- Dept of Business Humanities and Law
Copenhagen Business School
Porcelaenshaven 18B
Frederiksberg
DK-2000
Denmark
- State Theory, Power (social), Political Theology, Neoliberalism, Governmentality, Sovereignty, and 21 moreBiopolitics, Economic theology, Governance, Public Governance, Political Sociology, Political Economy, Political Theory, Michel Foucault, Poverty, Liberalism, Giorgio Agamben, Jeremy Bentham, English Poor Law, Carl Schmitt (Political Science), Thomas R. Malthus, Critical Theory, Political Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, History of Political Thought, International Relations, and Social Theoryedit
- I am a political and historical sociologist and social and political theorist. I have been Professor of Public Govern... moreI am a political and historical sociologist and social and political theorist. I have been Professor of Public Governance at CBS since December 2012. Before that I was Professor of Sociology at the University of Newcastle (2010-12) and at Macquarie University (2000-2010) and Dean, Division of Society, Culture, Media and Philosophy at the latter (2002-2009).edit
In this article, we claim, firstly, that the turn to an “ethical” politics focused on subjectivity and its transformation, announced by post-structuralist theorists in the 1970s, can be found today in forms of progressive politics,... more
In this article, we claim, firstly, that the turn to an “ethical” politics
focused on subjectivity and its transformation, announced by
post-structuralist theorists in the 1970s, can be found today in
forms of progressive politics, illustrated by struggles against
racism and their articulation by consultants and educators.
Secondly, this turn entails targeting the “enemy within,” whether
it be the inner fascist (Guattari, Foucault) or white privilege (Di
Angelo, Kendi). Rather than an extension of Lasch’s therapeutic
“culture of narcissism,” it is a turn to practices reminiscent of
public rituals of expiation of guilt and acts of purification
(exomologesis) characterizing what Weber referred to as “sects.”
Pace Foucault, the “main danger” lies not in the “subjectifying”
practices of the human sciences descended from auricular
confession and the Christian pastorate, but rather the
displacement of formal politics and attendant “civil religion”
(Bellah) by conflicts between charismatic sects claiming
exemplary subjectivity and virtuosity.
focused on subjectivity and its transformation, announced by
post-structuralist theorists in the 1970s, can be found today in
forms of progressive politics, illustrated by struggles against
racism and their articulation by consultants and educators.
Secondly, this turn entails targeting the “enemy within,” whether
it be the inner fascist (Guattari, Foucault) or white privilege (Di
Angelo, Kendi). Rather than an extension of Lasch’s therapeutic
“culture of narcissism,” it is a turn to practices reminiscent of
public rituals of expiation of guilt and acts of purification
(exomologesis) characterizing what Weber referred to as “sects.”
Pace Foucault, the “main danger” lies not in the “subjectifying”
practices of the human sciences descended from auricular
confession and the Christian pastorate, but rather the
displacement of formal politics and attendant “civil religion”
(Bellah) by conflicts between charismatic sects claiming
exemplary subjectivity and virtuosity.
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Our present is not lacking in novel and alarming characteristics and diagnoses: of a post-truth politics and the spread of fake news; of the dark arts of the internet; of populism as movement, politics , and incompetent policy; of... more
Our present is not lacking in novel and alarming characteristics and diagnoses: of a post-truth politics and the spread of fake news; of the dark arts of the internet; of populism as movement, politics , and incompetent policy; of explicitly illiberal democracies and regimes; of collusions and meddling in high politics; of antiglobalism, trade wars, and the making and remaking of state enemies such as Russia. It would be tempting to imagine that this present is a time like no other, a hinge moment of epochal significance. Above all, it would be easy, and all too careless, to imagine that liberal democracies, and the neoliberalism that has played a major part in public governance for the last forty years, have made a sudden and unexpected authoritarian lurch. What follows are two intertwined stories concerning neoliberalism and its authoritarian dimension. One is conceptual and theoretical and concerns a small domain of academic and intellectual activity: that of Michel Foucault, his influence in what has been called "governmentality studies" (Sen nelart 2007: 390), and this field's status in a present in which there has been a belated rediscovery of the political. The second is the story of a different scale: of frameworks of governing and politics in contemporary liberal democracies, with a particular emphasis on
the extent to which these forms of governing have been liberal, in the sense
that they operate primarily in relation to the freedom of the governed and
only occasionally resort to measures that are coercive or illiberal. At stake in
the latter is the question of sovereign power, the nation, the state, and the
territory. For some time, we have been exercised with the irrationality of the
rationalities of neoliberal government. Today we are forced to turn to the
rationality of irrational neoliberal politics.
the extent to which these forms of governing have been liberal, in the sense
that they operate primarily in relation to the freedom of the governed and
only occasionally resort to measures that are coercive or illiberal. At stake in
the latter is the question of sovereign power, the nation, the state, and the
territory. For some time, we have been exercised with the irrationality of the
rationalities of neoliberal government. Today we are forced to turn to the
rationality of irrational neoliberal politics.
