Talk:Governmentality

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[edit] Tone and rigour

"The technologies of the market that underlie the practice of going to the gym can be described as the technology of desire..." What kind of a sentence is this? -- Typewritten 12:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

technology of desire is a term - it means that "they" (those who govern) use desire to induce people to govern themselves, it is therefore a type of "technology of rule" specifically, a "technology of the market". JenLouise 23:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually I was talking about the "that underlie the practice of going to the gym" bit (maybe some other bits too). A little bit... err... casual and bizarre, isn't it? Never mind. -- Typewritten 19:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It is the example that was used by our lecturer in the course on governmentality which made it eaiser to understand the way it works etc. and how Foucault thought of government as no longer needing to force the population to do things and govern them directly, but was now able to get them to govern themselves. I thought that it would be useful in understanding the concept - but if not, feel free to remove it. JenLouise 02:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Just an idea: what about Wikipedia as an example of governmentality? Might be a good illustration. -- Typewritten 07:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Foucault and others' views

Further reviews of this article may need taking into account the fact that, although originated in Foucault's work, a great deal of what is done under the rubric of "governamentality" in the Anglo-American literature is not always exactly in tune with Foucault's own use of the term (probably because his full 1978-1979 course remained unpublished until 2004 in French, and still not translated to English yet). For instance, seing governmentality as the "dramatic expansion in the scope of government" may be a legitimate vision of the concept, but not Foucault's. For Foucault, the "Etat de police" was one type of governmentality, and the neoliberal "Etat de droit" another one (among others). -- Typewritten 15:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know anything about governmentality as it is used by other theorists, but I believe that the article should not deal with these different definitions together. I would propose having a section on "Focault & governmentality" or something and then another section on each of the other theorists who have differing definitions. However someone else would need to provide the content for these sections. That way anyone who looks at the article hoping to find out about Foucault's governmentality will be able to get a good undertanding of it, anyone else will see all the other definitions. JenLouise 23:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Have changed the heading to reflect that this section is only Foucault's use of the term. Anyone can now add in others use of the concept. JenLouise 02:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry JenLouise. What I meant was precisely the opposite. The article rather expresses the view of the "governmentality school", i.e. the view of the authors referred to (e.g. Mitchell Dean, Nicholas Rose, etc.), not the original use of the term by Foucault himself. This section is thus best titled as "further developments of the concept", or something like that. I will take the liberty to change. On the overall, the only thing that I think needs to be suggested so far (and I added earlier a couple of paragraphs accordingly) is that the notion comes from Foucault, but has become a concept with its own live in the hand of the English-speaking authors that have launched this idea of "governmentality studies", and proposed their own theorising -- creative at some point, and not totaly in line with Foucault. There are ideas in the article that are contradictory with Foucault's lectures. There is no point in mentioning this technical points so far, but it's good at least to mention this. -- Typewritten 07:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Governmentality and governance

Another issue for discussion: some people use "governmentality" and "governance" indistinctively. But they are completely different notions -- to some extent. "Governance" is a functional idea, it conveys and idea of regime of coordination. "Governmentality" is a philosophical or sociological concept. Also, on the overall, "governmentality" is not to be used as just another synonym of "government", "governance" or even or "power" or "control". -- Typewritten 07:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)