Michel Foucault has been presented as a unequivocal defender of civil society. He was particularly sensitive to diversity and marginality, aligned with local activism and bottom-up politics. This article re-assesses this view by demonstrating that despite his political militancy, Foucault never viewed civil society as an inherently progressive force. It traces Foucault’s struggle against his own enthusiasm for anti-institutional and anti-rationalist political movements. Inventing the notion of ‘transactional reality’, Foucault escaped the choice between naturalism and ideology critique, presenting civil society (...) as a ‘reality that does not exist’ but still has real effects. This new reality holds contradictory potentials. When articulated by political eschatology, civil society supports prophecies of the end of politics in a final accord where contradictions dissolve and the community absorbs the state. Neoliberal notions of civil society promise, on Foucault’s account, a more open-ended milieu of subject formation. (shrink)

Governmentality draws on Foucault's work along with wider analytical frameworks to reclaim centre stage for this sociological concept. The author argues for a new understanding of how the individual is related to the state and vice versa.

Powers of Freedom, first published in 1999, offers a compelling approach to the analysis of political power which extends Foucault's hypotheses on governmentality in challenging ways. Nikolas Rose sets out the key characteristics of this approach to political power and analyses the government of conduct. He analyses the role of expertise, the politics of numbers, technologies of economic management and the political uses of space. He illuminates the relation of this approach to contemporary theories of 'risk society' and 'the sociology (...) of governance'. He argues that freedom is not the opposite of government but one of its key inventions and most significant resources. He also seeks some rapprochement between analyses of government and the concerns of critical sociology, cultural studies and Marxism, to establish a basis for the critique of power and its exercise. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in political theory, sociology, social policy and cultural studies. (shrink)

Based on Michel Foucault's 1978 and 1979 lectures at the Collège de France on governmental rationalities and his 1977 interview regarding his work on imprisonment, this volume is the long-awaited sequel to Power/Knowledge.

This paper draws from Foucault’s analysis of liberalism and neoliberalism to reconstruct the mechanisms and the means whereby neoliberalism has transformed society into an ‘enterprise society’ based on the market, competition, inequality, and the privilege of the individual. It highlights the role of financialization, neglected by Foucault, as a key apparatus in achieving this transformation. It elaborates the strategies of individualization, insecuritization and depoliticization used as part of neoliberal social policy to undermine the principles and practices of mutualization and redistribution (...) that the Welfare State and Fordism had promoted. It shows that the aim of neoliberal politics is the restoration of the power of capital to determine the distribution of wealth and to establish the enterprise as dominant form; this requires that it target society as a whole for a fundamental reconstruction, putting in place new mechanisms to control individual conduct. The analysis refers to the case of workers in the culture industry to illustrate the operation of these mechanisms in practice. It also outlines the main elements of the analytical apparatus that makes visible the new role of the state as an ensemble of apparatuses constituting the conditions for neoliberal market capitalism and the new type of individual appropriate for it. The paper thus adds a new dimension to Foucault’s analysis. (shrink)

Within recent scholarship, a long-standing tendency to view Foucault as pessimistic about the possibilities of activism is now being reversed. For many contemporary commentators who emphasize the themes of personal agency, transgression and radical freedom in their assessment of his thought, Foucault offers new possibilities for political practice and for the pursuit of self-determination. However, an examination of Foucault’s work, particularly in the transitional period preceding his so-called ‘ethical’ writings, indicates his appreciation of basic human needs and functions that complicates (...) the current understanding of Foucault as a philosopher of freedom. Particularly in his discussions of the ideas of ‘desubjectivation’ and ‘limit-experience’, Foucault’s work recognizes that prior conditions of psychological, economic and social ‘well-being’ are prerequisites for any subsequent performance of freedom. Examining this dimension of Foucault’s work reveals interesting points of convergence between his thought and the capabilities approach advocated by philosophers such as Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. Like them, Foucault’s work recognizes that there are some minimal levels of human functioning below which talk of self-determination is misplaced. As such, political philosophy needs to be concerned with the grounds of personal and political obligation, no less than the limits and possibilities of freedom. (shrink)

In his 1979 lectures, Foucault took particular interest in the reconfiguration of quotidian practices under neo-liberal human capital theory, re-describing all persons as entrepreneurs of the self. By the early 1980s, Foucault had begun to articulate a theory of ethical conduct driven not by the logic of investment, but of artistic development and self-care. This article uses Foucault’s account of human capital as a basis to explore the meaning and limits of Foucault’s final published works and argues for two interrelated (...) genealogical projects focused on the ethics of economic activity. (shrink)

Many contemporary uses of Foucauldian modes of analysis to ‘critique power’ (as it is often put) today lead to a rather sterile form of political engagement, in which denunciation (the politics of the ‘anti’) takes the place of positive political programs, and the strategies of government that such positive programs necessarily entail. Attention to some of Foucault’s own remarks about politics hints at a different political sensibility, in which empirical experimentation rather than moralistic denunciation takes center place. This article identifies (...) some examples of such experimentation that come out of recent research on the politics of social assistance in southern Africa, and draws conclusions regarding the prospects for developing a ‘left art of government’. (shrink)

Marking a major development in Foucault's thinking, this book derives from the lecture course which he gave at the College de France between January and April, 1978. Taking as his starting point the notion of "bio-power," introduced both in his 1976 course Society Must be Defended and in the first volume of his History of Sexuality, Foucault sets out to study the emergence of this new technology of power over population."--BOOK JACKET.

Currently, the neurosciences challenge the concept of will to be scientifically untenable, specifying that it is our brain rather than our "self" that decides what we want to do. At the same time, we seem to be confronted with increasing possibilities and necessities of free choice in all areas of social life. Based on up-to-date (empirical) research in the social sciences and philosophy, the authors convened in this book address this seeming contradiction: By differentiating the physical, the psychic, and the (...) social realm, the neuroscientific findings can be acknowledged within a comprehensive framework of selves in neoliberal societies. (shrink)

Marking a major development in Foucault's thinking, this book derives from the lecture course which he gave at the College de France between January and April, 1978. Taking as his starting point the notion of "bio-power," introduced both in his 1976 course Society Must be Defended and in the first volume of his History of Sexuality, Foucault sets out to study the emergence of this new technology of power over population."--BOOK JACKET.

Politics, Philosophy, Culture contains a rich selection of interviews and other writings by the late Michel Foucault. Drawing upon his revolutionary concept of power as well as his critique of the institutions that organize social life, Foucault discusses literature, music, and the power of art while also examining concrete issues such as the Left in contemporary France, the social security system, the penal system, homosexuality, madness, and the Iranian Revolution.

Paul Rabinow brings together years of distinguished work in this authoritative volume that seeks to reinvigorate the human sciences. Specifically, he assembles a set of conceptual tools - "modern equipment"--To assess how intellectual work is currently conducted and how it might change.

This article examines Michel Foucault’s critical investigation of neoliberalism in the course published as Naissance de la biopolitique: Cours au Collège de France, 1978-1979. Foucault’s lectures are interrogated along two axes. First, examining the way in which neoliberalism can be viewed as a particular production of subjectivity, as a way in which individuals are constituted as subjects of “human capital.” Secondly, Foucault’s analyses is augmented and critically examined in light of other critical work on neoliberalism by Wendy Brown, David Harvey, (...) Christian Laval, Maurizo Lazzarato, and Antonio Negri. Of these various debates and discussions, the paper argues that the discussion of real subsumption in Marx and Negri is most important for understanding the specific politics of neoliberalism. Finally, the paper argues that neoliberalism entails a fundamental reexamination of the tools of critical thought, an examination of how freedom can constitute a form of subjection. (shrink)

Foucault is often thought to have a great deal to say about the history of madness and sexuality, but little in terms of a general analysis of government and the state.; This volume draws on Foucault's own research to challenge this view, demonstrating the central importance of his work for the study of contemporary politics.; It focuses on liberalism and neo- liberalism, questioning the conceptual opposition of freedom/constraint, state/market and public/private that inform liberal thought.

By assembling authors with a wide range of different disciplinary backgrounds, from philosophy, literature, political science, sociology to medical anthropology ...

Despite the enormous influence of Michel Foucault in gender studies, social theory, and cultural studies, his work has been relatively neglected in the study of politics. Although he never published a book on the state, in the late 1970s Foucault examined the technologies of power used to regulate society and the ingenious recasting of power and agency that he saw as both consequence and condition of their operation. These twelve essays provide a critical introduction to Foucault's work on politics, exploring (...) its relevance to past and current thinking about liberal and neo-liberal forms of government. Moving away from the great texts of liberal political philosophy, this book looks closely at the technical means with which the ideals of liberal political rationalities have been put into practice in such areas as schools, welfare, and the insurance industry. This fresh approach to one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century is essential reading for anyone interested in social and cultural theory, sociology, and politics. (shrink)

State and civil society -- Empire without state -- Politics of life -- Saint Foucault -- Blood-dried codes -- The state of immanence -- Virtual state-making -- When society prevails -- Political and economic theology -- Foucault's apologia of neoliberalism.