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The oath pertains to law, sovereignty, and office. A public servant takes an oath. A witness and a juror at a trial swear an oath. The British monarch swears a coronation oath and the president-elect of the United States an oath of... more
The oath pertains to law, sovereignty, and office. A public servant takes
an oath. A witness and a juror at a trial swear an oath. The British monarch
swears a coronation oath and the president-elect of the United States
an oath of office. While the coronation of the monarch has been regarded
as “medieval” and the inauguration of the president as “ceremonial” or
“symbolic,” it would be a mistake to view them as empty rituals, particularly
the oaths taken. And while the oath invokes God, it would be an
error to assume that it is merely an atavism, a retroversion, or a vestige
of a more religious past. But what it is and what it does is far from clear,
including to those who swear oaths. This essay draws on classical political thought and contemporary work in comparative religion, public administration, history of ideas, linguistics and social philosophy, and using multiple examples, to understand the conundrums concerning the oath and, in particular, its relation to office.
an oath. A witness and a juror at a trial swear an oath. The British monarch
swears a coronation oath and the president-elect of the United States
an oath of office. While the coronation of the monarch has been regarded
as “medieval” and the inauguration of the president as “ceremonial” or
“symbolic,” it would be a mistake to view them as empty rituals, particularly
the oaths taken. And while the oath invokes God, it would be an
error to assume that it is merely an atavism, a retroversion, or a vestige
of a more religious past. But what it is and what it does is far from clear,
including to those who swear oaths. This essay draws on classical political thought and contemporary work in comparative religion, public administration, history of ideas, linguistics and social philosophy, and using multiple examples, to understand the conundrums concerning the oath and, in particular, its relation to office.
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This is more a personal and partial remembrance of my friend and colleague, Barry Hindess, than a formal obituary, but it does address the nature of his intellectual inspiration.
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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... more
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 twentieth-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 of contemporary liberal-democratic societies, the political becomes less a rational public sphere and more a form of public liturgy.
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This present paper takes its initial inspiration from Carl Schmitt’s claim in 1927 that the original democratic phenomenon is acclamation, and draws upon the interchange between religious and political forms of acclamation observed by... more
This present paper takes its initial inspiration from Carl Schmitt’s claim in 1927 that the original democratic phenomenon is acclamation, and draws upon the interchange between religious and political forms of acclamation observed by Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz and Erik Peterson and elaborated recently by Giorgio Agamben. If Schmitt is correct, then acclamation is central to the construction of “the people” who by definition are the source of democratic political legitimacy. What is required is an “analytics of publicity” that would study the different ways in which the public is formed through different forms of acclamation. There are three such ways. In the first, typified by direct democracy of an authoritarian kind and certain assemblies in liberal democracy, political acclamation is performed though the actual presence of the people as assembled public and by hand gestures, waving and chants. In the second, acclamation takes the form of public opinion formed through the “mass media”, giving rise to theories such as those of the “society of the spectacle” and the “manufacture of consent.” In the third, acclamation occurs through what is called today “social media,”, where it is possible to “follow” and be followed, to “friend” and “unfriend”, like and dislike, and express opinions in a virtual public domain at almost any time and anywhere. Here the practice of acclamation produces what we shall call “public mood.” All three are present in contemporary liberal democracies. Schmitt had already foreseen something like this situation in his Constitutional Theory, which “would not be an especially intensive democracy, but it would provide proof that the state and the public were fully privatized.” It is possible that this latter form of acclamation that marks a radical caesura in contemporary liberal democracies, rendering inoperative the previous public opinion dispositive, and leading to the situation where the mass media, its commentariat, and national opinion polls, were uniformly wrong with reference to the 2016 presidential campaign and general election in the United States..
