Suchergebnisse

Today, the environment is everywhere. For less than ten years, it goes without saying that all individuals, the population and the State are obliged to minimize their impact on the environment, even if they would not be affected themselves by potential consequences. For almost every action, concern for its environmental impact is present. That obligation manifests itself in a myriad of ways that affect individual behavior - what Foucault identifies as power. This paper seeks to understand how, through which forms and technologies, we are subject to power in the name of climate protection in Germany. Or, if turned on its head, it analyses how the climate is governed in Germany. ; 3

International audience ; Research has shown that the knowledge worker, the decisive driver of the knowledge economy, works increasingly longer hours. In fact, it would appear that instead of working to live, they live to work. There appears to be three reasons for this living-to-work development. First, the knowledge worker 'has to' on account of the pressure to become ever more efficient. Such pressure translates into internalized coercion in the case of the self-responsible knowledge worker. Secondly, working is constant, because the Internet and smart technologies and mobile devices have made it 'possible'. It gives the worker the capacity and management omnipotent control. In the final instance, the neoliberal knowledge worker works all the time because s/he paradoxically 'wants to'. It is a curious phenomenon, because this compulsive working is concomitant with a rise of a host of physical, emotional, and psychological disorders as well as the erosion of social bonds. The paradox is exacerbated by the fact that the knowledge worker does not derive any of the usual utilities or satisfactions associated with hard work. Elsewhere I have ascribed this apparent contradiction at the heart of the living-to-work phenomenon to the invisible thumotic satisfaction generated by knowledge work. In the present article, I argue that neoliberal governmentality has found a way to tether thumos directly to the profit incentive. I draw on Foucault's 1978-1979 Collége de France lecture course in which he analysed neoliberal governmentality with specific emphasis on the work of the neoliberal theorist of human capital, Gary Becker.

Research has shown that the knowledge worker, the decisive driver of the knowledge economy, works increasingly longer hours. In fact, it would appear that instead of working to live, they live to work. There appears to be three reasons for this living-to-work development. First, the knowledge worker 'has to' on account of the pressure to become ever more efficient. Such pressure translates into internalized coercion in the case of the self-responsible knowledge worker. Secondly, working is constant, because the Internet and smart technologies and mobile devices have made it 'possible'. It gives the worker the capacity and management omnipotent control. In the final instance, the neoliberal knowledge worker works all the time because s/he paradoxically 'wants to'. It is a curious phenomenon, because this compulsive working is concomitant with a rise of a host of physical, emotional, and psychological disorders as well as the erosion of social bonds. The paradox is exacerbated by the fact that the knowledge worker does not derive any of the usual utilities or satisfactions associated with hard work. Elsewhere I have ascribed this apparent contradiction at the heart of the living-to-work phenomenon to the invisible thumotic satisfaction generated by knowledge work. In the present article, I argue that neoliberal governmentality has found a way to tether thumos directly to the profit incentive. I draw on Foucault's 1978-1979 Collége de France lecture course in which he analysed neoliberal governmentality with specific emphasis on the work of the neoliberal theorist of human capital, Gary Becker.

This article discusses the arts of governing Islam in Indonesia, a majority Muslim country, which is neither secular nor Islamic. It tries to explain how the premise of governmentality is modelled into the state structure and politics. Rather than seeing Islamophobia as a cultural practice, the article argues that Islamophobia develops partly because of power relations between the ruler and the ruled, or as I call it "regimented Islamophobia". It is the fear of "Islamic threats" – whether real or imagined – that is deemed as a potent challenge to regimes' power and authority. While the notion of majority-minority relation remains essential to analyse the forms of Islamophobia, this article offers a new insight of how political regimes exercise "governmentality practices" or the arts of governing Islam and controlling Muslim aspirations. This practice of governmentality is a key strategy to pacify Islam during the colonial and post-colonial Indonesia. As far as Indonesian political history is concerned, this governmentality practice is old wine in a new bottle; it is the technique Dutch colonial government and the regimes following the Indonesian independence have exercised for subjugating Islam and controlling aspirations of its believers.

By positing the idea that French Laïcité (loosely understood as 'state secularism') is not the product of the 1905 law but of the contemporary debate on Islam in France, this paper aims to show that Laïcité has been recently weaponised by both right-wing and left-wing parties to question the belonging of Islam to France. This will be done by relying on the Foucaudian notion of governmentality.

"This book reinvigorates the governmentality debate in International Relations (IR) by stressing the interconnectedness between governmentality and globality. It addresses a widening gap in the social sciences and humanities by reconciling Michel Foucault's concept of 'governmentality' with global politics. The volume assembles leading scholars who draw attention to the importance of approaching governmentality in IR from the perspective of globality and thereby highlights the need to consider governmentality and globality as fundamentally entangled. Accordingly, instead of any scaling-up of governmentality, the contributors argue that globality cannot be equated with the international level and should rather be considered as a genuine context of its own requiring distinct consideration. The book builds on the increasing importance and popularity of governmentality studies, not only by updating Foucault's concepts at a theoretical level, but also by introducing novel empirical problems and practices of global governmentality that have not hitherto been explored in IR"--

"This book reinvigorates the governmentality debate in International Relations (IR) by stressing the interconnectedness between governmentality and globality. It addresses a widening gap in the social sciences and humanities by reconciling Michel Foucault's concept of 'governmentality' with global politics. The volume assembles leading scholars who draw attention to the importance of approaching governmentality in IR from the perspective of globality and thereby highlights the need to consider governmentality and globality as fundamentally entangled. Accordingly, instead of any scaling-up of governmentality, the contributors argue that globality cannot be equated with the international level and should rather be considered as a genuine context of its own requiring distinct consideration. The book builds on the increasing importance and popularity of governmentality studies, not only by updating Foucault's concepts at a theoretical level, but also by introducing novel empirical problems and practices of global governmentality that have not hitherto been explored in IR"--

