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.     

But our citizenship is in heaven: a proposal for the future study of Christian citizenship in the global south

For a field whose continual points of departure have been such Christian themes as belonging responsibility, and stewardship, and whose current conceptual framing prioritizes transnational processes and globalization's cultural complexities, astoundingly little has been written in citizenship studies about global Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. In critical response, this article addresses how scholars of citizenship might begin to think about global Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity and, more importantly, about the formation of Christian citizenship in the global south: in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Using the Guatemalan context as a case study, this article proposes a new way of thinking about contemporary formations of Christian citizenship. The article follows the work of Michel Foucault to see Christian citizenship as a political rationality for millions of believers at everyday levels of action and practice.     

Constructing a decolonized world city for consumption: discourses on Hong Kong Disneyland and their implications

The paper argues that, under the globalized economy, state power is far from diminishing. I study how the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government officials in 1999 developed “competition-development” discourse and “disappearing-world-city” discourse to persuade the public to approve the unequal and non-transparent Hong Kong–Disney deal for setting up the Hong Kong Disneyland (HKDL). I also examine how newspaper reports have circulated and have reinforced these two pairs of political discourses in wider popular discourse. I further reveal, in the post-colonial context of HongKong, how the HKDL project functions to accomplish decolonization tasks and to reshape Hong Kong as a consumption-based tourist spot instead of a citizen-based participatory community.     

Public administration in smart city: A bibliometric analysis

The role of the public administration is crucial for the development of smart cities. Several scholars have highlighted the need for greater contributions focused on the relationship between public administration and smart cities. This work aims to map the contributions on the topic highlighting the status of the field in the recent years. A bibliometric analysis was performed on a sample of articles published in business and management journals. The analysis was carried out using the R-studio Bibliometrics package. Results show that research on the topic is still in an initial stage and has several gaps that future studies could fill. The study is useful for scholars because it identifies the topics analyzed by previous research and highlights future research questions that could be investigated. The analysis highlighted the areas studied by scholars on the topic: urban planning, sustainable development, governance approach, Internet of Things and information and communication technologies.     

Citizenship,minorities and the struggle for a right to the city in Istanbul

Globalization is generating new forms of citizenship that often go beyond the institutional perception of social identity. These new forms of citizenship are developed in a scalable way to a greater extent than rights and obligations, and are entirely managed by the citizens themselves. To demonstrate empirical support for this issue, the case of minority communities in Turkey constitutes one of the most relevant examples, since citizenship in this country has long been associated with an idea of political loyalty and total allegiance to the nation-state. The main purpose of this article is to show how urban space and urban protest allow minorities to find alternative forms of expression for their collective identity, and to create a new understanding of citizenship beyond the classical definition, being based instead on institutional representation. The aim of this research is to examine the process of urban transformation in Istanbul, how this phenomenon shapes the structure of cities and how it gives rise to social resistance and protest, especially in neighborhoods housing minority communities. In this context, the article focuses on planning movements in Turkey through a comparative study of two urban planning projects and the citizens' protests against them.     

The politics of landscape as ways of life in the ‘divided’ city: reflections from Mostar,Bosnia–Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

‘Divided’ cities – places of extreme exclusion and polarization – are sites where the paradox of both fragmentary and cosmopolitan capacity of the city comes to the fore. This article asks: What practices-in-landscape consolidate, construct and deconstruct the impression of a divided city? Drawing insights from the post-conflict Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the main argument I put forward is that urban infrastructures are a crucial medium through which social divisions and cohesions are performed and rearticulated on the ground. The article attends to the everyday of youth in Mostar turning to the politics of landscape as ways of life in the city.     

Gagging orders: asylum seekers and paradoxes of freedom and protest in liberal society

The detention of non-status migrants is now commonplace in developed countries. Detention has been justified on such grounds as security, the welfare of non-status migrant populations, and as a way to speed up processing asylum claims. Drawing from the artist Krzysztof Wodiczko's sustained interest in themes of migration and belonging, this article examines the relationships between technologies of government in detention and accommodation facilities, and the possibilities and constraints of protest that these settings and practices give rise to. The analysis highlights paradoxes of freedom as well as opportunities for protest that imbue these spaces. Using Foucault's discussion of technologies of government, we draw on empirical research to highlight how orientation booklets, classes, and legal self-representation manuals are technologies that compel asylum seekers to become ideal detainees in hopes of being understood as ‘liberal subjects’ worthy of inclusion in a small number of evermore tightly policed Western European states. We conclude with the suggestion that asylum seekers' paradoxical encounters with technologies of liberal government deliver a challenge to the accepted framework of citizenship within liberal societies.     