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This is the typescript of: Mitchell Dean, ‘Foucault and the neoliberalism controversy’, in D. Cahill, M. Cooper, M. Konings, and D. Primrose (eds), The Sage Handbook of Neoliberalism. London: Sage, pp. 40-54. It includes reviews of... more
This is the typescript of: Mitchell Dean, ‘Foucault and the neoliberalism controversy’, in D. Cahill, M. Cooper, M. Konings, and D. Primrose (eds), The Sage Handbook of Neoliberalism. London: Sage, pp. 40-54.
It includes reviews of a) the current controversy of Foucault's relation to neoliberalism (2012-2016), b) Foucault's views of neoliberalism and the arts of government, and c) his view of neoliberal subjectivity, and refections on Foucault and d) his intellectual habitus, e) his political and historical context, and f) his relation to neoliberalism as an ideal, a concrete political program and a social policy framework. It argues that there are three specific elements of what might be considered neoliberalism to which Foucault had an affirmative relationship: 1. the form of regulation without 'subjectification' imagined by the Chicago School; 2. the political faction of the French Socialists, the Second Left; and 3. the critique of the welfare state as inducing dependency.
It includes reviews of a) the current controversy of Foucault's relation to neoliberalism (2012-2016), b) Foucault's views of neoliberalism and the arts of government, and c) his view of neoliberal subjectivity, and refections on Foucault and d) his intellectual habitus, e) his political and historical context, and f) his relation to neoliberalism as an ideal, a concrete political program and a social policy framework. It argues that there are three specific elements of what might be considered neoliberalism to which Foucault had an affirmative relationship: 1. the form of regulation without 'subjectification' imagined by the Chicago School; 2. the political faction of the French Socialists, the Second Left; and 3. the critique of the welfare state as inducing dependency.
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This paper locates Giorgio Agamben’s book Opus Dei in his larger Homo Sacer project and particularly a series of genealogical and archaeological studies within it. It argues for a disenchanted and dispersed reading of Agamben’s approach... more
This paper locates Giorgio Agamben’s book Opus Dei in his larger Homo Sacer project and particularly a series of genealogical and archaeological studies within it. It argues for a disenchanted and dispersed reading of Agamben’s approach to office as a resource for concerns that are germane to cultural and political sociology and that are irreducible to Heideggerian metaphysics. This reading foregrounds methodological questions of genealogy and archaeology (and hence Agamben’s relation to Foucault), religious liturgy and political practice, and the theory of the priesthood as a paradigm for office. More
broadly, Agamben’s work on office is shown to bear upon questions of the constitution of sovereignty and government as forms of power, on different forms of rationalisation, and themes of secularisation and modernity found in classical sociology and intellectual history. In part, it is a response to Ian Hunter's paper in the same issue of the journal.
broadly, Agamben’s work on office is shown to bear upon questions of the constitution of sovereignty and government as forms of power, on different forms of rationalisation, and themes of secularisation and modernity found in classical sociology and intellectual history. In part, it is a response to Ian Hunter's paper in the same issue of the journal.
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The article addresses the significance of the current Cambridge Analytica and Facebook "scandal" in relation to what Michel Foucault called "modes of veridiction" and the "liturgical unfolding of truth." It uses the concept of "political... more
The article addresses the significance of the current Cambridge Analytica and Facebook "scandal" in relation to what Michel Foucault called "modes of veridiction" and the "liturgical unfolding of truth." It uses the concept of "political acclamation" to discuss the nature and use of digital data and examines what it means for the nature of current and future democracy, public opinion, and media. Here is the URL: http://www.telospress.com/the-dark-arts-reach-the-internet/
I have attached the typescript.
I have attached the typescript.
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I put this here in memoriam of my colleague, mentor, and above all, dear friend, Barry Hindess, who has died recently. Published by Cambridge University Press in 1998, this is our Introduction to the first national collection of articles... more
I put this here in memoriam of my colleague, mentor, and above all, dear friend, Barry Hindess, who has died recently. Published by Cambridge University Press in 1998, this is our Introduction to the first national collection of articles of what latter would become known as "governmentality studies."
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This paper explores the relationship between the conceptual and theoretical claims around individualisation, life-politics and the self, with the corollary that regulation takes the form of a 'culture governance', and the normative,... more
This paper explores the relationship between the conceptual and theoretical claims around individualisation, life-politics and the self, with the corollary that regulation takes the form of a 'culture governance', and the normative, political, and policy impacts of such a view. Written in the early 2000s, it focuses on Foucault, Giddens, Beck, Castells, and contemporary neoliberalism, neopaternalism and The Third Way.
