This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by DUPONT, D. Articles by PEARCE, F. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Foucault Contra Foucault:

Rereading the `Governmentality' Papers

Queen's University, Canada

FRANK PEARCE

Queen's University, Canada

This article provides a brief account of some key aspects of Foucault's later work in the area of power, security, population and `governmentality', and a critical analysis of these in light of other of his writings. The argument is as follows. This later work is marred by an implicit idealism that takes two forms. First, there is a vulgar historicist logic, a neo-Hegelian objective idealism involving a unilinear theory of crucial aspects of western history and the use of a single measuring rod for comparing and contrasting successive forms of organization of societies, thereby pre-empting the possibility of examining the varying effects in different social contexts of seemingly similar ways of organizing social relations. Second, much of this work is overly intentionalist in its understanding of particular phenomena. This subjective idealism involves an explanation of social arrangements as the result of political activities which, in turn, are themselves understood through the extant writings of various governors, policy writers and advisors—namely, as the effect of self-consciously produced self-reflexive discourses. Some of his earlier work, notably The Archaeology of Knowledge, provides the conceptual resources to critique and go beyond these writings.

Key Words: discourse • Foucault • genealogy • governance • governmentality • Hegel

Theoretical Criminology, Vol. 5, No. 2, 123-158 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1362480601005002001


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				T. Monahan Identity theft vulnerability: Neoliberal governance through crime construction Theoretical Criminology, May 1, 2009; 13(2): 155 - 176. [Abstract] [PDF]

				G. S. Rigakos and A. Law Risk, Realism and the Politics of Resistance Crit Sociol, January 1, 2009; 35(1): 79 - 103. [Abstract] [PDF]

				B. C. J. Singer and L. Weir Sovereignty, Governance and the Political: The Problematic of Foucault Thesis Eleven, August 1, 2008; 94(1): 49 - 71. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. Juniper and J. Jose Foucault and Spinoza: philosophies of immanence and the decentred political subject History of the Human Sciences, May 1, 2008; 21(2): 1 - 20. [Abstract] [PDF]

				R. P. Datta Politics and Existence: Totems, Dispositifs and Some Striking Parallels between Durkheim and Foucault Journal of Classical Sociology, May 1, 2008; 8(2): 283 - 305. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. Frauley Towards an Archaeological-Realist Foucauldian Analytics of Government Br. J. Criminol., July 1, 2007; 47(4): 617 - 633. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G. Mythen and S. Walklate Criminology and Terrorism: Which Thesis? Risk Society or Governmentality? Br. J. Criminol., May 1, 2006; 46(3): 379 - 398. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. Merlingen Governmentality: Towards a Foucauldian Framework for the Study of IGOs Cooperation and Conflict, December 1, 2003; 38(4): 361 - 384. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. Young In praise of dangerous thoughts Punishment Society, January 1, 2003; 5(1): 97 - 107. [PDF]