What is governmentality? Is it a useful concept?

Exposé Politique & international Sciences politiques

Date de publication :

05/05/2008

Langue :

Anglais

Format :

.doc

Nombre de pages :

4 pages

Niveau :

expert

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Sommaire :

Sommaire

The notion of governmentality : what it was constructed against, which tools it uses to accomplish itself, its texture and range
Usefulness of the concept - its supports and opponents, and its further developments

Résumé :

Although the concept of governmentality was elaborated in Foucault's last years, its philosophical premises are to be found in many of his first publications. From 1961 (Madness and Civilization) to 1984 (The History of Sexuality) , he explored various forms of powers, judges and constraints, in order to determine « in what way a specific mode of subjection was able to give birth to man as an object of knowledge for a discourse with a 'scientific' status »1. The case of the execution of Damiens (1757) perfectly illustrates this shift in objectives: what was important in the regicide was structured around questions like 'what happened and who did it'. Slowly, the attention of the judge turned to questions that referred to the nature itself of the defendant, what he came through in his life, his attitude The emergence of these questions had a paramount influence on criminal psychology, and on « the formation of a criminality that will become the object of penal intervention rather than the crime itself »2. Medical, scientific, penal, pedagogical, military, educational or psychiatric domains were progressively understood as areas of knowledge; and the institutions they gave birth to, prison in the case below, aimed at normalizing self-subjecting bodies, both inside and outside their walls.
Foucault's neologism gains clarity, and its commonly accepted definition appears more accessible: « The ensemble formed by the institutions procedures, analysis and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific, albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security »3. Through the analysis of four historical domains (Antiquity and early Christianity, early modern Europe, the 18th century and the beginning of liberalism, and the post-war forms of neo-liberal thought), Foucault notices that all of them are linked by one common focus of interest concerning the exercise of power: the omnes et singulatim principle (all and each). Western societies indeed tend to this form of political sovereignty, whose concerns are both to 'totalize' and to 'individualize'.
what we have to concentrate on is how Foucault relates all these « microphysics of power »4 in an intelligible grid, what sort of influence do they have on populations, where in history or philosophy do these influences draw their origins. We will first attempt to precise the notion of governmentality by highlighting what it was constructed against, which tools it uses to accomplish itself, its texture and range. Then, we will try to assess the usefulness of the concept by taking in consideration its supports and opponents, and the further developments of the concept.