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Concept
Governmentality
Summary
Governmentality is a concept first developed by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in the later years of his life, roughly between 1977 and his death in 1984, particularly in his lectures at the Collège de France during this time.
Governmentality can be understood as:
the organized practices (mentalities, rationalities, and techniques) through which subjects are governed
Governmentality may also be understood as:
the "art of government"
the "how" of governing (that is, the calculated means of directing how we behave and act)
"governmental rationality"
"a 'guideline' for the analysis that Michel Foucault offers by way of historical reconstructions embracing a period starting from Ancient Greece right through to modernity and neo-liberalism"
"the techniques and strategies by which a society is rendered governable"
The "reasoned way of governing best and, at the same time, reflection on the best possible way of governing"
Peter Miller, Nikolas Rose and Mitchell Dean, among other scholars, have elaborated on the notion of governmentality.
This term was thought by some commentators to be made by the "...linking of governing ("gouverner") and modes of thought ("mentalité")".
In fact, it was not coined by uniting words "gouvernement" and "mentalité", but simply by making gouvernement into gouvernementalité just like musical into musicalité [i.e. government + -al- adjective + -ité abstract noun] (see Michel Senellart's "Course Context" in Foucault's "Security, territory, population" lectures). To fully understand this concept, it is important to realize that in this case, Foucault does not only use the standard, strictly political definition of "governing" or government used today, but he also uses the broader definition of governing or government that was employed until the eighteenth century. That is to say, that in this case, for Foucault, "...'government' also signified problems of self-control, guidance for the family and for children, management of the household, directing the soul, etc.
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Related concepts (3)
Discipline and Punish
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Surveiller et punir : Naissance de la prison) is a 1975 book by French philosopher Michel Foucault. It is an analysis of the social and theoretical mechanisms behind the changes that occurred in Western penal systems during the modern age based on historical documents from France. Foucault argues that prison did not become the principal form of punishment just because of the humanitarian concerns of reformists. He traces the cultural shifts that led to the predominance of prison via the body and power.
Biopower
Biopower (or biopouvoir in French) is a term coined by French scholar, philosopher, historian, and social theorist Michel Foucault. It relates to the practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjects through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations". Foucault first used the term in his lecture courses at the Collège de France, and the term first appeared in print in The Will to Knowledge, Foucault's first volume of The History of Sexuality.
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault (UKˈfuːkoʊ, USfuːˈkoʊ; pɔl miʃɛl fuko; 15 October 1926 - 25 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationships between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels.