Suchergebnisse

Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags und seiner Analyse steht Jürgen Habermas in seiner Rolle als Intellektueller. Der erste Abschnitt des Beitrags ist der Rekonstruktion der Konzeption bzw. dem Habermas'schen Selbstverständnis als Intellektueller gewidmet, das insofern besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdient, als es, so zumindest die These des Autors, integraler Bestandteil seiner eigenen Gesellschaftstheorie ist. Anschließend wird diese These des Autors dahingehend erläutert und spezifiziert, als gezeigt wird, wie sich das Habermas'sche Selbstverständnis zwischen den späten 1960er und den frühen 1980er Jahren wandelt. Am Ende dieser Entwicklung steht eine Unterscheidung zwischen den Rollen des Wissenschaftlers und des Intellektuellen, die in gewisser Weise der Logik der Diskurstheorie geschuldet ist. Zum Ende des Beitrags wird die vorgestellte Konzeption problematisiert, wobei der Autor in erster Linie immanent vorgeht. (ICA2)

When the financial crisis came to a head in September 2008 there were a number of commentators suggesting that this might spell the end of neoliberalism. Both Jurgen Habermas and Joseph Stiglitz, to name only the most prominent voices, expressed the hope that the spectacular meltdown of investment banks and other financial institutions would finally discredit the notion of self-regulating and efficient (financial) markets, and thus what they took to be the neoliberal formula par excellence (Habermas, 2008; Stiglitz, 2008). Yet, several crises later the future of neoliberalism remains unclear. Some depict it as a teetering zombie bereft of any real life but still capable of spreading the ills its detractors hold it responsible for, simply because there is no alternative socio-economic vision of society that could claim to be a viable competitor (Peck, 2010). Along similar lines and expressing a widely shared bewilderment, Colin Crouch has referred to the 'strange non-death of neoliberalism' (Crouch, 2011). Others have introduced the vague notion of 'postneoliberalism' to denote a caesura at the end of a neoliberal era in the wake of the financial crisis (Peck et al., 2010). The neo-Keynesian intermezzos of economic stimulus packages passed in the United States and Europe notwithstanding there is in fact very little evidence that would signal a wholesale departure from neoliberal politics broadly understood (Peck et al., 2012). So what does the future hold for neoliberalism in Europe? Could it really be the case that the string of crises viewed by many as crises of neoliberalism (Dumenil and Levy, 2011) have left it still miraculously unscathed? Adapted from the source document.

Im Mittelpunkt des vorliegenden Working Papers steht eine Gegenüberstellung der durch Michel Foucault sowie die an ihn anschließenden Governmentality Studies geprägten Gouvernementalitätsperspektive auf den Staat mit den etablierten Herangehensweisen in der Staatstheorie. Zu diesem Zweck werden in einem ersten Schritt die werkimmanenten theoretischen Verschiebungen rekonstruiert, die den Staat seit Ende der 1970er Jahre erstmals explizit zum Gegenstand von Foucaults Denkens werden lassen und die sich mit der Formel 'Von Disziplin zu Regierung' zusammenfassen lassen. In einem zweiten Schritt wird die Entstehung der Forschungstradition der Governmentality Studies nachgezeichnet um zu klären, warum sich hier erst in jüngster Zeit eine Debatte um die genuin staatstheoretischen Aspekte der Gouvernementalitätsperspektive abzeichnet. Das theoretisch-analytische Begriffsinstrumentarium dieser Perspektive auf den Staat bildet dann den Gegenstand des folgenden Abschnitts. Im daran anschließenden zentralen Kapitel werden nun die verschiedenen Aspekte der Foucaultschen Perspektive unter anderem mit neo-marxistischen und neo-institutionalistischen Theorien des Staates konfrontiert, um herauszuarbeiten, inwieweit Foucaults Staatsanalytik originelle Elemente und Überlegungen enthält, die nicht schon in einer anderen Tradition zu finden sind. Diese Gegenüberstellung verfolgt jedoch keine polemischen Ziele, sondern ist vielmehr daran interessiert, eine Debatte zwischen den Governmentality Studies und den etablierten Herangehensweisen in der Staatstheorie zu initiieren, der bis jetzt von beiden Seiten und letztlich auch zu beiderseitigem Nachteil aus dem Weg gegangen wurde. Die Studie endet mit der Einschätzung, dass die Gouvernementalitätsperspektive noch weiterer argumentativer Unterfütterung zur Stützung ihres Anspruchs auf eine eigenständige und innovative Herangehensweise an die staatstheoretische Problematik bedarf. ; The argumenative core of this Working Paper is a juxtaposition of the governmentality perspective as it is developed by Michel Foucault and the Governmentality Studies on the one hand and the more established frameworks of state theory on the other. The paper begins with an examination of the various shifts (from discipline to government) in Foucault's work that enable him to make the state an explicit focus of his work for the first time at the end of the 1970. The second step investigates the emergence of the so-called Governmentality Studies in order to find out why it is only very recently that the genuinely state-theoretical content of the governmentality lectures has become the subject of debate. The following section offers an outline of the basic premises and the conceptual vocabulary of the governmentality perspective on the state. Based on these preparatory steps, the core section of the paper then compares the various aspects of the governmentality perspective to alternative approaches from Neo-Institutionalism to Neo-Marxism, in order to identify what might be unique and original about the governmentality perspective. The juxtaposition has no polemical purposes; rather the aim of this comparative examination is to initiate a debate between Foucaultians and proponents of other more established state-theoretical frameworks about strengths and limits of the respective approaches. Both sides have foregone this opportunity so far - to the detriment of both. The study concludes that its many merits notwithstanding, the governmentality perspective still is in need of further elaboration in order to redeem its claim to an original and innovative view on the state-theoretical problematic.

