Governmentality

Governmentality ||  || Michel Foucault ||  || Kate ||  || Starting in the 16th century, a new type of political writing emerges that concerns itself with the “art of governance.” This body of writing distinguishes itself most explicitly from earlier work that was concerned with advising the prince, with Machiavelli’s “The Prince” held up as the main example of what “the art of governance” is not. The new literature emerges at a time when (a) the state is centralizing its power, and (b) Christian religion is undergoing reformation. Two Machiavellian ideas that the new authors didn’t like 1. The prince is external to his principality 2. The purpose of his power is to reassert his control over his principality. One of the first “art of governance” texts is Guillaume de La Perriere’s //Mirror Politique.// This text discusses some ideas that Foucault thinks are emblematic of the new literature 1. There are multiple levels that are simultaneously being governed. a. “Art of self-government, connected with morality” b. “art of properly governing a family, which belongs to economy” c. “and finally the science of ruling the state, which concerns politics” (91). Unlike the prince who tries to distinguish himself from his principality, with the art of governance, you try to establish a continuity d. An upwards continuity – learn to govern yourself and your family, and you will be able to govern the state e. A downwards continuity – proper governance of the state trickles down and promotes proper governance of the family and individual (through the police!) So based on all this, ‘economic governance’ of the state (envisioned as a large-scale version of partriarchal governance of family finances) becomes a new goal. 2. What are the proper subjects of governance? a. Machiavelli’s prince governs his territory b. La Perriere governs people and their links to wealth, subsistence, and also territory. The state is like the captain of a ship – not only responsible for the vessel, but also for cargo and crew. 3. There is a rationalization of the state. La Perrier writes that a ruler must have patience, wisdom, and diligence – controlling by competence, not by coercion. a. Art of governance literature is linked to 1. Development of an administrative apparatus 2. Increased knowledge of the state – known as “statistics”, the science of the state 3. Mercantilism and a science of police 4. But the “art of governance” never really got moving until the 18th century - Prior to this it was inhibited by difficult historical circumstances (wars and economic crises) as well as by mercantilism - Only really gets moving with changes in the 18th c.  o Demographic expansion o Increasing abundance of money o Expansion of agricultural production - “the art of government found fresh outlets through the emergence of the problem of population” o Through stat.s, it becomes clear that the population has its own patterns separate from those of the family. o Population comes to be seen as the ultimate aim of government. o However, sovereignty and discipline remain critical ideas in this new governmentality era. Governmentality means: 1. “the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses 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 2. “The tendency which, over a long period and throughout the West, has steadily led towards the pre-eminence over all other forms (sovereignty, discipline, etc.) of this type of power which may be termed government, resulting, on the one hand, in the formation of a whole series of specific governmental apparatuses, and, on the other, in the development of a whole complex of //savoirs.// 3. “The process, or rather the result of the process, through which the state of justice of the Middle Ages, transformed into the administrative state during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gradually becomes ‘governmenatlized’” (102-3) Based on this analysis, Foucault concludes that the current era is one characterized by governmentality, where the state is simply not very important any more, although ironically, it is governmentality that allowed the state to survive at all. Three eras of power: 1. “state of justice” in feudal times based on law 2. “administrative state” based on territorially bounded states, based on regulation and discipline 3. “governmental state, essentially defined no longer in terms of its territoriality, of its surface area, but in terms of the mass of its population with its volume and density” (104). ||  || Has the state really lost as much power as Foucault says it has? Aren’t the governmental units of power still defined very closely in terms of their territoriality? Perhaps there has been an increased emphasis on the population as governments have become better able to understand and monitor them. But I don’t see that this has come at the expense of territorial power, rather, it has come in addition to it. ||  || = = = = = = = = = = = =
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