Government in Foucault

Abstract

The forms and specific situations of the government of men by one another in a given society are multiple; they are superimposed, they cross, impose their own limits, sometimes cancel one another out, sometimes reinforce one another. (Foucault [SP, 224])According to a commonplace in the critical discussion of Foucault's later work, he is supposed to have decided to take up Nietzsche's interpretation of power as Wille zur Macht, ‘will to power.’ For instance, Habermas believes he has criticized Foucault when he says, ‘Nietzsche’s authority, from which this [Foucault’s] utterly unsociological concept of power is borrowed, is not enough to justify its systematic usage.’ Charles Taylor finds in Nietzsche ‘a doctrine which Foucault seems to have made his own,’ viz., that ‘there is no order of human life, or way we are, or human nature, that one can appeal to in order to judge or evaluate between ways of life.

Occupational terminology

“…In essence, power produces effects through producing truths for people that shape the ways they come to understand and interpret reality, including themselves, with some authorities and agents having more power to influence how discourses are shaped and what discourses come to be most pervasive. In turn, these truths influence how people come to understand how they should think about and conduct themselves (Allen, 1991;Miller & Rose, 1995). Merging this with an occupational perspective, government can be conceptualized as including modes of action designed to act upon possibilities for occupation.…”

“…Via promoting and idealizing particular ways of understanding and acting upon one' s body, thought, conduct and soul, referred to as 'practices of the self', such technologies shape subjects who are to govern themselves in ways consistent with the guiding ideals and objectivities of social authorities. In outlining and supporting particular subjectivities as normal, natural, ideal and ethical such technologies aim to limit possibilities for being or subjectivity, via promoting particular ways of thinking about the self and the self in relation to others (Allen, 1991;Dean, 1995).…”

The 1771 and 1824 reforms of the University of Ferrara: A Foucauldian analysis of papal interests

“…With regard to the specific nature of power, Foucault uses the term “conduct”, which means both “lead others” and “a way of behaving” (that is, a problem of self-control (Lemke, 2002)). Foucault argues that “the exercise of power consists in guiding the possibility of conduct and putting in order the outcome” (Foucault, 1982: 789) and he links this to the concept of government (“conduct of conduct”, see also Allen, 1991; McKinlay and Pezet, 2010). Lemke (2002: 50) suggests that the problems of government (and, more broadly, “governmentality”) are the “missing link” between Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1975a, 1979) and his studies on the “genealogy of the modern State” (see also Tilly, 1975; Poggi, 1978).…”

Guest Editor's Introduction: Early Engagements Implicating Governmentality in the North Pacific Region—divergent Visions and Agentive Initiatives

“…However, Foucault's actual framing of these practices was the notion of "governing of mentalities," which subsequently, and perhaps slightly misleadingly, became governmentality (Lemke 2001: 3). Foucault used the notion of governance in the sense of guidance and control, not governmental authority and practice (Allen 1991, Foucault 1991. The concept was first offered by bim in unpubhsbed lectures in 1978 and 1979 during wbicb be provided an account of tbe "genealogy of the modern state" (Lemke 2004: 48).…”