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This is my contribution to a symposium on Dotan Leshem's book, The Origins of Neoliberalism: Modeling the Economy from Jesus to Foucault. The rest of the symposium is available here, as well as Dotan's replies.
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From: P. Bonditti et al (eds) Foucault and the Modern International. Routlledge, 2017.
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This is the uncorrected proof of my contribution to a symposium published in European Political Science on Wendy's Brown's book, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution (Zone Books, 2015). In it I explore, through philology... more
This is the uncorrected proof of my contribution to a symposium published in European Political Science on Wendy's Brown's book, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution (Zone Books, 2015). In it I explore, through philology and political thought, notions of democracy and economy, and suggest a potential set of resources for resistance to neoliberalism that emerges when we exorcize the demon of our own state-phobia.
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This article approaches social media from the theory of the religio-political practice of acclamation revived by Agamben and following twentieth-century social and political thought and theology (of Weber, Peterson, Schmitt, Kantorowicz).... more
This article approaches social media from the theory of the religio-political practice of acclamation revived by Agamben and following twentieth-century social and political thought and theology (of Weber, Peterson, Schmitt, Kantorowicz). It supplements that
theory by more recent political-theoretical, historical and sociological investigations and regards acclamation as a ‘social institution’ following Mauss. Acclamation is a practice that forms publics, whether as the direct presence of the ‘people’, mass-mediated ‘public opinion’, or a ‘public mood’ decipherable through countless social media postings. The article surveys issues of differential geographies of access, weighting of posts, value creation, orality and gesture, algorithmic governmentality, and Big Data and knowledge production. It argues that social media constitute a public from a mass of individualized, private postings. It concludes that they make possible forms of political calculability and action, yet are continuous with ritual and liturgical elements of political life. This study contributes to an analytics of publicity.
Keywords
acclamation, algorithms, Big Data, political theology, public, social media, democracy
theory by more recent political-theoretical, historical and sociological investigations and regards acclamation as a ‘social institution’ following Mauss. Acclamation is a practice that forms publics, whether as the direct presence of the ‘people’, mass-mediated ‘public opinion’, or a ‘public mood’ decipherable through countless social media postings. The article surveys issues of differential geographies of access, weighting of posts, value creation, orality and gesture, algorithmic governmentality, and Big Data and knowledge production. It argues that social media constitute a public from a mass of individualized, private postings. It concludes that they make possible forms of political calculability and action, yet are continuous with ritual and liturgical elements of political life. This study contributes to an analytics of publicity.
Keywords
acclamation, algorithms, Big Data, political theology, public, social media, democracy
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This paper responds to and comments on many of the themes of the book under consideration concerning Foucault and neoliberalism. In doing so, it offers reflections on the relation between the habitus of the intellectual and the political... more
This paper responds to and comments on many of the themes of the book under consideration concerning Foucault and neoliberalism. In doing so, it offers reflections on the relation between the habitus of the intellectual and the political contexts of action and engagement in the case of Foucault, and the strengths and weaknesses of his characterization of his work in terms of an “experimental” ethos. It argues that it is possible to identify his distinctive views on neoliberalism as a programmatic ideal, as a language of critique of the postwar welfare state, and as an element within actual political forces such as the French “Second Left” of the 1970s. It examines the legacy of Foucault in “governmentality studies” and argues for attentiveness to the different intellectual positions, and their potentially divergent political consequences, within this school of thought. It concludes by suggesting that the discussion currently taking place, and in part inaugurated by this book, might signal a change of his status in the humanities and social sciences today from “unsurpassable horizon” of critical thought to acknowledged classical thinker, with strengths and limitations, and a series of problems that might not be our own.
Keywords: Foucault, neoliberalism, Marxism, governmentality, politics, critique, ethos, habitus
Keywords: Foucault, neoliberalism, Marxism, governmentality, politics, critique, ethos, habitus
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""This paper explores what it calls the Malthus Effect from two perspectives: a genealogical one and an empirical diagnostic one. The first entails its implications for Michel Foucault’s genealogy and conception of liberal government.... more
""This paper explores what it calls the Malthus Effect from two perspectives: a genealogical one and an empirical diagnostic one. The first entails its implications for Michel Foucault’s genealogy and conception of liberal government. The second suggests that these Malthusian concerns have been an enduring presence in recent and contemporary politics. In them, we find a government of life that tethers the question of poverty and the poor to that population, as both a national and international concern, links biopolitics to questions of national and international security, and is a key source of the modern environmental movement. It continues today in areas such as welfare reform and immigration policy, notions of sustainability, and in the global public health and environmental movements. It takes the form of a genopolitics, a politics of the reproductive capacity of human populations and the human species.
Keywords: Population, environment, biopolitics, genopolitics, sustainability.
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Keywords: Population, environment, biopolitics, genopolitics, sustainability.
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This lecture evaluates the claim made by one of his closest followers, François Ewald, that Foucault offered an apology for neoliberalism, particularly of the American school represented by Gary Becker. It draws on exchanges between Ewald... more
This lecture evaluates the claim made by one of his closest followers, François Ewald, that Foucault offered an apology for neoliberalism, particularly of the American school represented by Gary Becker. It draws on exchanges between Ewald and Becker in 2012 and 2013 at the University of Chicago shortly before the latter’s death. It places Foucault in relation to the then emergent Second Left in France, the critique of the welfare state, and, more broadly, the late-twentieth-century social-democratic take-up of neoliberal thought. It indicates three limitations of his thought: the problem of state ‘veridiction’; the question of inequality; and the concept of the economy. It also indicates how these might be addressed within a general appreciation of his thought.
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"There are many key questions concerning the current status of the notion of neoliberalism. What is it? Is it an appropriate concept to describe a political and intellectual movement or form of state? What are its prospects as a... more
"There are many key questions concerning the current status of the notion of neoliberalism. What is it? Is it an appropriate concept to describe a political and intellectual movement or form
of state? What are its prospects as a framework of public policy after the global financial crisis? The article proposes a way of answering these questions by regarding neoliberalism as a definite ‘thought collective’ and a regime of government of and by the state. It exemplifies these by shifts within neoliberalism regarding the question of monopoly, its relationship to classical liberalism and its approach to crisis management. In regard to the latter, it further proposes an emergent rationality of the government of and by the state concerning the fostering of resilience in the anticipation of catastrophe."
of state? What are its prospects as a framework of public policy after the global financial crisis? The article proposes a way of answering these questions by regarding neoliberalism as a definite ‘thought collective’ and a regime of government of and by the state. It exemplifies these by shifts within neoliberalism regarding the question of monopoly, its relationship to classical liberalism and its approach to crisis management. In regard to the latter, it further proposes an emergent rationality of the government of and by the state concerning the fostering of resilience in the anticipation of catastrophe."
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This review essay has been uploaded under its title, 'Governmentality meets theology, etc'. However I upload it now also as a review in case it has escaped anyone's notice as such.
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This paper contains: Foucault and Agamben's question about glory; Glory, acclamation and the public; Inoperativity; Note on Finance; Concluding thoughts and domains of study.
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This chapter contains: Introduction to Agamben and Foucault; Economic and Political Theology; Oikonomia; Order; Providence; Three theses on The King Reigns But Does Not Govern; Three reservations.
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This paper starts with two approaches to risk: the sociological approach of Ulrich Beck and the 'governmentality' account based on Michel Foucault's theses. Beck's approach is characterized as totalizing, realist, and relying on a uniform... more
This paper starts with two approaches to risk: the sociological approach of Ulrich Beck and the 'governmentality' account based on Michel Foucault's theses. Beck's approach is characterized as totalizing, realist, and relying on a uniform conception of risk. Moreover, his narrative of the emergence of risk society founders on the untenable binary, calculable/incalculable. Using François Ewald on social insurance, the paper argues that risk is better approached as a form of calculative rationality, a way of rendering the incalculable calculable. The governmental account allows us to analyse specific forms of risk rationality and technology, the types of agency and identity involved in practices of risk, and the political and social imaginaries to which these practices are linked. The governmental account, however, encounters difficulties in grasping the more general transformations of contemporary regimes of government. In this respect, Beck's notion of reflexivity is extremely useful. The paper then delineates various types of risk rationality (insurance, epidemiological, clinical, and case-management risk, and comprehensive risk management) and places them in an analytic of contemporary government. It concludes that one of the conditions of these new forms of government is the 'governmentalisation of government'. Rather than 'the death of the social', it is better to understand this analytic as charting a transformation of the liberal problematic of security and the emergence of 'reflexive government'.
