In his 1979 lectures, Foucault took particular interest in the reconfiguration of quotidian practices under neo-liberal human capital theory, re-describing all persons as entrepreneurs of the self. By the early 1980s, Foucault had begun to articulate a theory of ethical conduct driven not by the logic of investment, but of artistic development and self-care. This article uses Foucault’s account of human capital as a basis to explore the meaning and limits of Foucault’s final published works and argues for two (...) interrelated genealogical projects focused on the ethics of economic activity. (shrink)

This article gives an analysis of Foucault’s studies of civil society and the various liberalist critiques of government. It follows from Foucault’s genealogical approach that “civil society” does not in itself possess any form of transcendental existence; its historical reality must be seen as the result of the productive nature of the power-knowledge-matrices. Foucault emphasizes that modern governmentality—and more specifically the procedures he names “the conduct of conduct”—is not exercised through coercive power and domination, but is dependent on the (...) freedom and activeness of individuals and groups of society. Civil society is thus analyzed as fundamentally ambivalent: on the one hand civil society is a field where different kinds of technologies of governance meet the lives and wills of groups and individuals, but on the other hand it is a potential field of what Foucault called ‘counter-conduct’ – for both collective action and individual political action. (shrink)

Introduction: the advance of governmentality -- Foucault, power, and governmentality: introduction; what is governmentality?; beyond the microphysics of power?; from theory of the state to genealogy of the state; history of the art of government; pastoral power; raison d'état; liberal governmentality; five propositions on foucault and governmentality -- Governmentality 3.4.7.: introduction; governmentality after Foucault; governmentality and the political sciences; some problems in governmentality -- Foucault effect redux? some notes on international (...) governmentality studies: constellation; a few preliminary observations; problems and debates in international governmentality studies -- Reconnecting governmentality and genealogy: introduction; genealogy and governmentality; pluralizing genealogy; practicing genealogy; lines of descent: the family tree of power?; counter-memory and re-serialization; the retrieval of forgotten struggles and subjugated knowledges -- Conclusion: encountering governmentality: governmentality as a new cartography of power; from mapping to encountering; governmentality and politics. (shrink)

While this ‘extraordinary’ book appears as an intermezzo within the Homo Sacer series, it supports two fundamental theses with its own philological, epigraphic, liturgical and religious-historical research, and a close reading of figures such as Ernst Kantorowicz and Marcel Mauss. These theses concern political power first as an articulation of sovereign reign and economic government and, secondly, as constituted by acclamations and glorification. These can be approached theoretically through its author’s engagement with Michel Foucault’s genealogy of governmentality and with (...) the Erik Peterson/Carl Schmitt debate on the closure of political theology. Agamben’s reformulation of power and his derivation of liberal governmentality from the theological oikonomia prove convincing. A renewed analytics of power and politics of resistance should be possible, however, without recourse to a project seeking to deactivate all profane powers including those of public bureaucracies. (shrink)

This chapter discusses Foucault's conceptualizations of power‐biopower, pastoral power, and governmentality developed mainly in his lecture courses at the College de France in the late 1970s. It also explicates his analysis of liberal and neoliberal governmentality central in these lectures‐the forms of governmentality that he saw as specific to modern Western societies. Foucault did not intend these lectures to be published‐they have only been published posthumously‐and he regarded the arguments and ideas central in them as working (...) hypotheses. The demands of biopolitics thus posed a theoretical challenge to liberal governmentality, and biopolitics and liberalism formed a historical intersection: they were linked de facto, not de jure. (shrink)

Drawing upon political philosophy and political economy, Benda Hofmeyr presents a Foucaultian analysis and historical contextualisation of the rise of neo-liberal governmentality. Historical, sociological and cultural studies help excavate the geneaology of the capitalist subject within the neo-liberal governmental context of the last four decades.

This paper presents an overview of the elements which characterize a research attitude and approach introduced by Michel Foucault and further developed as ‘studies of governmentality’ into a sub‐discipline of the humanities during the past decade, including also applications in the field of education. The paper recalls Foucault's introduction of the notion of ‘governmentality’ and its relation to the ‘mapping of the present’ and sketches briefly the way in which the studies of governmentality have been elaborated in (...) general and in the context of research in education more particularly. It indicates how the studies of governmentality can be related to a cartography of the learning society, a cartography which helps us to get lost and to liberate our view. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the elements which characterize a research attitude and approach introduced by Michel Foucault and further developed as ‘studies of governmentality’ into a sub‐discipline of the humanities during the past decade, including also applications in the field of education. The paper recalls Foucault's introduction of the notion of ‘governmentality’ and its relation to the ‘mapping of the present’ and sketches briefly the way in which the studies of governmentality have been elaborated in (...) general and in the context of research in education more particularly. It indicates how the studies of governmentality can be related to a cartography of the learning society, a cartography which helps us to get lost and to liberate our view. (shrink)

This paper aims to critically examine the change of Michel Foucault’s power theory “from war to governmentality” in the College de France lectures from 1976 to 1979. In that period, Foucault had attempted to change his own conception of power from discipline to bio-power, from bio-power to governmentality, and from neoliberal governmentality to the ethics of self. This paper focuses on the second change in order to track the change of power theory in Foucault. This change serves (...) as a very important link in the development of Foucault's power theory. It not only incorporates disciplinary power and bio-power into a more expanded problematic of security power and liberal governmentality but also serves as an important stage for shifting beyond neoliberal governmentality and technologies of self into self-care and self-cultivation. In particular, this shift reflects the changes in the intellectual and political area in France as well as in Foucault's own theoretical practices. In that time, Foucault started to be more interested in liberalism while distanced from radical leftists and Marxists, who had together participated with Foucault in the social struggles since the ’68 Revolution. Considering these changes, this paper tries to grasp the turn “from war to governmentality” in the development of Foucault’s power theory. (shrink)

International debates surrounding the management of universities in Western states have focused heavily upon the implications of neo-liberalism and the economisation of knowledge at national and international levels. However, investigations at the institutional level reveal that programmes for the development of human capital, organisational reputation and service quality in education and research are encouraged through regimes of self-development, directed towards organisational objectives. This article utilises governmentality theory to explore the relationship between governance and subjectivity within the Australian higher education (...) system. The governance of higher education, it will be argued, is enabled by mentalities of government which are dependent upon contemporary technologies, techniques for self-evaluation and career-planning, expertise about university labour, and—importantly—practices which engender an enterprising academic identity. To explore the utility of this analysis in contemporary Western liberal states, this study explores the construction of subjectivity implicit within Monash University’s Performance Development Online technology. Embedded with “technologies of the self,” this performance management platform is positioned within Monash as a gateway which requires academics to reflect upon their careers and selves, encouraging the genesis of marketable identities. This article points to the utility of further research into the development of career in a changing academic environment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A new ‘political philosophy’ is indispensable to the ‘post-Corona world,’ and this paper tries to analyze the future of ‘liberal democracy’ in it. It shows that ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that has begun before, but the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic,’ as a setback for it, strongly encourages that crisis. ‘Liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed by ‘political philosophers’ to go together, are now becoming decoupled, and the ‘liberal values’ of ‘democracy’ are eroding. To (...) find why and how, this paper analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ and the evils and propensities of ‘democracy’ that bring about further erosions of ‘liberal values.’ There may be difficult trade-offs to be made between ‘liberal’ and ‘authoritarian’ ‘values’ - and, after the experience of ‘Coronavirus,’ this paper shows the ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy’ may become stronger. -/- KEYWORDS: democracy, liberalism, liberal democracy, illiberal democracy, the novel Coronavirus pandemic, Covid-19, authoritarianism, totalitarianism. -/- EXTENDED ABSTRACT For almost a century in West, ‘democracy’ has meant ‘liberal democracy’-a political system marked not only by ‘free and fair elections,’ but also by ‘liberal values.’ ‘Liberalism’ applied to the problem of the limits of the criminal law would require commitment to the presumption in favor of ‘liberty.’ If the word ‘liberal’ is to have any utility in this context, it should refer to one who has so powerful a commitment to ‘liberty’ that she is motivated to limit the number of acknowledged liberty-limiting or coercion-legitimizing principles as narrowly as possible. So, she only believes in ‘harm-principle’ as the morally relevant reason for criminal prohibitions. ‘Offense principle’ and ‘paternalistic’ and ‘moralistic’ considerations, when introduced as support for penal legislation, have no weight at all. So, it means ‘autonomy’ and ‘self-regarding vs. other-regarding actions distinction’ based on which the human is the owner of her mind and body and everything consenting adults do is beyond the realm of morality and law. It leads to ‘individual’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties’ of ‘speech,’ ‘religion,’ and ‘property’ and ‘collective’ ‘basic rights and liberties’ such as ‘basic rights and liberties of assembly,’ ‘civil society,’ ‘political pluralism,’ ‘democratic institutions,’ and ‘non-governmental organizations.’ ‘Liberalism’ also believes in ‘equality of conditions, ‘equal and free participatory rights in political decision making,’ and ‘collective self-governance.’ It also believes in the ‘rule of law,’ a ‘separation of powers,’ and ‘checks and balances.’ However, even under fair and free elections, the elected leaders can be ‘populists,’ ‘ultra-nationalists,’ ‘racists,’ ‘fascists,’ and ‘authoritarians’ who do not respect ‘inviolable basic rights and liberties,’ and suppress ‘minorities.’ Democratically elected leaders can routinely ignore constitutional limits on their power and deprive their citizens of ‘basic rights and liberties.’ The two strands of ‘liberal democracy’ have been coming apart in the world, and the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ have been fraying and eroding even before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ Even before the Coronavirus hit, there was already much discussion of a crisis of ‘liberal democracy.’ In particular, there has been a debate about whether ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy,’ which had long been assumed to go together, were becoming decoupled. This paper shows ‘liberal democracy’ faces a ‘global crisis’ that had begun before the ‘novel Coronavirus pandemic.’ It also analyzes ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘liberalism,’ and ‘democracy’ and shows that Covid-19 is a setback for ‘liberal democracy.’ What is striking about the current moment is that many of the ‘liberal’ elements of ‘democracy’ are so far holding up under immense pressure. ‘Illiberal democracies’ seemed to be emerging in many countries. This model of ‘illiberal democracy,’ in which elections continue to be held but some individual rights and liberties are curtailed, may emerge stronger from this new crisis. In that sense, the ‘pandemic’ may become a challenge not only to ‘democracy’ as such but also to ‘liberal democracy’ in particular – in other words, a system of popular sovereignty together with guaranteed basic rights, such as freedom of association and expression and checks and balances on executive power. ‘Authoritarian’ procedures may succeed in mitigating the spread of the ‘Coronavirus,’ but the world now faces another problem: that when the virus recedes, many ‘liberal democracies’ will be far less ‘liberal’ or ‘democratic’ than they were before. In times of crisis, ‘liberal values’ have been ignored temporarily in the name of executive power. However, the ‘temporary’ can become ‘permanent.’ In addition, if citizens lose their faith in the legitimacy of ‘liberal democracy’ as the best form of government, and think ‘liberal democracy’ cannot function effectively during a crisis, and ‘authoritarian regimes’ manage the crisis more decisively, the world will slide towards ‘illiberal or authoritarian democracy,’ and many ‘liberal democracies’ will be at grave risk of failure. There may now be difficult trade-offs to be made between those basic rights and security - and, after the experience of Covid-19, many citizens may choose security. (shrink)

This article argues that Foucault’s account of the intersection between population, liberal economy, and biopolitics needs to be reconstructed in light of Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population. Taking Malthus into account brings to the fore how deeply the question of population is tied to a colonial hierarchy that differentiates between dangerous ‘savage’ and economic ‘civilized’ life. ‘Savage life’ is depicted as a catastrophic form of life, which uses resources in a non-economic way due to its forgetfulness of (...) the future. The article shows how this notion of ‘savage life’ broadens the concept of liberal economic governmentality. Most importantly, it highlights the role of passions and futurity for liberal governmentality. As the discussion of Malthus’ texts demonstrates, the passions of hope and fear assume a crucial role for engendering futurity in the economic subject. As will be shown, while the more ‘savage life’ is considered to be made governable through fear, the more civilized life is supposed to be allured by hope. The article points out the implication of this analysis for Foucault’s notion of biopolitics in relation to liberal economy. (shrink)

The work of Foucault on liberal government, and that of his followers, is subject to two dangers. The first is to regard the critical character of liberalism (as governing through freedom) as providing safeguards against the despotic potentials of biopower and sovereignty. The second is to regard these heterogenous powers of life and death as somehow simply relocated or reinscribed within the field of liberal governmentality. The latter point is a major methodological error; the former closes the (...) gap between the analytics of government and the normativity of liberalism itself. By working through these dangers, our understanding of the ethos of liberal government is transformed. That ethos today requires us to link governing through freedom to the powers of life and death, the exercise of choice to the sovereign decision, the contract to violence, economic citizenship to moral discipline and obligation, and rights and liberties to enforcement. (shrink)

This article is aimed at Foucauldian scholars and seeks to introduce them to ethnographic works that interrogate neoliberal governmentalities. As an analytic category ‘neoliberalism’ has over the last two decades helpfully illuminated connections between seemingly unrelated social changes occurring at multiple scales. Even earlier —in his College de France 1978-9 Birth of Biopolitics lectures, to be precise—Foucault began his engagement with neoliberalism as a dominant political force. Despite being more than three decades old, Foucault’s analysis of neoliberal rationalities remains fresh (...) and insightful, which perhaps explains why scholars inspired by his analytics of governmentality have been able to make major contributions to the current social science literature on neoliberalism. However, there are increasing concerns that governmentality scholars succumb to a more general tendency among social scientists to present neoliberal transformations in monolithic and linear terms. This article critically reviews contributions from a small but growing group of neo-Foucauldian researchers that avoid these tendencies. These researchers investigate the changes wrought by neoliberalism through methodologies that involve combining an analytics of governmentality with ethnographic and quasi-ethnographic methods, and in doing so they avoid deterministic, homogenous and static accounts of social transformation. By beginning with the “everyday,” these works reject the idea that neoliberal governmentality forms a coherent apparatus. Instead these ethnographies of neoliberal governmentalities focus on governmental ensembleges that link neoliberal political rationalities with non-liberal rationalities, and they explore how neoliberal thought and practice is transformed across time and space. (shrink)

Throughout the last decades, state and civil society actors in Germany have undertaken a number of initiatives in order to enter into a structured conversation with Muslim communities, and to find spokespersons who serve as partners for political authorities. This process has commonly been analysed in terms of its empowering effects for Muslims via the emerging ‘institutionalisation’ of Islam. The modes and techniques of power at stake in this process have yet often been undermined. Through the lens of Foucault's concept (...) of governmentality, the starting point of my article is one particular dialogue forum, initiated by the German state in 2006 – the ‘Deutsche Islam Konferenz’ (DIK) – whose primary goal is to institutionalise and regulate the communication between Muslims and state actors and thereby to regulate the conduct of Muslims. Focusing mainly on the way in which gender and Islam have been coupled and played out in this initiative, I argue that the DIK is less a dialogical encounter than a tool of a broader civilising liberal project. Through the inquiry into the modes of power operating in this state led dialogue initiative the article shows that while aiming to secure Muslim's ‘integration’ into German society and to liberate Muslim women from restrictive gender norms, the DIK operates as an enactment of a particular notion of freedom with normative and normalising implications. (shrink)

The idea of considering the archive as a political technology of liberal governmentality is developed in this article, questions of the uses of archives (important as these are) taking second place here to the politics apparent in the design and idea of one particular form of the archive. This form is the public archive as it became apparent in the 19th-century institution of the public library, the two chief examples being in Manchester and at the British Museum in (...) London. The public archive can be seen to constitute a liberal public which was itself increasingly a democratic one. This constitution turned upon ideas such as the ‘free library’, ‘self-help’ and the active constitution of new readings of social life and social conditions. These readings involved the management of class relations at the time, and parallels are drawn between a sort of ‘anthropologizing’ of the archive evident in India and its ‘sociologizing’ in Britain at the same time. The constitution of democratic, liberal citizenship through the archive also turned upon particular readings of the centre-locality relationship and upon notions of urban community. Library catalogues are considered, and the design of libraries, so that the importance of spatial dimensions of the archive is evident. (shrink)

El artículo presenta una reflexión sobre la manera en que en los últimos veinte años la promoción de un determinado tipo de solidaridad en Chile ha contribuido a la conformación de una gubernamentalidad liberal avanzada, necesaria para la instalación de un programa neoliberal. La reflexión se enmarca en los aportes teóricos de Michel Foucault y tiene por objeto empírico piezas de publicidad de promoción de la solidaridad emitidas en Chile entre los años 2009 y 2010, que han sido analizadas (...) en el contexto del proyecto Fondecyt 1090534. Se presentan tres tipos de resultados: (a) se describen los sectores sociales que se construyen como agentes de la solidaridad, (b) se reflexiona sobre las prácticas solidarias más promovidas y (c) se indaga en la forma en que se interpela a los sujetos a ser solidarios. (shrink)

What I consider in this paper are various forms of government, various technologies and discursive regimes of government that are in common use today. What interests me are the categories and tools, practical dispositifs and languages that developed over the last decades ‘to constitute, define, organize, and instrumentalize the strategies that individuals, acting freely, may use to deal with one another’ (Foucault). The paper considers first the neo-liberal wish to reassert the individual as alone in responsibility for his/her own (...) life after the unfortunate digression into Welfare Statism and Keynesian economics, source of all ills. It then focuses on some material and social technologies that encourage people to accept full and complete ‘self-sovereignty’. This section leads to a discussion on the new demands (and resistance) society imposed on this liberal normative ideal. It notably considers the growing demands to ‘participate’ in decision processes and to be environmentally friendly. In section Les Mots et Les Choses: A New Discursive Regime , it considers the discursive regime that progressively took shape and which currently permeates international governance bodies of all stripes—from the World Bank to the Conference of Parties for Climate Change. In the final section, it comes back to the initial question and considers what these changes actually mean for the democratic order as constituted over the past 250 years. (shrink)

This paper explores the emotional life of governmental power through the affective domains of confidence and respect in criminal justice, in the context of a climate of insecurities and uncertainties with existing modes of governance. The paper problematises some of the key tenets of the governmentality thesis and questions its core assumptions about forms of rationality, processes of subjectivation and the conditions of possibility for ethical conduct. It also prompts us to reconsider the tenets of contemporary neo-liberal governance, (...) its “rationalities of rule,” technologies and apparatuses, how these work to capture hearts as well as minds, and how these may promote an “emotionalised” art of government such that we might properly speak of “emotionalities of rule.”. (shrink)

This article theorizes the contemporary government of psychological life as neo-liberal enterprise. By drawing on Foucauldian critical social theory, it argues that the constellations of power identified with the psy-function and neo-liberal governmentality can be read through the problematic of everyday practice. On a theoretical level, this involves a re-examination of the notion of dispositif, to uncover the dynamic, ambivalent and temporal practices by which subjectification takes place. Empirically, this point is illustrated through a reflection of one (...) case of neo-liberal psychological life: life coaching. (shrink)

Should government be neutral "on the question of the good life, or of what gives value to life"?1 Some political theorists propose that governmental neutrality is a core commitment of any liberalism worth the name and a requirement of justice. For them, neutrality is the appropriate generalization of the ideal of religious tolerance. The state should be neutral in matters of religion, and neutral also in all controversies concerning the nature of the good or the ways in which it is (...) valuable and worthwhile to live. (shrink)

Liberal political thought has traditionally been hostile to the arbitrary power of rulers. It has, however, qualified this hostility through its promotion of what Locke calls ?prerogative?, the need for rulers to act in defence of the public good ? but on occasion outside the constraints of law. Liberal thought has tended to overlook the arbitrary powers of citizens and private organisations. This is due, first, to its commitment to individual liberty. But it is also due ?more substantially (...) ? to the belief that private agents and corporations, even when not constrained by law, are none the less subject to the non?legal sanctions and rewards imposed by the market and other aspects of civil society. Neo?liberalism is not rendered distinctive by its promotion of arbitrary power, since this has always featured in liberal government. Neo?liberalism is distinguished rather by its promotion of arbitrary powers across the full range of organs of governance ? from departments of government, through publicly and privately owned corporations, to ostensibly non?governmental bodies like charities, churches and so on. This advance in liberal promotion of arbitrary power has significant implications for the evolution of contemporary democracy. (shrink)

Countering claims of its impossibility, this paper argues for economic theology as an intelligible figure of contemporary political rationality and organization, and a distinctive analytical strategy in relation to forms of liberal and neoliberal governmentality and the contemporary management of social life. As an analytical strategy, it has two arms: an institutional one, drawing upon Michel Foucault’s work on the pastorate; and a conceptual one, following from Giorgio Agamben on oikonomia, order and providence. Economic theology was the arcana (...) of 20th-century debates on both political theology and governmentality and a condition for their emergence. It formed the horizon of Carl Schmitt’s intervention of a political theology in response to Max Weber, and, as the pastorate, it was for Foucault the historical background of the emergence of the liberal arts of government. While appearing as a new paradigm, it thus has a measure of priority over our more established ones. Furthermore, to the extent that economic theology comes to occupy the place of political rationality in contemporary liberal-democratic societies, the political becomes less a rational public sphere and more a form of public liturgy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Governmental and Public Reason Governmentality and the State Liberal and Neo‐Liberal Governmentality Governmentality and Legitimacy References.

The aim of this article is to problematize, from a sociopolitical and psychoanalytic point of view, the current rise of the new rights, especially in Latin America. Although this extremist renaissance is loosely and indicatively referred to as fascism, we believe that, after careful analysis, today’s far-rights are not simple repetitions of the fascisms of the s. XX. It is about an unprecedented governmentality and ideology that, on the one hand, is not reduced to neoliberalism and, on the other (...) hand, surpasses the European-Anglo-Saxon alt-right and contemporary libertarianism. We give it the particular name of liber-fascism, to the extent that it brings a new mode of political subjectivation: the defender of himself. We divide the text into two sections. In the first, we discuss the sociopolitical particularities of liber-fascism: the emergence of a social ontology of the defender of himself that conceives of the capitalist market as an instance to be defended using false news, conspiracy theories and, of course, organized violence. In the second, we clarify the functioning of the liber-fascist unconscious by analyzing the peculiarity of its fantasy: it is an ideology that, in its relationship with others, uses violence no longer as a simple means, but as a vehicle for jouissance. (shrink)

The first part of the article analyses the imaginary of the characteristics and form of society as developed in early modern liberal political philosophy, especially by John Locke and Thomas Paine. It uses different contemporary receptions of the key authors of this tradition, namely the liberal reception of John Keane, which emphasizes the theoretical distinction between civil society and the state, the materialist reception of Ellen Meiksins Wood, which contextualizes political ideas in the political struggles and class interests (...) of the time, and the reception of Foucault, which focuses on the development of biopolitical governmentality. The article finds that the liberal tradition imagined society as a given and self-regulating sphere that does not require interference from the state. A socio-historical presupposition of this imaginary was the economic sovereignty of individuals, and it overlooked the relations of domination and exploitation. In its second part, the article presents Hannah Arendt’s critical concept of society. She did not conceptualize society as a given totality and in a spatial way, but used it as a qualifier of a specific, impoverished mode of being, in particular to analyse the situation and perspective of minorities. (shrink)

One way to characterise the difference between analytic and Continental political philosophy concerns the different roles played by normative and descriptive analysis in each case. This article argues that, even though Michel Foucault’s genealogy of liberal and neoliberal governmentality and John Rawls’s political liberalism involve different articulations of normative and descriptive concerns, they are complementary rather than antithetical to one another. The argument is developed in three stages: first, by suggesting that Foucault offers a way to conceive of (...) public reason as a historical phenomenon. Second, it is suggested that both Rawls and Foucault allow us to consider rights as historical and particular rather than a-historical and universal. Third, it is argued that Foucault’s genealogy of modern liberal government illuminates some of the tensions and some of the alternatives within the liberal tradition in relation to the concept of political legitimacy. (shrink)

This paper provides an argument in favour of federal institutional design on the basis that it is more congenial to the preservation and promotion of normatively desirable societal diversity than its unitary alternative. Seeking inspiration in the work of three of the most influential liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century: John Stuart Mill; Alexis de Tocqueville; and Lord Acton, I construct a novel case for federalism that focuses on the inherent benefits of a dual/multi-layered governmental structure. Section one argues (...) for the value of diversity, stating that it can both improve the authenticity of individually exercised autonomy, and improve the quality of individually espoused moral views. Section two considers the potential dangers posed by the unitary state to the flourishing of diversity through the centralisation of key institutions. Section three shows how the federal model sidesteps these pitfalls, and offers a more auspicious environment for the cultivation and enjoyment of diversity. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Foucault’s genealogy of liberal governmentality necessitates reconsideration in light of the history of biology and its societal implications. In his lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s, Foucault argued that the natural growth of the market is what ultimately verifies or falsifies the excellence of liberal governmentality. Liberal governmentality recognizes the intimate correlation between the physical and social dimensions in order to adapt (...) its political action to the natural processes of the market. It follows that liberal governmentality rests upon a certain kind of naturalism and the knowledge that defines this form of naturalism is political economy, which explicates both the foundations and the limits of governmental action in the name of the nature of the market. Foucault thus accords significant importance to the concept of nature in liberal governmentality. However, his genealogy is confined to an inquiry into the naturalism of classical political economy, without considering the economicism of the emerging biological sciences. To expand upon Foucault’s genealogy, the present paper focuses on the influence of political economy in the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection. The locution “economy of nature” is introduced to denote the discursive formation that brings together the naturalism of classical political economy and the economism of early evolutionary biology. This study contends that this construct played a critical role in shaping liberal governmentality. (shrink)

The need for education for (as opposed to about) sustainability is urged from many sides. Initiatives in this area tend to focus on formal education. Governmental, supra-governmental and non-governmental bodies all expect much of this kind of education, which is to transform children—and through them society—in the direction of sustainability. Due to the combination of great transformative expectations or ambitions and a focus on schooling (the idea of) compulsory environmental education poses potentially severe problems for governments committed to liberal (...) principles, in particular the principle of state ‘neutrality’ with respect to ‘comprehensive conceptions of the good life’. The central question of this article is whether liberal governments can make environmental education of this kind compulsory without coming into conflict with the liberal principle of state neutrality. I discuss three defences of the compatibility of compulsory environmental education with liberal neutrality, namely those put forward by Derek Bell, Andrew Dobson, and Simon Hailwood, as well as some problems inherent in these defences. In the final section I sketch a form of compulsory environmental education that realises at least some of the aims commonly stated for Education for Sustainability and Education for Sustainable Development, and can be justified on the basis of liberal principles. (shrink)

In this article, I analyse the discursive construction of adolescent pregnancy and childbearing as a development ‘problem’ in Plan’s ‘Because I’m a Girl’ campaign. I draw on existing scholarship that configures teenage pregnancy prevention campaigns in the ‘developed’ world as a site of biopolitics that seeks to maximise the well-being of the population by governing adolescent girls’ reproductive and sexual behaviours. Identifying Plan’s campaign as part of a larger turn towards adolescent girls in development discourse and policy, I also draw (...) on a growing body of scholarship that examines how campaigns targeting adolescent girls reinforce neo-liberal understandings of ‘development’ as achievable through the empowerment of individuals rather than through structural change. I argue that by discursively constructing adolescent pregnancy and parenthood as risky, Plan’s campaign reinforces reproductive norms of delayed reproduction and sexual debut, according to which adolescent girls in the ‘developing’ world are expected to comply. The campaign’s goal of ‘empowerment’ thus acts as a means of constructing adolescent girls as responsible reproductive decision makers who will break the ‘cycle of poverty’ by making rational reproductive and sexual choices. Thus, although Plan’s ‘Because I’m a Girl’ campaign addressed important issues, including adolescent girls’ right to reproductive autonomy, their focus on empowerment operates as a form of biopower that pursues the project of development through the regulation of girls’ reproduction and sexuality. (shrink)

The need for education for (as opposed to about) sustainability is urged from many sides. Initiatives in this area tend to focus on formal education. Governmental, supra-governmental and non-governmental bodies all expect much of this kind of education, which is to transform children—and through them society—in the direction of sustainability. Due to the combination of great transformative expectations or ambitions and a focus on schooling (the idea of) compulsory environmental education poses potentially severe problems for governments committed to liberal (...) principles, in particular the principle of state 'neutrality' with respect to 'comprehensive conceptions of the good life'. The central question of this article is whether liberal governments can make environmental education of this kind compulsory without coming into conflict with the liberal principle of state neutrality. I discuss three defences of the compatibility of compulsory environmental education with liberal neutrality, namely those put forward by Derek Bell, Andrew Dobson, and Simon Hailwood, as well as some problems inherent in these defences. In the final section I sketch a form of compulsory environmental education that realises at least some of the aims commonly stated for Education for Sustainability and Education for Sustainable Development, and can be justified on the basis of liberal principles. (shrink)

Healthcare counts as a morally relevant good whose distribution should neither be left to the free market nor be simply imposed by governmental decisions without further justification. This problem is particularly prevalent in the current boom of anti-ageing medicine. While the public demand for medical interventions which promise a longer, healthier and more active and attractive life has been increasing, public healthcare systems usually do not cover these products and services, thus leaving their allocation to the mechanisms of supply and (...) demand on the free market. This situation raises the question on which basis the underlying preferences for and claims to a longer, healthier life should be evaluated. What makes anti-ageing medicine eligible for public funding? In this article, we discuss the role of anti-ageing medicine with regard to the scope and limits of public healthcare. We will first briefly sketch the basic problem of justifying a particular healthcare scheme within the framework of a modern liberal democracy, focusing on the challenge anti-ageing interventions pose in this regard. In the next section, we will present and discuss three possible solutions to the problem, essentialistic, transcendental, and procedural strategies of defining the scope of public healthcare. We will suggest a procedural solution adopting essentialistic and transcendental elements and discuss its theoretical and practical implications with regard to anti-ageing medicine. (shrink)

The use of narrative research is often informed by a commitment to social justice on the part of the researcher. An example of this literature, Morwenna Griffiths' Action for Social Justice in Education: Fairly Different (2003), is taken here to illustrate the understanding of power and the way in which the relationship between theory and practice is conceived. The language and tone of such texts illustrate the role of a certain inheritance of psychology in the construction of subjectivity, which shapes (...) our understanding and conduct of the personal and professional. This, and the way in which the 'reflective practitioner' forms part of broader contemporary understandings of the self within liberal political rationality, is discussed with reference to work informed by the thought of Michel Foucault in order to provide a critique of the stated objectives of narrative research and the accompanying agenda of social justice. It is argued that without further attention being given within such work both to what is meant by narrative and social justice, and to assumptions regarding the nature of the operation of power, its emancipatory objectives are undermined. (shrink)

The article turns to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of state capitalism and their theorization of money and debt in their critique of capitalism to develop an analysis of the governmental management of the current crisis determined by ordo- and neoliberalism. The paper argues that analyses which fail to properly recognize the power of capital to determine both state apparatuses and economic policy thereby fail to grasp the real functioning of money, debt and the Euro in the crisis and end up (...) unwittingly supporting liberalism. This is true of positions such as heterodox theory that, though critical of conventional and neoliberal political economy, nevertheless continue to uphold the state as an independent or mediating mechanism in relation to the power of capital. The neglect of the role which money plays in the strategies of capital to control both the creation of value and the functioning of the state is to be found even in Foucault’s genealogy of neoliberalism, a neglect which undermines his analysis of power. The paper highlights the implications of the standpoint of state capitalism for a more incisive analysis of the current crisis that reveals what is at stake for political struggles. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la recepción argentina de los governmentality studies , particularmente con los denominados anglofoucauldians . En esta dirección, nos referimos, inicialmente a los “deslizamientos” y “sobreentendidos” implicados en la traducción local de la perspectiva que examinamos. En segundo lugar, en un nivel más teórico y general, abordamos las limitaciones que supone la analítica del gobierno entendida en términos de la descripción de unas racionalidades políticas. En este punto, proponemos un modo alternativo, aunque complementario, (...) de reflexión sobre las prácticas discursivas de gobierno. Para ello, nos nutrimos de las elaboraciones provenientes del análisis materialista del discurso. Finalmente, en las conclusiones reflexionamos acerca del Sur como posición enunciativa desde la cual contribuir al debate teórico-conceptual sobre el problema del gobierno y la gubernamentalidad. (shrink)

Grounded in a will to adapt to dangers, and espouse both responsibility and resilience, voluntary measures have largely replaced one of the oldest public health strategies, quarantine. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, elicited a broad sweep of tactics from the archive of public health armoury. On a general level, this review essay addresses the common measures rolled out by various authorities against the pandemic - the lock-downs, reopening process, financial support and vaccination. By relating these measures to 1) the “plague-stricken town”, (...) deployed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe by the Polizeistaat; 2) the “self-regulation strategy” that emerged with liberal ideas at the end of the eighteenth century; and 3) the “minimum security” programmed by neoliberal governmentality in the second half of the twentieth century, it is suggested that tensions between freedom and security during, and after, the pandemic can be better understood. To end, the essay noticed that the pandemic has enforced tensions in the administration and calibration of individual wishes and collective wellbeing, creating a fragile “freedom-security relationship” and new problem space for self-regulation. (shrink)

In the final volume of his Homo Sacer series, The use of bodies, Agamben claims that for Foucault ethics never escapes the horizon of governmentality and therefore his conception of ethics is ‘strategic.’ In light of this criticism, motivated by Agamben’s Pauline conception of ‘use,’ we reassess the status and function of ethics in Foucault’s late lectures. We investigate how Foucault’s approach to ethics develops from his treatment of liberal governmentality and also how its methodological foundation is (...) developed in an interpretation of truth-telling in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Our interpretation emphasizes the ambiguous status of ethics in Foucault’s late work: on the one hand, Agamben is right that Foucault assigns an irreducible strategic function to ethics thereby connecting it intrinsically to governmentality. On the other hand, Agamben overlooks how Foucault’s interpretation of Sophocles implies a conception of governmentality which emphasizes how ethical practices cannot be captured solely in strategic terms. Foucault’s ‘anarcheological’ approach thus articulates a dimension of ethics that remains, using Agamben’s own terms, ‘ungovernable’ and therefore also genuinely creative. Even so, Foucault’s approach to ethics remains in Agamben’s perspective on the deepest level faced with an antinomy that Agamben seeks to mediate with his Pauline conception of ‘inoperativity.’. (shrink)

Current debates on neo-liberal governmentality and the medicalization-psychologization of the social constantly refer to Foucault’s theory of biopolitics. I critically examine Foucault’s notions of biopolitics and liberalism as conveyed in his articles on the emergence of social medicine in the 19th century. My thesis is that the movement of sanitary reform is irreducible to the mere development of liberal governmentality and that the idea of social medicine was associated in the period with a critique of the (...) normative principles of liberalism which remains relevant today. (shrink)

