Foucault, Biopolitics, and Governmentality

THOMAS LEMKE
social movements of his time—the effects of governmental regimes are
rarely assessed in Foucault’s legacy. As Tania Murray Li has observed,
studies of governmentality “tend to be anemic on the practice of politics.” 41
In fact, the critical distance governmentality studies places between itself
and forms of social critique—which it labels as reductive—has often resulted
in an impasse, serving to limit its own critical engagement. This distancing
from critique shows itself when such studies routinely remain at the descriptive
level of analyzing rationalities and technologies. With an intention of
going beyond “negative” forms of critique, either in the form of condemning
or denouncing social and political reality, some authors have surmised
critique per se to be solely a negative enterprise. The outcome has been a
“rhetorical strategy that poses genealogical work over and against criticism.” 42
Following this impetus, some authors have explicitly stated that they do not
wish “to provide a ‘critique’ of various liberal and neoliberal problematizations
of government” by drawing “a balance sheet of their shortcomings or
to propose alternatives.” 43 Indeed, the question as to what governmentality
studies may offer in the way of a critique of contemporary societies is one for
which no single response has been proffered; varying answers have been
articulated therefore by a broad range of individual authors. While some seek
to redefine and combine governmentality and neo-Marxist concepts, 44 others
appear to locate themselves explicitly within a post-Marxist tradition. 45
41 Tania Murray Li, The Will to Improve, 26; see also Pat O’Malley, Lorna Weir, and
Clifford Shearing, “Governmentality, Criticism, Politics,” Economy & Society 26(4)
(1997): 507-508. In extreme cases, studies of governmentality might even contribute to
an affirmative reading of governmental rationalities. The most prominent example of
this is the trajectory of François Ewald, who was one of Foucault’s fellow researchers and
undertook a remarkable genealogy of social insurance; see Ewald, Histoire de l’État
providence. Today, he is a leading representative of the national employers’ organization
and celebrates the ontology of risk and the virtues of enterprise. See Jacques Donzelot
and Colin Gordon, “Governing Liberal Societies,” 53; 55; see also Maurizio Lazzarato,
“Le gouvernement par l’individualisation,” Multitudes 2 (2001): 153-61.
42 Pat O’Malley, Lorna Weir, and Clifford Shearing, “Governmentality, Criticism, Politics,”
504.
43 Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, and Nikolas Rose, “Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and
Governmentality: Introduction,” Economy & Society 22(3) (1993): 266.
44 See Frank Pearce and Steve Tombs, “Hegemony, Risk and Governance: ‘Social Regulation’
and the American Chemical Industry,” Economy & Society 25(3) (1996): 428-54;
Tania Murray Li, The Will to Improve; Bob Jessop, “From Micro-Powers to Governmentality:
Foucault’s Work on Statehood, State Formation, Statecraft and State Power,”
Political Geography 26 (2007): 34-40.
45 See e.g. Nikolas Rose, “Government, Authority and Expertise in Advanced Liberalism,”
Economy & Society 22(3) (1993): 283-99; Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose, Governing
the Present, 2-4
46