(Same)-sex in the city: Urbanisation and LGBTI rights expansion

Despite the notable successes of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activism in the region, individual European countries have varied considerably in the extent and speed with which they have adopted legislation to recognise the rights of their LGBTI citizens. Scholars have often turned to modernisation theory to explain these variable outcomes and argue that high levels of national wealth are an important factor in the success of LGBTI movements. Although the correlation between modernity, economic development and tolerance of LGBTI lifestyles is often treated as a truism in the literature, scholars have paid less attention to the precise mechanisms by which the complex processes associated with modernisation facilitate policy change. Drawing on the classic works of both modernisation theory and gay and lesbian history, we examine a less explored route by which modernisation leads to the expansion of LGBTI rights. Specifically, we posit that urbanisation facilitates the adoption of rights policies by strengthening LGBTI movements and enhancing their political effectiveness. To test this proposition, we use event history analysis and an original dataset that contains measures for institutional, cultural, economic and movement variables, as well as measures of urbanisation in 44 European countries between 1980 and 2015. Our findings support the contention that urbanisation has a strong effect on the formation of LGBTI movement organisations as well as the speed with which European states adopt both same-sex union and anti-discrimination legislation. The relationship between urbanisation and rights expansion persists even after controlling for a country's level of wealth, religious adherence and the influence of European institutions and norms.     

On the issue of comparison research in politics

Comparison is a very important method in social science and human science research. This text thinks that comparison should be pondered and illustrated more deeply, which will help us to understand it more clearly for improving the performance and advance of the research in politics and it＇s theory system.     

Drugs,law, people,place and the state: ongoing regulation,resistance and change

We introduce this special issue firstly by tracing drugs from their traditional, cultural and religious uses through to their roles as commodities in colonial relations and now the global economy. We secondly explore the shifting nature of drugs and drug use in different places and times as shaped by politics, especially state regulation and the law. Thirdly, given the complexity as well as contingency of drugs, we survey a wide range of relevant theoretical approaches, but suggest that a critical analysis attend to their spatial framing and geography. Fourthly, and finally, we summarize the eight papers comprising this collection.     

Finland's Parliamentary Election 2015: Certainty of the Result with Uncertainty of the Outcome

The winner of the Finnish parliamentary election 2015 was certain long before the elections. The Centre Party of Finland would win, but for the composition of the government and future societal changes, it was more interesting who would be the runners-up. With eight parliamentary parties and with eight different political agendas, the Finnish political system forms a hard to predict political landscape. Key issues for the Centre Party, rebounding from the catastrophic elections of 2011, were to find a coalition with trust between its members and to generate trust in getting things done. One evident societal outcome of the election is the deceleration of centralization policies furthered by the previous government. The disagreement over regional politics and devolution and related cleavages within the country brought the coalition government between the Centre Party, the National Coalition Party and the Finns Party to the verge of falling after only six months.     

Thinking the crisis politically: lineages of resistance to neo-liberalism and the politics of the present conjuncture

Dominant forms of left theorizing in relation to the crisis have constructed emergent forms of resistance as limited and reactive. This depiction of resistances, however, is created partly by abstracting the crisis from ongoing contestation of neo-liberalism. This paper situates emerging resistances to crisis and austerity in relation to ongoing trajectories of the contestation of neo-liberalism. It examines some of the solidarities and antagonisms being shaped in relation to the crisis. The paper concludes that a focus on the dynamic trajectories of alternative politics can open up different possibilities within the current conjuncture.     

Comfortably inhabiting reality: justifying and denouncing arguments in a development dispute in the post-industrial gentrified inner-city

This article seeks to understand the ‘critical capacities’ of actors involved in public disputes by focussing on one such case in Melbourne, Australia. The dispute centred on a non-government school's proposal to develop classrooms in a heritage listed building on public land sublet from a charitable foundation. Following local council's rejection of the original proposal, the school successfully appealed to the Victorian Planning Minister. After introducing a critical pragmatic analytic framework, five accounts of the dispute given by key actors are examined, uncovering similarities in the arguments used by each. Then, in the same accounts, analysis identifies differences in how the pro- and anti-development groups justified their own and denounced their opponents' positions. Both groups recognised formal rules as the best means for preserving equal citizens' access to public space, yet the pro-development group justified their argument by reference to local community benefit, in contrast with the anti-development group, who adopted an abstract argument concerning the privatisation of public space. Understood as mobilising different ‘models of justice’, the groups are regarded as appealing to a ‘real’ order, an implicit politicised hierarchy that situates winners in relation to losers. In effect, the pro-development group justified its position by representing it as congruent with, rather than disrupting, the real order encompassing the situation. In conclusion, the paper discusses the usefulness of the critical pragmatic analytic framework for understanding governmental power relations and assemblages, as actors demonstrate their critical capacities in contexts where erstwhile formal equality obscures the presence of hierarchical order.     

Grassroots practices of citizenship and politicization in the urban: the case of right to the city initiatives in Barcelona

This article aims to produce an analysis of the politicization of the citizens after Spain’s Indignados movement from a citizenship framework. The article suggests that claiming the right to the city involves more than issues of access to urban amenities: it is also about claiming the right to participate in the formation and transformation of the city and the right to appropriate the city center. This positions these rights within the larger issue of citizenship by defining it as a collective practice rather than a state-sanctioned status. Our analysis is based on the empirical evidence derived from the semi-structured interviews, politicians’ speeches, information based on media resources and official websites, and participant observation during three months of fieldwork in Barcelona in 2016.     

Real-time biopolitics: the actuary and the sentinel in global public health

Abstract

This paper analyses the mechanisms through which experts in the field of global health work to manage the future well-being of populations. It develops a contrast between two ways of approaching disease threats: actuarial and sentinel devices. If actuarial devices seek to map disease over time and across populations in order to gauge and mitigate risk, sentinel devices treat unprecedented diseases that cannot be mapped over time, but can only be anticipated and prepared for. The paper shows that a recent controversy over vaccination in Europe in response to the H1N1 pandemic can be understood in terms of the tension between these two kinds of security mechanisms.     

Exploring the semiotic meaning of the first oil city in the Middle East: Masjed Soleyman

This study aims to provide a perspective on the symbolic characteristics of oil cities by focusing on the example of the first oil city in the Middle East, Masjed Soleyman city. Studies of oil cities are generally based on their industrial characteristics rather than their symbolic meanings. However, since oil became a distinctive symbol in the Middle East, these cities need to be examined from an altered perspective. Therefore, the present study analyses the urban context of Masjed Soleyman city based on four concepts of “city as overall sign”, “image of city”, “language of city” and “interpretation/communication” as well as the derived indicators from each concept. It is concluded that given the critical importance of oil at both the national and international levels, oil production was arguably maintained or sustained by various treatments of this city's inhabitants. In the process of exploring this ancient city, the study portrays that Masjed Soleyman characteristically symbolises control, social segregation and surveillance.     

From neoliberalism to neocommunitarianism: opposing justifications in a dispute over privatized electricity infrastructure

It is becoming increasingly clear that neoliberal ideological efforts to depoliticize politics have come to incorporate arguments once associated with radical communitarian, localist and existential critiques of capitalism. This article contributes to cross-disciplinary discussion of how and on what terms this process of assimilation has taken place. It first describes the rise of neocommunitarian politics and policy-making in the privatized electricity system of a “first-mover” neoliberal state, Australia. It then examines in detail a dispute over a proposed upgrade to a piece of electricity system infrastructure in a formerly industrial, working-class and immigrant, now post-industrial, bourgeois-bohemian and gentrified suburb of inner-Melbourne, Victoria. The study reveals a shift over time in the strategy of the protest group convened to resist the proposed upgrade. Originally using NIMBY-like arguments to oppose the upgrade, the group gradually transformed its strategy into a more general critique of privatization and marketization, and of the use of neocommunitarianism by state and market interests to promote economic growth. Generalizing from this case study, we suggest that such a transformation in protest strategy signals the possibility of a new culture of awareness that neocommunitarianism is little more than a response by states and markets to public rejection of free-market reforms. Moreover, the transformation of the protesters' strategy heralds the possibility of a renewal in critical thought and practice, one that is repoliticizing politics by challenging the marketizing and privatizing of public goods.     

Expansive Intervention as Neo-Institutional Learning: Root Causes in the Merida Initiative

Interventions since the 1990s have greatly expanded in policy scope. While neo-liberals understand expansion as an attempt to work on the enabling preconditions of liberal market democracy, Foucauldian governmentality studies see in expansion a set of increasingly intrusive disciplinary techniques of responsibilization. This paper introduces an alternative lens: neo-institutional learning. Through a case study of the Merida Initiative, a US–Mexican security cooperation agreement, the paper argues that expansion grows serendipitously out of the repetitive discovery of new, ‘deeper’ unknowns within a neo-institutional framework of analysis. Importantly, downward penetration requires deconstructing reductionist liberal-universal knowledge claims. Paradoxically, then, the more statebuilders learn (empirically), the less they know (analytically).     

On the promise and perils of citizenship: heuristic concepts,Zimbabwean example

Increasingly, struggles in the name of citizenship inspire and catch the imagination and support of individuals and groups found in a variety of locales within a nation as well as transnational spaces. At the same time, their consequences may be quite different from the assumptions and dreams of those involved in perpetuating and imagining these struggles. To analyse how new social citizenship claims can embolden and channel struggles in particular directions with varied results – the promise and perils of citizenship more broadly – I suggest that one should pay attention to the promulgators of such visions of citizenship, the techniques of promoting their claims and the cultural politics and political economies of belonging in the locales of mobilization. Drawing on an ethnographic example of a farm labour struggle in the late 1990s in Zimbabwe, I explore the importance of attending to wider shifts in the political importance of citizenship as well as its entanglement in particular localities. Through examining how farm workers are situated through such struggles, I show the promise and limits of citizenship in addressing social justice concerns of a group historically marginalized through racialized, classed and gendered processes.