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... and the governmentalization of the state 122 6 Liberalism 133 Economy 134 Security 137 Law and norm ... In this respect, then, the concern in this book for 'authoritarian... more
... and the governmentalization of the state 122 6 Liberalism 133 Economy 134 Security 137 Law and norm ... In this respect, then, the concern in this book for 'authoritarian governmentality', andthe admission that the concept not only applies to non-liberal forms of rule but also ...
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These are the contents of my book with Daniel Zamora.
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La dernière décennie de Michel Foucault a coïncidé avec l'agonie des espoirs de transformation sociale qui avaient marqué l'après-guerre. Face à cette « fin de la révolution », le philosophe a tenté de réinventer la manière dont nous... more
La dernière décennie de Michel Foucault a coïncidé avec l'agonie des espoirs de transformation sociale qui avaient marqué l'après-guerre. Face à cette « fin de la révolution », le philosophe a tenté de réinventer la manière dont nous pensons la politique et la résistance, ce que sa génération n'avait, jugeait-il, pas réussi à faire. C'est dans cette perspective qu'il s'est intéressé au néolibéralisme en tant qu'outil permettant de repenser les fondements conceptuels de la gauche et d'imaginer une gouvernementalité plus tolérante aux expérimentations sociales, ouvrant un espace aux pratiques minoritaires et à une plus grande autonomie du sujet vis-à-vis de lui-même. Le moyen, en somme, de réaliser le projet énoncé à la fin de sa vie, celui de n'être « pas tellement gouverné ». Et c'est ainsi que, dans sa quête d'une « gouvernementalité de gauche », Foucault a anticipé et contribué, en quelque sorte, au façonnement de la situation politique contemporaine. Mitchell Dean est professeur de sociologie historique et politique et théoricien des sciences sociales. Il enseigne la gouvernance publique à la Copenhagen Business School. Daniel Zamora est sociologue à l'Université libre de Bruxelles. Il a récemment publié Contre l'allocation universelle (Lux, 2016).
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The url here is a link to Stanford University Press page, with cover, endorsements, contents and Introduction of this book published January 6, 2016.
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Please bring this PhD course in Copenhagen to the attention of any interested applicants. Further information available here:
http://www.cbs.dk/en/research/phd-programmes/phd-courses-0
http://www.cbs.dk/en/research/phd-programmes/phd-courses-0
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At the beginning and end of Foucault’s decade-long excursus on power, he refers to the Greek image of the "sumbolon" in which two halves must be joined to become “a unique object whose overall configuration is the manifest form of power”.... more
At the beginning and end of Foucault’s decade-long excursus on power, he refers to the Greek image of the "sumbolon" in which two halves must be joined to become “a unique object whose overall configuration is the manifest form of power”. In his investigations into power, he divides and joins the halves of: sovereignty & biopolitics, the religious& the political, the theological and the secular, the juridical-political & war and battle, reign & government, games of freedom & states of domination, violence & consent, totalization & individualization, political technologies & techniques of the self. We can add here: the domestic and the international. While ‘domestic’ social sciences, such as sociology, are liable to find Foucault deficient in privileging the economic-governmental axis over the more ‘structural’ one of sovereignty and the state, the critical study of international relations welcomes his governmental-constructivist search for an analysis of power beyond the state and sovereignty. This paper argues for a putting together of different pieces of Foucault's thought to suggest an approach to contemporary power relations as a field of oscillation and vibration between the juridical-institutional form of sovereignty and the economic-managerial one of governmentality. Another name for the 'sumbolon* is what I elsewhere call 'the signature of power'.
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This talk is a contribution to a workshop on new Authoritarian Capitalisms which explores my work on authoritarian liberalism and signatures of power in relation to themes of liberalism, democracy, neoliberalism and the supposed... more
This talk is a contribution to a workshop on new Authoritarian Capitalisms which explores my work on authoritarian liberalism and signatures of power in relation to themes of liberalism, democracy, neoliberalism and the supposed opposition between liberalism and authoritarianism.
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THE RECENT PUBLICATION of the long-awaited fourth volume of his History of Sexuality, Les Aveux de la chair, raises questions as to why and how Foucault chose to reinvent his magnum opus as an investigation of ancient “techniques of the... more
THE RECENT PUBLICATION of the long-awaited fourth volume of his History of Sexuality, Les Aveux de la chair, raises questions as to why and how Foucault chose to reinvent his magnum opus as an investigation of ancient “techniques of the self” and their incorporation in early Christianity. In some ways, this shift parallels his reformulation of power relations in terms of governmentality, which was triggered by his encounter with neoliberalism during the same period.