legitimise a wider
form of production. In doing this, we have argued that Gramscian theory – in particular
the key explanatory theory of hegemony – needs to be approached from a different
dimension, and from one that re-examines Gramsci’s notion of hegemony so as to allow us
to explore areas that provide fresh ways of understanding how contemporary global society
is fashioned.
We also believe that Gramscian research needs to be revitalised within IR, rather than
suggesting that it might have run its course.We have argued here that an engagement with
Gramsci’s work allows us to provide broader understandings of the nature of hegemony
which go significantly beyond the levels of analysis associated with the neo-Gramscians,
allowing for future areas of research into the nature and character of hegemony in IR.The
global evangelical movement examined here resembles one important aspect that has
contributed to the ‘manufacture of consent’ in terms of the way that hegemony is
facilitated: one that, contra those that insist it needs to focus back within the realms of the
nation state, is built upon shared ‘conceptions of the world’ and articulated through
common sense, different interpretations of religion or belief, language and folklore. By
re-engaging Gramsci’s literature on how hegemony is fashioned from this bottom-up
approach, we believe a different set of studies can be undertaken that could expand and
reinvigorate the Gramscian discourse.
The empirical examples that we use in order to expand this further are the emergent global
evangelical movements which reveal how organic movements can be used to bind and
provide a source of legitimation for neo-liberal change. It should also be stressed that what we
have done here is to offer just one specific example of how we can identify modes of
hegemonic consent among the subaltern classes across states and societies.We do not claim
that studies on subaltern consent have not been provided before by neo-Gramscians. They
have, however, largely been situated within a more top-down assumption within the premise
of constructing world order or through the understanding of transnational class formation.As
an alternative, we urge more studies to follow the one that we have tentatively illustrated here.
The example of the global evangelical movement provides one of the many socio-cultural
practices that are utilised to produce hegemonic consent within certain levels of global society.
(Accepted: 4 March 2012)
(Published online: 26 November 2012)

About the Authors

Kyle Murray completed his PhD at the University of Limerick and is currently an Adjunct Lecturer of Political
Science and History with the Department of History, Geography, Political Science and Africana Studies at Tennessee
State University. His research focuses on situating religious social movements within the larger context of global
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E VA N G E L I C A L S I N G L O B A L P O L I T I C S 745

politics and within the contemporary narratives on international relations theory and critical international political
economy. Kyle Murray, Department of History, Geography, Political Science and Africana Studies, Tennessee State
University, 3500 John A. Merritt Blvd, Campus Box 9538, Crouch Hall, Nashville, TN 37209, USA; email:
murray.kylepatrick@gmail.com
Owen Worth is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Limerick. He is the author of Resistance in
the Age of Austerity (Zed, 2013) and Hegemony, International Political Economy and Post-communist Russia (Ashgate, 2005)
and he has also published a number of co-edited books. His recent work has appeared in International Politics, Review
of International Studies, Third World Quarterly and the Journal of International Relations and Development. Owen Worth,
Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland; email: owen.worth@ul.ie

Notes
1 For more on the importance of language in Gramsci’s work, see Ives (2005).
2 His main focus here of course was Bukharin, who in the Popular Manual assumed that the subaltern masses would spontaneously
reject the philosophy/ideology of the ruling classes – once they gained a sense of class-consciousness. Gramsci, however, argues
that such a ‘clean break’ from the philosophies of the ruling classes is impossible because the popular masses are actually organically
tied to the philosophy and ideologies of the ruling classes – past and present (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 184–90).
3 In the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci consistently refers to ‘Father Bresciani’s progeny’. Bresciani was a nineteenth-century clergyman
and literary figure who wrote fiction from a conservative anti-nationalist form of Catholicism and focused his work around
Sardinian culture.As a result, forms of reactionary conservatism in popular culture and within religious preaching are placed under
the heading (Gramsci, 1992; 1996; 2007).

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