Abstract
Even if the word "hegemony? linguistically comes from the Greek "egemon? meaning leader or ruler, one can find the roots of this word in Marxist thought as it was first used by Russian Social-Democrats from the late 1890's through the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Nevertheless, since the concept has interested many sociologists, politicians, economists, there is not a clear definition of this word as it means different things to different speakers. There are at least four interwoven conceptions in the literature on the international order and the world capitalist system: hegemony as international domination; hegemony as state hegemony; hegemony as consensual domination or ideological hegemony; and hegemony as the exercise of leadership within historical blocs within a particular world order .