Abstract
This essay explores the use of the notions of grammar and governmentality in the work of Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky. The goal is to exhibit the contrast but also mutual influence of these thinkers. Chomsky places his own linguistic theory in what he calls a tradition of Cartesian linguistics. Foucault's presents an archaeology of general grammar in the French Classical Era. Chomsky and Foucault equally posit principles of governmentality. Both differ in terms of what they think the study of language brings to our understanding of ethical and political freedom. Governmental structure and grammatical structure, for Foucault, are always conventional, rather than essential – merely expressions of power dynamics. For Chomsky, the innate and natural human universality implied by underlying structures, in contrast, intimates a path to freedom from governmental coercion and oppression.

How do people living in a company town come to desire to work for the firm that controls it? Based on an in-depth case study of Volkswagen in Wolfsburg, Germany, we make two principal contributions. First, drawing on Foucault's concept of governmentality we investigate the mechanisms of power within which desired identities are shaped. Desired identities, we argue, are one means by which organizations exercise control over local populations. Second, we examine the multiple interlocking discourses by which Volkswagen sought to regulate the life of Wolfsburgers and to form their desired identities. In doing so, we contribute to identity research by demonstrating how biopower and discipline work in combination in neoliberal societies to make the governmentality of employee identity possible. Our research underlines the importance of studying company towns for understanding the relations of power that shape the lives and the identities of employees.

AbstractIn Western countries, the occupational discipline of nursing is undergoing processes of professionalization. Although professionalization offers an appealing perspective on occupational advancement, it is an ambiguous process, especially in the context of ongoing reforms of advanced liberal states. More specifically, there is a confusing relationship between the professionalization of nursing and the state. This relation is underexamined in theories of nursing professionalization. Instead of seeing the state and professions as two distinct spheres, this article highlights their interconnectedness. It argues that nursing professionalization can be understood as a strategy of advanced liberal governmentality. Through an empirical analysis of the professionalization of Dutch nursing from a Foucauldian perspective, it shows how the appeal to 'professionalism' functions as a disciplinary mechanism that produces forms of advanced liberal '(bio)power'. This generates academic and practical questions, since nurses—the largest group of healthcare professionals—have distinctive relations with their patients, who regard them as 'independent' and 'caring experts'. Furthermore, it sheds light on the academic debate about the reconfiguration of professionalism by showing how certain 'professional' reconfigurations are not only unavoidable but unavoidably (bio)political as well.

AbstractThis article examines the political rationality and governance practices that emerged in the course of the international politics of decolonization. It focuses primarily on the UN trusteeship system, within which the former League of Nations mandates were continued by the trusteeship powers. In this process, the trustees' policies were placed under international scrutiny. The article ties in with International Political Sociology's increased interest in historical perspectives. In particular, it asks how the political rationality of the trusteeship system differs from colonial governmentality. Two arguments are put forward: first, international governing, as can be seen from the trusteeship system, is characterized by a postcolonial governmentality that continues central elements of colonial governmentality, but transfers them to the international level. Second, following Latour, it is argued that trusteeship governance is constituted by forms of knowledge production and the bureaucratic circulation of information that continue to shape the governance of international organizations today. To this end, the article takes up in particular the reporting system of the trusteeship system as well as its central instruments of knowledge production: the visiting missions, the petition system, and the collection of data through questionnaires.

This essay seeks to elucidate if and to what extent Foucault's analyses of governmentality and neoliberalism as a form of governmentality in his 1978-1979 Collège de France lecture series can justifiably be used to come to a critical understanding of present-day neoliberalism(s). This has been a hotly debated issue among Foucault scholars based on what they consider to be ambiguities related to the normative status as well as the methodology of these lectures. In an attempt to contribute to this debate and to settle some of these concerns, I start by explicating how neoliberalism has variously been interpreted and specify what I understand "neoliberalism" to mean. Foucault's notion of "governmentality" and his analyses of the mid-20th C versions of German and American neoliberal governmentalities presented in these lectures are contextualized in terms of his general thinking in the late 70s and early 80s specifically his insistence on the critical attitude as virtue and his methodological specifications of philosophical-historical research. I contend that although Foucault's neoliberal governmentality lectures might be valueneutral, methodologically they remain a strategics of power/knowledge configurations imbued with the "critical attitude" that asserts the right not to be governed like that. It is therefore both justifiable and instructive to critically engage contemporary neoliberalisms through the lens of governmentality.

One of the mysteries in contemporary world politics is why in recent years Australia has been leading the world in its hawkish approach to China, its largest trading partner. More than most of its allies, the Australian government seems to regard the China emergency — fuelled by threat perceptions ranging from foreign influence operations to economic coercion — as more pressing than, say, climate change. This article extends and supplants existing explanations of this puzzle by providing a more theoretically oriented account. Situating Australia's China emergency in the context of its ontological (in)security, this article traces the rise of such insecurities and Australia's responses through the conceptual frameworks of state transformation and neoliberal governmentality, which together offer a more socially and historically grounded account of the dynamics of ontological (in)security. The article argues that the China emergency narrative, as a specific routinised form of neoliberal governmentality, both helps sustain Australia's dominant identity construction as a free, democratic, and resilient state, and provides a raison d'être for the national security state that has become part and parcel of the evolving techniques of neoliberal governmentality.