Hegemony dates to the Greek verb hegeisthai which translates to “to lead.” Early leaders who were able to exert a great deal of control and influence over a group of people might be referred to as hegemons. A hegemon had to have a great deal of support from at least one dominating class, in order to keep the people of the state from rebelling against the leadership.

Hegemony tends to more often refer to the power of a single group in a society to essentially lead and dictate the other groups of the society. This may be done through communications, through influence of voters or of government leaders. Some special interests lobbies for example, have hegemony status over leaders in congress. Rules that would prohibit or limit spending of special interest groups are designed to reduce the hegemony of special interests and redistribute this status to private voters.

A single country may also be considered a hegemony if it has enough power to influence the way other countries behave. States that are hegemonies, like the British Empire in the mid-19th century, had extraordinary influence on many other countries. Their partial or total control of other countries was either obtained through a show of military force, and through control of trade industries.

Hegemony that exists in a single country means the dominant and most influential group often influences policy so that the greatest advantage accrues to the dominant group. For example, some consider the wealthy have hegemony in the US when it comes to tax laws. The argument that the wealthy in the US have hegemony springs from the following reasoning: