The Place of Sovereignty

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between sovereignty, biopolitics and governmentality in the work of Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault. By unpacking Foucault’s genealogy of modern governmentality, it responds to a criticism leveled against Foucauldian accounts of power for their alleged abandonment of the traditional model of power in juridico-institutional terms in favor of an understanding of power as purely productive. This claim has most significantly been developed by Agamben in “Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life”. I argue that Judith Butler’s analysis of power, in particular in her essay “Indefinite Detention”, presents a more differentiated account of power that registers the significance of practices of sovereignty and resonates with Foucault’s lectures on “Security, Territory, Population”.     

Shadow boxing in family politics: reply to Martin Durham

In his writings on government foucault commonly uses term ‘political’ as if it were equivalant to a certain understanding of governmental. Thus, in the title of his cotribution to the Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ‘Omnes et Singulatim, towards a criticism of ”political reason“, the object of Foucault's usage of the term ‘political’ to refer to a kind of govrmetal reason. Second, I argue that the practice of what Foucault understands by political reason in fact creates coditions for the emergence of a politics and a political reason of a very different kind. The appearance of this latter political reason poses a range of problems which must be addressed by any political (in the sense of governmental) reason but which play little part in Foucault's discussion. It Suggests, in particular, that Foucault's account of the liberal rationality of government is seriously incomplete. Third, I consider the grounds for Foucault's counterposition of political reason to liberation, noting that his critique of political reason as a principle of subjectivation raises a more general issue, which he describes as ‘the politics of ourselves’ (Foucault 1993: 223). I conclude by noting that Foucault's discussions of political reason lead in two very different directions: towards a powerful analysis of the practices and rationalities of government in the modern West or towards a radical critique of most forms of government, including the modern government of oneself.     

From Machenschaft to Biopolitics: A Genealogical Critique of Biopower

Abstract

This paper develops a genealogical critique of the concepts of biopower and biopolitics in the work of Foucault and Agamben. It shows how Heidegger's reflections on Machenschaft or machination prefigure the concepts of biopower and biopolitics. It develops a critique of Foucault's account of biopolitics as a system of managing the biological life of populations culminating in neo-liberalism, and a critique of Agamben's presentation of biopolitics as the metaphysical foundation of Western political rationality. Foucault's ethical turn within biopolitical govern-mentality, along with Agamben's messianic gesture towards a utopian community to come, are questioned as political responses to biopower regimes.     

Theorising Power and Resistance among “Travellers”

This paper (re-)examines the literature on Traveller communities in the United Kingdom by combining parts of Michel Foucault's and Michel de Certeau's theoretical legacies. Following an ethnographic summary, I demonstrate the relevance of Foucault and Certeau for a critical understanding of the Travellers’ structural predicaments and ideological resistance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I argue that Foucault's outline of modern power, surveillance and classification sheds new light on the impact of social control agencies and the implementation of legislative changes, such as the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, on (semi-)nomadic and/or self-employed groups. The implications of more recent legal developments are discussed as symptoms of postmodernity and the further ideological marginalisation of “non-consuming nomads”. I then argue that some of Certeau's key concepts, including the “strategies/tactics” distinction, illuminate the Travellers’ modalities of resistance and symbolisms of difference. Completing a two-way dynamic between theory and data, the article also shows that existing empirical material on Travellers highlights some of the weaknesses in Foucault's and Certeau's respective thought. Finally, I turn to Foucault's “analytics” to account for intra-group power and resistance, and hence to challenge the common portrayal of Foucault as a “theorist of domination” in juxtaposition to Certeau as a “theorist of subversion”.     

On resistance in the post-political city: conduct and counter-conduct in Vancouver

The paper contributes to understandings of contestation and resistance in urban politics, using a land use struggle against a “big-box” development in Vancouver, Canada as an example. It surveys Foucault's work on “governmentality,” highlighting the centrality of the notion of resistance in this work before focusing in particular on Foucault's yet underexplored conceptions of “conduct” and “counter-conduct”. These concepts offer an analysis of urban politics beyond the binary of successful implementation of city policies or their failure, and of cooption or revolt; therefore, proving especially useful in the analysis of urban governance which is increasingly characterised as “post-political”.     

Foucault,Critique and Rights

Abstract

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 under stood 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.     

When the exception becomes the rule: borders,sovereignty, and citizenship

Borders are a unique political space, in which both sovereignty and citizenship are performed by individuals and sovereigns. Using the work of Agamben and Foucault, this article examines how decisions made at the border alienate each and every traveler crossing the frontier, not simply the ‘sans papiers’ or refugees. The governmentality at play in the border examination relies on an embedded confessionary complex and the ‘neurotic citizen’, as well as structures of identity, documentation, and data management. The state border is a permanent state of exception that clearly demonstrates the importance of biopolitics to the smooth operation of sovereign power.     

Plato in WeimarWeber revisited via Foucault: two lectures on legitimation and vocation

Abstract

The text that follows brings together two papers about resonances between late lectures: Weber's lectures of 1918 on science and politics as vocations, and Foucault's final courses (1980–84) on subjectivity, truth and the political. The title alludes to Foucault's 1983 discussion of Plato's political experiences in Sicily, as narrated in his Seventh Letter, juxtaposed to Weber's public interventions in Germany at the time of the foundation of the Weimar Republic. Linked to this is an exploration of the centrality in the work of both Weber and Foucault of an historical ethnography and ethology of the political, and of the forms of connectivity in our cultures between ethics, truth and government.     

Women's Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua

Foucault's inspiration from Nietzsche in terms of writing critical histories is difficult to overestimate. However, this article advances an interpretation of Foucault's approach to history which focuses on another, less readily evident, dialogue partner, namely the Marxist tradition and, more precisely, French Maoism. The first part of the article details Foucault's involvement in the Maoist-inspired activist group, Groupe d'information sur les prisons (GIP). It is argued that Foucault's practical experience from GIP left crucial marks on his contemporaneous statements on the genealogical method and his critique of “totalizing institutions,” “uniform discourse” and “juridical universality.” The second part of the article offers a close reading of Foucault's reflections on genealogy in his 1976 lecture series which demonstrates how the Maoist activist principles noticeably resonate in these statements. The aim of the article is threefold. First, to bring attention to largely neglected sources of inspiration for Foucault's genealogical approach, which complement those represented by Nietzsche. Second, it seeks to obtain a better understanding of Foucault's relationship to Marxism, a relationship often portrayed as unambiguously negative. And third, the goal is to demonstrate how principles developed in Maoist political activism are not only realized in Foucault's activities within the GIP, but also in his lecture-hall formulations of genealogy, power, and critique.     

Social Character: Erich Fromm and the Ideological Glue of Neoliberalism

Several thinkers have expressed the view that the central nostrums of neoliberalism, including self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual risk, have become part of the “common sense” fabric of everyday life. My paper argues that Erich Fromm’s idea of social character offers a comprehensive and persuasive answer to this question. While some have sought the answer to this conundrum in Foucault’s notion of governmentality, I argue that, by itself, this answer is not sufficient. What is significant about the notion of social character, I claim, is that it manages to unify “top-down” approaches like governmentality focused on ideas and policy, with “bottom-up” approaches focused on how the insights of day to day experience are mediated through culture. Adapting this theory to neoliberalism, I argue, means that the “common sense” nature of neoliberalism, and the lack of a reckoning for its massive economic failure (as evidenced by the 2007 Great Recession), are explicable through the formation of a neoliberal social character, by means of which experiential processes align with cultural meanings and, subsequently, fuse with social expectations.     

Neoliberalismus, Staat und Selbsttechnologien. Ein kritischer Überblick über die governmentality studies

While the reception of Foucault’s work in Germany is still dominated by highly polarized philosophical and academic debattes, his concepts and ideas inspired many studies in the social and political sciences in the Anglo-Saxon world. Part of this general theoretical interest are the so called governmentality studies refering to the notion of governmentality coined by Foucault. This articles begins with an outline of the theoretical principles underpinning this research framework. Foucault uses the concept of government in a comprehensive sense adumbrating the close link between forms of knowledge, power techniques and processes of subjectivation. In the second part follows a brief presentation of some subsequent work inspired by Foucault’s account. By confronting Ulrich Beck’s notion of risk society with the governmentality approach it will be demonstrated that this kind of theoretical perspective could be very useful for a critical analysis of neo-liberal modes of regulation. It links political rationalities to the micro-techniques of every day life and explores the field of the government which ranges from “governing the self” to “governing others” encompassing the state and civil society. Yet, there still remain unsolved problems and ambiguities, especially the role of the state and the question of resistance in the governmentality studies. These points are taken up in the third part of the text.     

Colonial governmentality and the ‘economy’

Using Foucault's notion of governmentality, this paper argues that colonial governmentality in India sought to effect a new relationship between resources, population, and discipline. Drawing theoretical insights from the 'critical accounting literature' to bear on the regulation of economic activity in colonial India, the paper shows how the discursive practices of colonial governance, in particular the modalities of measurement, accounting, and classification, enabled the constitution of the 'economy'. Such statistical data generated as part of colonial administration opened up the possibility of a nationalist accounting of the exploitation of India by the colonial power.     

Genealogies of European states: Foucauldian reflections

Abstract

The public lectures given by Foucault at the Collège de France that are only now being published demonstrate that, just before he turned his attention to the history of sexuality, Foucault's thorough historical research had laid out many of the elements needed for a genealogy of modern practices of state governance. This review essay pieces together elements provided in the lectures, and in a few already published writings, to prove that research on state powers and state knowledges can benefit a great deal from a close reading of the lectures.     

'The birth of bio-politics': Michel Foucault's lecture at the Collège de France on neo-liberal governmentality

This paper focuses on Foucault's analysis of two forms of neo-liberalism in his lecture of 1979 at the Collège de France: German post-War liberalism and the liberalism of the Chicago School. Since the course is available only on audio-tapes at the Foucault archive in Paris, the larger part of the text presents a comprehensive reconstruction of the main line of argumentation, citing previously unpublished source material. The final section offers a short discussion of the methodological and theoretical principles underlying the concept of governmentality and the critical political angle it provides for an analysis of contemporary neo-liberalism.     

Foucault and the Telos of Power

In this paper, I argue that the unique contributions of Foucault’s late work to critical social theory can be identified in the ways in which power relations are refined as the material condition of “politics” as distinguished from that of law, where “politics”: (a) includes both competitive and goal-oriented strategic actions and interactions, (b) excludes the coercive technologies of law embodied in State institutions, (c) presupposes “incomplete” reciprocity between actors engaged in directing others, (d) always entails modes of revealing truth and acting upon the self. By contextualising the break between pastoral power and direction in the 1979–1980 lectures, I show how for the late Foucault, power relations constitute the material condition of “politics” precisely because, unlike relations of control or coercion, their aims and objectives remain open to the possibility of building new relationships and potentially more “political” forms of social action. I conclude by situating this major distinction within Foucault’s unfulfilled project to study the “military dimension” of society, and the relevance and urgency of this project for contemporary struggles against new forms of militarism and austerity.     

Compliance costs,regulation, and environmental performance: Controlling truck emissions in the US

When explaining regulatory policymaking and the behavior of regulated business firms, scholars have supplemented economic models by emphasizing the role of public‐regarding entrepreneurial politics and of normative pressures on firms. This article explores the limits of such entrepreneurial politics and “social license” pressures by examining regulation of emissions from diesel powered trucks in the US. We find that the economic cost of obtaining the best available control technology – new model lower emissions engines – has: (i) limited the stringency and coerciveness of direct regulation of vehicle owners and operators; (ii) dwarfed the reach and effectiveness of the governmental programs that subsidize the purchase of new less polluting vehicles; and (iii) elevated the importance of each company’s “economic license”– as opposed to its “social license”– in shaping its environmental performance. The prominence of this “regulatory compliance cost” variable in shaping both regulation and firm behavior, we conclude, is likely to recur in highly competitive markets, like trucking, that include many small firms that cannot readily either afford or pass on the cost of best available compliance technologies.     

Foucault and Liberalism: Rationality,Revolution, Resistance

Abstract

In 1978 and 1979, the concept of governmentality was introduced by Foucault in his lectures at the Collège de France. Foucault finds the genealogical origin of this concept in the Christian figure of the shepherd. From this starting-point, he then embarks on a eulogy of liberalism, in stark contrast to the Marxist critique of political economy. These two grand narratives of modern liberalism differ markedly in their political and philosophical presuppositions. The latter, rooted in the tradition of natural law, is directed towards revolution. The former, rooted in the tradition of English radicalism, is directed towards resistance. Beyond their different reconstructions of liberalism, however, the article concludes by showing how these two narratives, can in fact be combined in a politically fruitful way.     

Biopolitics and Social Pathologies

Abstract

The question of social medicine provides the opportunity to engage in a critical reading of Foucault's theory of biopower. The analyses dedicated by Foucault to ‘the birth of social medicine’ represent one of the few examples of a thorough application of that theory. They allow Foucault to show the heuristic value of the biopolitical hypothesis at the level of the most concrete historical materiality, and not just at that of the general history of the forms of governmentality. These analyses, however, also allow the historiographical and political limits of the biopolitical hypothesis to come to light. From the perspective of the history of sciences as well as from that of the analysis of the modalities of social critique in the first half of the nineteenth century, Foucault appears to provide an interpretation that is too continuist and tends to homogenise the historical phenomena. The disqualification of social medicine relies in part on simplifications that continue to bear great significance today in view of the current transformations in the social question.     

Co-existing logics of change: The case of the Danish associational development championships

This article addresses modernization processes within the voluntary sector. It examines how volunteer-based sports associations (VSAs) are encouraged to work with their own self-development, when they participate in the Danish Associational Development Championships (DADC). Drawing on Foucault’s concepts of ‘governmentality’ and ‘dispositive’, the article shows how the governmental rationality of the DADC is pieced together by a number of different logics of change. This makes it ambiguous what the function of VSAs is, who they function for, and why they need to change. The article thus advances our knowledge of the socio-political nature of modernization strategies and techniques.     

Through thick or thin? The performance and operation of firms and the institutional thickness model

The idea that “institutional thickness” is an important component for the resilience of local economies continues to attract attention several years after the seminal work on the subject by Amin and Thrift (1994). In Melbourne's northern suburbs, one manufacturing sector has recently seen significant job growth. Coinciding with this trend is the emergence of regional economic development bodies. Have they influenced the performance and operation of firms? Results from interviews with firm managers suggest not, with non-institutional factors predominating. This “business as usual” scenario suggests local economic development strategies have limitations.