Some notes on the Relationship between Intellectuals and Power in the Arab Word: a Gramscian Reading

The Gramscian perspective by which Massimo Campanini has addressed some issues linked to the dynamics of the Arab political debate and, more generally, concerning the thought in a Muslim context, provides us the opportunity to deepen the subject of the applicability of the Gramscian categories to read the contemporary Arab world. A topic that in recent years, especially following the so-called "Arab springs", has involved many Arab and non-Arab scholars, in search of new interpretations of the political and social processes in Mena (Middle East and North Africa) countries. Starting from a personal conviction that Gramscian paradigms proved to be very useful both in the past and today for understanding the dynamics of the construction and evolution of the political system in Islamic countries, especially after the so-called "Arab springs", I will mainly use Gramscian concepts of intellectual (muthaqqaf); hegemony (haymana); civil society (al-mujtama' al-madanī); modern prince (al-amīr al-hadīth), to analyze the potential (but also the substantial inability) of Islamist movements and parties to conquer a truly hegemonic power.