The concept of responsibilization that originally emerged out of the context of the so-called Governmentality Studies is now widely used in various social sciences to describe a governing technology particularly attuned to the challenge of neoliberalism, i.e. how to govern free individuals. However, in seemingly paradoxical simultaneity with the hegemeony of neoliberalism that relies heavily on individual choice, freedom and responsibility, two powerful scientific discourses exist that appear to undermine these assumptions vehemently, namely genetics and neuroscience. Starting from a discussion of the strengths and limits of the notion of responsibilization, the article argues for the need to introduce the complementary concept of irresponsibilization that can be interpreted as a form of what Foucault in his lectures on the History of Governmentality refers to as 'counter-conduct' – in this case, against the neoliberal governing technology of responsibilization. The article proceeds to explore to what extent genetics and neuroscience can be considered discourses fuelling forms of genetic and/or neuro-irresponsibilization, which would make sense of the seemingly paradoxical co-hegemony of neoliberalism, on the one hand, and genetics and neuro-science, on the other. However, the article ultimately argues that, upon closer inspection of the findings in these disciplines and how they are used, it turns out that constituting oneself as a 'somatic individual' as a form of counter-conduct comes at a considerable cost, notably new forms of genetic and/or neuro-responsibility. Thus, the article closes with the twofold conclusion that wherever there is responsibilization, there is also irresponsibilization and that genetic and neuro-irresponsibilization are risky strategies of counter-conduct that might bring in responsibilization on a different level through the back door again.

The task of this paper is to offer an analysis of the Faith‐Based and Community Initiative (FBCI) established by George W. Bush and continued under the Obama administration based on a critical and decentred approach to governance (networks). The paper starts out by placing FBCI in the context of the welfare reform of 1996 arguing that both share certain basic assumptions, for example, regarding the nature of poverty, and that FBCI can be interpreted as a response to the relative failure of some aspects of the reform of 1996. In what follows, FBCI is analysed as a typical case of (welfare) state restructuring from government to governance. Emphasis is given to the way discourses and traditions such as communitarianism and public choice have shaped the formation of this new governance arrangement in the field of social service delivery in order to strive for a 'decentring' of FBCI by drawing attention to actors' beliefs and worldviews. Finally, I argue that it is not least because of a divergence of such views between policy‐makers and faith‐based organizations that the effect of FBCI remains for the time being limited.

This article examines the biopolitical dimension in ordoliberal thought using Wilhelm Röpke and Alexander Rüstow as exemplary figures of this tradition. Based on an explication of various biopolitical themes that can be extracted from Foucault's writings and lectures the article argues that these biopolitical themes, although rarely touched on in Foucault's lectures on ordoliberal governmentality, nevertheless constitute an integral aspect of the thought of Röpke and Rüstow. From the regulation of the population through the strategic lever of the family to the organicist concerns over the health of the social body, biopolitical themes pervade the socio-economic theories of ordoliberalism. The article suggests that critical evaluations of the ordoliberal approach to political economy, which has been gaining ground again in the aftermath of the financial crisis, should take into account the biopolitical–and rather illiberal–dimension of this approach as well.