Comments on: Police, Governmentality and Security

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 23:10:13 +0000

Derya, Valverde cites page 347 of the French edition of Security, Territory, Population. I haven’t checked the reference personally.

By: Derya

Derya — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 13:42:49 +0000

Thanks very much for the essay. I just wanted to ask where exactky it was that Foucault was using the term ‘permanent coup d’etat’?

By: Haiti00

Haiti00 — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:38:23 +0000

Foucault seduced for liberalism/ What this means/ Perhaps Foucault was fascinated by liberalism as Marx was for the incredible productive force of the capitalism. But both had been critical of its objects of astonishment.

By: old

old — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:57:17 +0000

I just don’t buy that foucualt was seduced by liberalism given that he was simultaneously entranced by the Iranian revolution. The governmentality stuff has to be read alongside the Iranian stuff to realize that Foucault was furthering his analysis of the nuts and bolts of the shift from sovereignty of kings to totalitarian statism.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 18:11:43 +0000

Frank Pearce and one of his students, Danica somebody or other (I’ll find the full reference later), wrote an article for Theoretical Criminology a few years back on governmentality as a turn to liberalism. They hadn’t read the full lectures when making that claim. At the time I wasn’t entirely convinced – I didn’t quite see a concern with the development of liberalism as an endorsement of liberalism. In the long run, I think they were right in suggesting that governmentality is, in some sense, liberalism and that Foucault was seduced by this.

Among those who have had the opportunity to see STP in French, the general consensus appears to be that the whole Anglo-Foucauldian “governmentality” and “history of the present” project will have to be rethought in many of its essentials. If you read the entirety of Mariana’s article, I think you can see her trying to resist that rethinking in significant ways. (She’s also done a “state of the field” article with Nik Rose and Pat O’Malley on governmentality and legal studies for the Annual Review of Law and Social Science (2006), but I haven’t had a chance to see that yet.)

By: glen

glen — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 06:14:54 +0000

thanks for this craig. i send the url of this to the foucault reading group i am part. the discussion of the french ‘security’ is important.

it would be good to think of another term that means something similar (securing the passage of a possible outcome into an actual outcome) in the production of populations that are not necessarily part of state-based governmental projects, such as in the media or professional sporting teams.

By: old

old — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:55:08 +0000

looking forward to more this spring. thanks for this, craig. if moving to governmentality signals that Foucault became a kind of quasi-liberal, so much the worse for that fist fucker. I retain my doubts and look forward to the published volume.