This 2010 text pursues Adam Smith's views on moral judgement, humanitarian care, commerce, justice and international law both in historical context and through a twenty-first-century cosmopolitan lens, making this a major contribution not only to Smith studies but also to the history of cosmopolitan thought and to contemporary cosmopolitan discourse itself. Forman-Barzilai breaks ground, demonstrating the spatial texture of Smith's moral psychology and the ways he believed that physical, affective and cultural distance constrain the identities, connections and ethical obligations of (...) modern commercial people. Forman-Barzilai emphasizes his resistance to the sort of relativism, moral insularity and cultural chauvinism that too often accompany localist critiques of cosmopolitan thought today. This is a fascinating, revisionist study that integrates the perspectives of intellectual history, moral philosophy, political theory, cultural theory, international relations theory and political economy, and will appeal across the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

_Democracy Past and Future_ is the first English-language collection of Pierre Rosanvallon's most important essays on the historical origins, contemporary difficulties, and future prospects of democratic life. One of Europe's leading political thinkers, Rosanvallon proposes in these essays new readings of the history, aims, and possibilities of democratic theory and practice, and provides unique theoretical understandings of key moments in democracy's trajectory, from the French Revolution and the struggles for universal suffrage to European unification and the crises of the present. (...) In so doing, he lays out an influential new theory of how to write the history of politics. Rosanvallon's historical and philosophical approach examines the "pathologies" that have curtailed democracy's potential and challenges the antitotalitarian liberalism that has dominated recent political thought. All in all, he adroitly combines historical and theoretical analysis with an insistence on the need for a new form of democracy. Above all, he asks what democracy means when the people rule but are nowhere to be found. Throughout his career, Rosanvallon has resisted simple categorization. Rosanvallon was originally known as a primary theorist of the "second left", which hoped to stake out a non-Marxist progressive alternative to the irresistible appeal of revolutionary politics. In fact, Rosanvallon revived the theory of "civil society" even before its usage by East European dissidents made it globally popular as a non-statist politics of freedom and pluralism. His ideas have been shaped by a variety of influences, ranging from his work with an influential French union to his teachers François Furet and Claude Lefort. Well known throughout Europe as a historian, political theorist, social critic, and public intellectual, Pierre Rosanvallon was recently elected to a professorship at the Collège de France, Paris, a position held at various times by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu. _Democracy Past and Future_ begins with Rosanvallon's groundbreaking and synthetic lecture that he delivered upon joining this institution. Throughout the volume, Rosanvallon illuminates and invigorates contemporary political and democratic thought. (shrink)

It is widely known that by the end of the 1970s, Foucault had begun to refer to ‘experience’ to account for his intellectual trajectory and to redirect the work on The History of Sexuality. However, the interest in experience also decisively shaped Foucault’s analysis of the ‘critical attitude’ that he explicitly started to address at about the same time. The article argues that Foucault’s notion of critique is informed by a specific reading and understanding of ‘experience’. Experience is conceived of (...) as dominant structure and transformative force, as existing background of practices and transcending event, as the object of theoretical inquiry and the objective of moving beyond historical limits. Foucault defines experience as a dynamic interplay between games of truth, forms of power and relations to the self. Accordingly, the Foucauldian account of critique is characterized by three aspects: the activity of problematization, the art of voluntary insubordination, and the audacity to expose one’s own status as a subject. While the first section of the article briefly reconstructs the trajectory of ‘experience’ in Foucault’s work from the 1960s to the 1980s, the main part discusses the dimensions and implications of this ‘experimental’ critique. (shrink)

The article expounds the ordo-liberal tradition that emerged as a distinct neo-liberal conceptualization of free economy as a political practice. According to this tradition there are things more important than GDP in as much as free economy depends on the formation of the moral and the social preconditions of market freedom. The social facilitation and moral embedding of free economy are fundamental to the ordo-liberal conception of a human economy, which entails a social policy of Vitalpolitik – a politics of (...) life. Particularly at a time of manifest economic crisis and austerity, the social and moral veracity of economic liberty depends thus on the exercise of strong state authority. (shrink)

