Beheading the King and Enthroning the Market: A Critique of Foucauldian Governmentality
Science and Society 63 (2):173 - 202 (1999)
| Abstract | The work of Michel Foucault, particularly his research into what he termed governmentality, has stimulated considerable interest from within the left. Governmentality is held, by Foucault and his followers, to offer insight into the ways in which contemporary authorities have sought to shape and regulate society and to do so in a way not possible through the mediation of state theory. However, while this work addresses important issues, it does so in a way that limits its critical and emancipatory potential. Governmentality is seen to be based on a "top-down" and dualist conception of power, one that externalizes and marginalizes contradiction and struggle to become a theory of social reproduction rather than of transcendence. Governmentality therefore has to be subject to critique and reconceptualized as a social form of struggle; that is, in terms of a negative dialectic of movement and transcendence grounded in the subjectivity of labor. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRoy Goddard (2010). Critiquing the Educational Present: The (Limited) Usefulness to Educational Research of the Foucauldian Approach to Governmentality. Educational Philosophy and Theory 42 (3):345-360.
Alan Petersen (2003). Governmentality, Critical Scholarship, and the Medical Humanities. Journal of Medical Humanities 24 (3/4):187-201.
Thomas Biebricher (2008). Genealogy and Governmentality. Journal of the Philosophy of History 2 (3):363-396.
Gordon Hull, One View of the Dungeon: The Ticking Time Bomb Between Governmentality and Sovereignty.
Jason L. Powell (ed.) (2012). Foucault: Issues and Legacy. Nova Science Publishers.
Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne Krasmann & Thomas Lemke (2010). From Foucault's Lectures at the Collège de France to Studies of Governmentality : An Introduction. In Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne Krasmann & Thomas Lemke (eds.), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges. Routledge.
Martin Saar (2010). Relocating the Modern State : Governmentality and the History of Political Ideas. In Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne Krasmann & Thomas Lemke (eds.), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges. Routledge.
Friedrich Balke (2010). Governmentalization of the State: Rousseau's Contribution to the Modern History of Governmentality. In Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne Krasmann & Thomas Lemke (eds.), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges. Routledge.
Ali M. Rizvi (2012). Biopower, Governmentality, and Capitalism Through the Lenses of Freedom: A Conceptual Enquiry. Pakistan Business Review 14 (3):490-517.
Sven Opitz (2010). Government Unlimited : The Security Dispositif of Illiberal Governmentality. In Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne Krasmann & Thomas Lemke (eds.), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges. Routledge.
Didier Fassin (2010). Coming Back to Life : An Anthropological Reassessment of Biopolitics and Governmentality. In Ulrich Bröckling, Susanne Krasmann & Thomas Lemke (eds.), Governmentality: Current Issues and Future Challenges. Routledge.
Catriona Macleod & Kevin Durrheim (2002). Foucauldian Feminism: The Implications of Governmentality. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 32 (1):41–60.
Michael Burke & Christopher Hallinan (2008). Drugs, Sport, Anxiety and Foucauldian Governmentality. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2 (1):39 – 55.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-05-29Total downloads17 ( #71,063 of 549,060 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,185 of 549,060 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
