An indigestible meal? Foucault, governmentality and state theory

TLDR

Michel Foucault’s 1978–79 College de France lectures on the history of governmentality provide the methodological and theoretical backdrop. The article investigates how an analytics of government can contribute to state theory by comparing it with governance and neo‑liberal critiques. The analytics of government is defined by three dimensions: a nominalist focus on knowledge and political discourse, a broad technology concept including material and symbolic devices, and a strategic view of the state as instrument and effect of political strategies. The study concludes that Foucault’s governmentality offers new avenues for state theory.

Abstract

This article explores the contribution of an 'analytics of government' to state theory. This approach takes up methodological and theoretical considerations that Michel Foucault developed in his lectures 0f1978 and 1979 at the College de France on the 'history of "governmentality"'. The article argues that an analytics of government is characterized by three theoretical dimensions: a nominalist account that stresses the central importance of knowledge and political discourses in the constitution of the state; a broad concept of technology that encompasses not only material but also symbolic devices, including political technologies as well as technologies of the self; a strategic account that conceives of the state as an instrument and effect of political strategies. After presenting the three analytical dimensions, the last part of the article will compare this theoretical perspective with the concept of governance and with critical accounts of neo-liberalism. The article concludes that Foucault's work on governmentality opens up new directions for state theory.