Hegemony

...More recently hegemonism has been used to describe specifically 'great power' or 'superpower' politics, intended to dominate others... But the character of this predominace can be seen in a way which produces an extended sense in many ways similar to earlier English uses of hegemonic. That is to say, it is not limited to matters of direct political control but seeks to describe a more general predominance which includes, as one of its key features, a particular way of seeing the world and human nature and relationships... not just intellectual but political facts, expressed over a range from institutions to relationships and consciousness... The idea of hegemony, in its wide sense, is then especially important in societies in which electoral politics and public opinion are significant factors, and in which social practice is seen to depend on consent to certain dominant ideas which in fact express the needs of a dominant class...
(Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society, 1976:117-118)