Free Essay Sample about Hegemony in the Work "The Trial" by Franz Kafka

Either politically or military, when there is control of one state by another, the controlling state creates a situation called hegemony. Hegemony directly relates to the law in cultural ways, social and legal. More has been written that touches literature that encompasses hegemony. Therefore, this kind of literature is used to explain this relationship that exists between social, cultural and legal ways that incorporate hegemony. Literature works of hegemony exclude drama and music but can be written or spoken and consist many examples of databases and computer programs. Written works are more popular since they are used in elaborating the relationship between hegemony and the precise rules created and enforced by governments to regulate certain behavior. Thus, this paper examines Hegemony in work "The Trial" by Franz Kafka.

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Franz Kafka classifies hegemony into three types. These types include; hard power, structural power, and soft power hegemony. The hard power hegemony uses the military. The fundamental power hegemony embraces the distribution of public goods while the soft power hegemony uses the power of persuasion rather than coercing. Hard power hegemony is the most common type of power exercised by hegemons. Thus the US embraces this kind of leadership to control regional organizations' operations. The US succeeds through the use of authority by inducing structures like capitalism in Africa (Litowitz, Douglas). They equally use the approaching method of multilateral security in economic organizations in the Asia Pacific, United Kingdom and Europe.

Kafka states that "The emergence of a noticeable multilateral dimension to American policy towards Africa is based on two backgrounds. Kafka goes ahead to state that the first background deals with the general features of the American policy towards Africa dating back to the Second World War and the role that multilateralism plays. The second background deals with the rise of multilateralism on the African continent. This is seen as a process that is a dynamism of its own." After the Second World War that almost tore the entire world into the part, their emerged two superpowers. The superpowers that emerged were capitalists and communists. These two superpowers crashed heavily on their ideals. These ideals almost left the world divided on the social systems. The impacts were more adverse on the African continent that was still inflicted with colonialism and had no idea which specific system they could adopt. Kafka states that America is a capitalistic country. It supported the spread of capitalism thus preventing the spread of communism through the passing of policies that encouraged African nations to adopt its capitalist system. Multilateral dimensions acknowledged that adoption of a particular system would be a process that would need more than bilateral relationships in Africa.

According to Preece, Julian, the analysis of the book "The Cambridge Companion to Kafka," the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union lead significantly to global capitalism. The reason behind is the disappearance of communists meaning that capitalism gained momentum by spreading it all over the world including African countries. After the wars came to an end, most of the prominent superpowers were the ambassadors of capitalism. America could not spread capitalism on her own, so she banked heavily on Japan and other capitalistic nations to cover the system in Africa, therefore advocating the use of multilateralism rather than bilateralism. America preferred dealing with regions, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa instead of dealing with specific countries.

America as a hegemon has powers over countries and most states it controls. It primarily offers protection through offering military equipment, advice, and other required services. This is evident when America provided some backup the defense during the Second World War to its allies. With this, it exercises the structural hegemony by spreading capitalism and developing multilateralism with security policies. According to Litowitz, Douglas, he explains authority differently but with regards to America structure. He states that military domination means protecting the countries being controlled and in return, it follows specific policies laid by the hegemon like adopting capitalism. Hence, a particular type of hegemony leads to a different kind of power, like in this case military hegemony leads to structural hegemony. A hegemony that has only control over the controlled country by just submissive thus lacking any merits towards that given state, it is equated to more of colonialism than to hegemony, and therefore, only when the hegemon benefits the controlled party referred to hegemony.

Hegemony just like any other structural body consists of specific impact and consequences. In most cases, it performs some responsibilities regarding the provision of goods, policies, and military depending on the type of hegemony being applied. The impulse of hegemony has led to some countries trying to adopt any system brought along that have effects on some nations culturally, legally, or socially. Structural hegemony in most instances has a social impact while military hegemon consists of legal approval. With the introduction of new policies, new cultures get introduced to the controlled party hence leading to cultural changes and dominance by the hegemon. Hegemony equally in most cases increases collaborations and interfaces amongst countries and states thus offering a friendly atmosphere that creates friendly relations making affairs such as businesses and political alliances easier to arrive. Hegemony, primarily utilized by the United States is one that practiced multilateral with it leading with the regions rather than to a specific nation in which case it could have been bilateral.

Works Cited

Kafka, Franz, and Willa Muir. The trial. Vol. 75. Everyman's Library, 1992.

Litowitz, Douglas. "Gramsci, hegemony, and the law." BYU L. Rev. (2000): 515.

Preece, Julian. The Cambridge Companion to Kafka. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.