Many political theorists have turned to the dramatic political events of the post-9/11 world – terrorism, war, and the erosion of civil liberties – for insight into our changing sense of the political. Yet few have examined the economic dimensions of these events or sought to learn what they might tell us about the changing nature of political community today. This article seeks to fill this gap by drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Georgio Agamben to examine the (...) intimate and changing relationship between the political and the economic in the contemporary world. Now more than ever, there is a particular conception of politics at stake in global efforts to govern economic relations. Global economic institutions like the IMF and World Bank are policing the definition of political community and, in doing so, extending the scope of liberal governmentality. At the same time, the character of their implementation and justification is that of the sovereign exception, as state autonomy must continually be breached through extensive conditionality in order for it to be re-established in the form of a more ‘sound’ political and economic order. This is a sovereign exception with a difference: for the norm that is being established is one that necessarily limits the scope of sovereign power in the interests of market freedom. Paradoxically, while the economy is often the exception to politics as usual, is it an exception that simultaneously enables and constrains the possibility of exercising sovereignty itself? (shrink)

Although the governmentality literature has occasionally acknowledged the importance of the concept of a liberal truth-regime, there has never been a thorough investi-gation of the role it plays in Foucault’s governmentality lectures. Therefore, this paper begins with an examination of the lectures’ “archaeological dimension” that leads to two claims: First, it shows that the crucial conceptual tool in the lectures is the question about the relation to truth that a particular political rationality possesses. Only by looking at (...) the changing truth-regimes of the liberal governmentalities will their differences and continuities come into full contrast. The article’s second claim is that this conceptually sharpened understanding of the political rationalities is required for a diagnosis of the present, which reveals that today’s dominant governmentality is no longer neo-liberalism but a new liberal rationality: neosocial market economy. (shrink)

This paper outlines Foucault's genealogical conception of critique and argues that it is not inconsistent with his appeals to concepts of right so long as these are understood in terms of his historical and naturalistic approach to rights. This approach is explained by reference to Nietzsche's account of the origins of rights and duties and the example of Aboriginal rights is used to exemplify the historical character of rights understood as internal to power relations. Drawing upon the contemporary 'externalist' approach (...) to rights, it is argued that the normative force of rights can only come from within historically available moral and political discourses. Reading Foucault's 1978-1979 lectures on liberal governmentality in this manner suggests that his call for new forms of right in order to criticise disciplinary power should be answered by reference to concepts drawn from the liberal tradition of governmental reason. (shrink)

The article shows that in Foucault’s late 1970s and early 1980s analyses of pastoral, conductive power—most essentially in early and medieval Christianity—the issue of sight and visual perception recurs and occupies a crucial status. In Foucault’s discussion, these Christian relations of power, knowledge, and truth are attached with a surveying gaze that is both totalizing as well as individualizing, one that is mobilized by the thrust towards perfect visibility, transparency, and illumination of the subject turned into an object. The intention (...) is also to develop Foucault’s analysis further, by demonstrating how Christian, providential government can be and actually has been detached from the totalizing modality of optics, and instead become articulated with a very different sort of sight and seeing, one that is non-totalizing and affirms its own limits. The article maintains that from this angle, Foucault’s conception of modern, economic-liberal governmentality has essential convergences with the Christian form of providential government, even though Foucault himself leaves these convergences partly inarticulate. (shrink)

This paper discusses the extent to which governmentality provides a critical visibility of the economy beyond its liberal imaginary. It argues that Foucault’s conceptual and historical understanding of liberal governmentality has two traits that encumber a de-centering of the economy from a Foucauldian perspective. The first obstacle results from a persistent asymmetry of the concept of governmentality as it remains solely geared towards replacing the monolithic account of the state. Governmentality is therefore in danger (...) of rendering the economic invisible instead of advancing an analytics of power appropriate to the specificity of this field. The second impediment relates to how Foucault reads the invisibility of the economy asserted in liberal discourse. While Foucault emphasizes how the “invisible hand” imparts a critical limitation towards the sovereign hubris of total sight, the paper unearths a more complex politics of truth tied to the invisible economy. Drawing on selected historical material, the papers shows that the liberal invisibility of the economy rather functions as a prohibitive barrier towards developing novel and critical visibilities of the economy. A Foucauldian perspective on economy, the paper concludes, benefits from piercing through this double invisibility of the economy. (shrink)

The Biology of Adversity and Resilience coheres around the claim that early childhood experiences of stress and adversity get ‘under the skin’ and become ‘biologically embedded’, increasing the risk of negative health and behavioural outcomes later in life. Taking a genealogical approach to biosocial plasticity, this article situates The Biology of Adversity and Resilience within the arc of an apparatus of power/knowledge that emerged in tandem with liberal governmentality and which assumes childhood as a means of programming the (...) future. The argument is that The Biology of Adversity and Resilience is a normative fiction: a socially scripted story that figures the ‘resilient’ child in a way that potentially sustains extant inequalities by prefiguring a future that is in step with the neoliberal present. (shrink)