The invocation of large-scale social unities - states, societies, empires, cultures, civilizations - is a long-established and pervasive practice among sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political scientists and so on. This article examines the treatment of such unities as defined or held together by shared understandings and values, and as independent, boundary-maintaining social systems. We argue that both the ideational and the systemic presumptions at work here are dependent on what Foucault calls the figure of man: the first as an inescapable consequence (...) of that figure, the second as a tempting, but by no means necessary, one. Our first major argument concerns the remarkable persistence of concepts, such as ‘culture’, which designate unities that are ideational in character. We use the case study of anthropology to suggest that this is a consequence of the constitutive role of the figure of man within the human sciences. Human scientists and others critical of the stress on sameness resulting from the concern with ideational unities - cultures, ideologies, discourses and so on - as shared across a population, will find it well-nigh impossible either to modify significantly or to jettison altogether such concepts; as long as they rely on some version of the figure of man, scholars are committed irrevocably to the use of these concepts. Our second major argument concerns the conception of society as a systemic unity, a conception which we see as reflecting the influence of the figure of man in the field of governmental reason. In this part of the article we follow Foucault’s argument that the liberal rationality of government leads to a view of social life as traversed by numerous self-regulating spheres of social interaction. However, we dispute his further suggestion that the concept of society itself, as designating a self-regulating sphere of this kind, can be seen as a product of the liberal critique of police. (shrink)

The shift in Foucault’s work from genealogy to ethics finds consensus among Foucault scholars. However, the motivations behind this transition remain either misunderstood or understudied in large part. Foucault’s recently published or soon-to-be translated 1977/—9 lectures (published as Security, Territory, Population and as The Birth of Biopolitics) offer new elements for understanding this dense and uncharted period along Foucault’s itinerary. In this article, the author argues that Foucault’s interpretation of the liberal tradition, which is at the core of the 1977—9 (...) lectures, must be examined in combination with Foucault’s other major interests in the late 1970s, namely the Iranian Revolution and Kant. The discovery of spirituality (Iran), the valorization of an autonomous subject (Kant) and the call for a tolerant environment towards minority practices (liberalism) pave the way for the later Foucault’s ethics, which are grounded in spiritual exercises and means of liberating the subject. (shrink)

Michel Foucault (1926–84) invented a new practice of philosophy. His books trace the emergence of some of the concepts, institutions, and techniques of government which delineate the peculiar shape of modern European culture. They include a history of madness, an account of the birth of clinical medicine at the end of the eighteenth century, an archaeology of the modern sciences of language, life, and labor, a genealogy of the modern form of punishment, and fragments of a history of sexuality. These (...) are all historical studies by virtue of the kinds of claim advanced and the documentary evidence adduced to illustrate and support them, but they do not conform to established rules of historiographical method and often invent new objects of historical research. The title chosen by Foucault for the chair he occupied at the Collège de France provides a clue to the distinctive nature of his research: professor of the history of systems of thought. By “thought” he means firstly the forms of theoretical and conceptual reflection developed within philosophy and the human sciences. His early work deals with the history of psychopathology and clinical medicine in a manner which owes much to the approach of French philosopher‐historians of science such as Bachelard and Canguilhem. However, by “thought” Foucault also means the forms of rationality embedded in the everyday practice of administrators, doctors, priests, and private individuals, and expressed in technical manuals, projects for institutional reform, and the writings of moralists. His work on madness, criminal punishment, and sexuality exposes the historical singularity of forms of experience which involve thought in both of these senses. The history of systems of thought thus defines an approach to the workings of a culture rather than a specific level within a given culture. (shrink)

In contrast to those who trace civil society to “community” per se, Foucault is keen to locate this concept as it emerges at a particular moment in respect of specific exigencies of government. He suggests that civil society is a novel way of thinking about a problem, a particular problematization of government that emerges in the eighteenth century and which combines incommensurable conceptions of the subject as simultaneously a subject of right and of interests. This article takes up Foucault’s discussion (...) of the Scottish Enlightenment in The Birth of Biopolitics to trace the distinctiveness of his discussion of civil society, but also in order to suggest that we ought to pay closer attention to the tensions between commercial-civilizational and civic republican themes in the literature of the late eighteenth century than does Foucault. It is my tentative suggestion that Foucault’s account leaves out significant aspects of these debates that offer counter-valences to the dominant models of the subject available to contemporary political discourse. (shrink)