General Conclusion

Abstract

By giving a central place to ‘insidious leniencies’ and tackling head-on the problematics of legitimacy and intentionality on the basis of economic practices and imaginaires, my analysis goes beyond the traditional issues of violence and fear. My work challenges the totalitarian hypothesis, the idea of a regime or a state capable to control, dominate and, if necessary, to suppress; it also challenges the idea that actors have clearly defined unambiguous visions and strategies they pursue with a specific intention. The reading put forward here allows for subtler analyses of the exercise of domination, highlighting the complex ways in which hegemony is constructed, beyond general and all-inclusive considerations on support or opposition, on the use of force or persuasion, on the existence or absence of coercion. Two dimensions seem particularly important to me in the contemporary discussions and are developed in this conclusion. The first refers to the delicate positioning I have adopted that rejects Manichean analyses in order to show the complexity of the exercise of domination, while duly acknowledging the power relations, the unequal relations, the violence of the ‘insidious leniencies’ and coercion. The second dimension is the benefit of a comparative approach that highlights the mainsprings of the political economy of domination and simultaneously the infinite variations that give an always specific meaning to experiences and offers an ‘inventory of differences.’