Lecture 7: Power and organization; Michel Foucault on power
Overview
1) Critical theory
2) Michel Foucault
3) Foucault’s typology of power
Critical theory (starting point: groups/people are conflicted and people are fighting to gain power over
others)
Split in the tradition of political philosophy
• Anglo-saxon normative theory versus continental critical theory
Start from non-ideal circumstances
• Presence of conflict: ‘politics is war through other means’ (Foucault) It is not a war
through weapons but through political campaigns, political relations, etc. This is the
starting point of the critical theorist.
• Political philosopher as cartographer of the present (a decision as a point on the map,
what kind of breaches there are after that decision) mapping out the present as it is
right now
Philosophy as ‘critique’ figuring out the conditions of social events and figuring out how it has
formed, we can also think about how we have to change it (critique)
critical theorist: writes about the histories of things to know how a decision is made and give critic
on it (example: financial crises you had to pay student loan and now you don’t critique about
student loans through histories)
What is the normative strategy?
Normative theory Critical theory
Michel Foucault
Who is Michel Foucault (1926-1984)?
- French political philosopher
- The interweaving of knowledge and power
(1) Traditional view
- Knowledge and power are opposed (knowledge something we acquire to scientific practices, if
,power intervenes things will get messed up)
- Conflicts of interest
- Example: tobacco industry and cancer research
(2) Foucault’s view
- Knowledge and power presuppose each other (knowledge requires power and vice versa)
- Knowledge informs the exercise of power + power facilitates the acquisition of knowledge
we should stop talking about knowledge and power as two separate entities
‘Knowledge-power’
Example 1: psychiatry (before mental ill people were left alone in society. In a psychiatry those people
are put together and are locked up this way power is exercised over the mentally ill locking up
makes it possible to test theories and therapies which creates knowledge. Therefore, knowledge
generates power and vice versa)
Example 2: criminology (Damien tried to kill the French king Damien publicly tortered, second
time it happens with another guy it being locked up guillotine in those years those public
punishments disappeared and it became imprisonment
if you lock prisoners up, then you can rehabilitate them again which leads to knowledge
Wrong assumptions you might have about power …
1) Power is bad
- No, power is productive and can be legitimate
- There is no power-free society possible
2) Power is a resource (possessive theory of power)
- No, power is a relation
- There is no stable ‘possession’ of power
Wrong assumptions you might have about power …
3) Power prohibits (prohibitive theory of power)
- No, power is also productive (empowerment)
- Contra psychology and sexual liberation movement
4) Power is exercised by the State (juridical theory of power)
- No, also private agents exercise power
, - Example: doctors
Power is …
• (A) everywhere
• Not localized in the state apparatus, but spread out across society
• ‘Micro-power-relations’ (big macro relations = state exercising power, the
micro relations are people exercising power over other/small things)
• (B) productive
• Power-relations produce knowledge and subjectivity
• Power not only prohibits, but also incites
• (C) reversible
• Wherever there is power, there is resistance (power is never a one way street,
always an unstable relation, the one who is exercising power can also be
resisted)
• Power versus domination
Historical survey of different kinds of power-relations
1) Sovereign power
Power to decide over the life or death of its subjects
Feudal relations
- State did not exist personal relations of subjection
- Power of the king to expose subjects to death (war and capital punishment)
- ‘Power to make die or let live’
Today
- Rare
- Martial law/state of emergency
2) Modern biopower
The power ‘to make live or let die’
Aim: normalization
2a) Disciplinary power (see next class)
Target: individual bodies
Imposition of pre-established norms
Example: prison
2b) Biopolitical power (see later)
Target: the population
Imposition of statistical norms
Example: demography
Overview
1) Critical theory
2) Michel Foucault
3) Foucault’s typology of power
Critical theory (starting point: groups/people are conflicted and people are fighting to gain power over
others)
Split in the tradition of political philosophy
• Anglo-saxon normative theory versus continental critical theory
Start from non-ideal circumstances
• Presence of conflict: ‘politics is war through other means’ (Foucault) It is not a war
through weapons but through political campaigns, political relations, etc. This is the
starting point of the critical theorist.
• Political philosopher as cartographer of the present (a decision as a point on the map,
what kind of breaches there are after that decision) mapping out the present as it is
right now
Philosophy as ‘critique’ figuring out the conditions of social events and figuring out how it has
formed, we can also think about how we have to change it (critique)
critical theorist: writes about the histories of things to know how a decision is made and give critic
on it (example: financial crises you had to pay student loan and now you don’t critique about
student loans through histories)
What is the normative strategy?
Normative theory Critical theory
Michel Foucault
Who is Michel Foucault (1926-1984)?
- French political philosopher
- The interweaving of knowledge and power
(1) Traditional view
- Knowledge and power are opposed (knowledge something we acquire to scientific practices, if
,power intervenes things will get messed up)
- Conflicts of interest
- Example: tobacco industry and cancer research
(2) Foucault’s view
- Knowledge and power presuppose each other (knowledge requires power and vice versa)
- Knowledge informs the exercise of power + power facilitates the acquisition of knowledge
we should stop talking about knowledge and power as two separate entities
‘Knowledge-power’
Example 1: psychiatry (before mental ill people were left alone in society. In a psychiatry those people
are put together and are locked up this way power is exercised over the mentally ill locking up
makes it possible to test theories and therapies which creates knowledge. Therefore, knowledge
generates power and vice versa)
Example 2: criminology (Damien tried to kill the French king Damien publicly tortered, second
time it happens with another guy it being locked up guillotine in those years those public
punishments disappeared and it became imprisonment
if you lock prisoners up, then you can rehabilitate them again which leads to knowledge
Wrong assumptions you might have about power …
1) Power is bad
- No, power is productive and can be legitimate
- There is no power-free society possible
2) Power is a resource (possessive theory of power)
- No, power is a relation
- There is no stable ‘possession’ of power
Wrong assumptions you might have about power …
3) Power prohibits (prohibitive theory of power)
- No, power is also productive (empowerment)
- Contra psychology and sexual liberation movement
4) Power is exercised by the State (juridical theory of power)
- No, also private agents exercise power
, - Example: doctors
Power is …
• (A) everywhere
• Not localized in the state apparatus, but spread out across society
• ‘Micro-power-relations’ (big macro relations = state exercising power, the
micro relations are people exercising power over other/small things)
• (B) productive
• Power-relations produce knowledge and subjectivity
• Power not only prohibits, but also incites
• (C) reversible
• Wherever there is power, there is resistance (power is never a one way street,
always an unstable relation, the one who is exercising power can also be
resisted)
• Power versus domination
Historical survey of different kinds of power-relations
1) Sovereign power
Power to decide over the life or death of its subjects
Feudal relations
- State did not exist personal relations of subjection
- Power of the king to expose subjects to death (war and capital punishment)
- ‘Power to make die or let live’
Today
- Rare
- Martial law/state of emergency
2) Modern biopower
The power ‘to make live or let die’
Aim: normalization
2a) Disciplinary power (see next class)
Target: individual bodies
Imposition of pre-established norms
Example: prison
2b) Biopolitical power (see later)
Target: the population
Imposition of statistical norms
Example: demography
