Stoddart’s article maps a genealogy of how critical theory has explained consent to power. The movement from ideology to hegemony to discourse is not a simple replacement of terms, but a refinement of the problem of how domination becomes intelligible, desirable, ordinary or difficult to contest. Ideology names the relation between ruling ideas and economic power. Hegemony complicates that model by showing that domination is not merely imposed from above; it is negotiated through civil society, common sense, culture and conflict. Discourse then further displaces the problem from false consciousness to the production of knowledge, subject positions and social possibility. Stoddart insists that class-centred models are not sufficient; feminist, critical race and cultural studies interventions expose power as a network rather than a single vertical relation. The essay clarifies why a critical field cannot depend on one master concept. Ideology explains structural interest; hegemony explains cultural consent; discourse explains the formation of objects and subjects. Power is maintained not only by repression but by the production of worlds in which certain arrangements feel natural.
