Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Rationalities of Government

287 Pages·1996·15.03 MB·English

by  Andrew Barry

Foucault and political reason
Liberalism, neo-liberalism and
rationalities of government
Edited by
Andrew Barry
Thomas Osborne
Nikolas Rose
The University of Chicago Press
ANDREW BARRY is lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths College, Uni
versity of London; THOMAS OSBORNE is lecturer in human sciences t
the University of Bristol; NIKOLAS ROSE is professor of sociology »'
Goldsmiths College, University of London.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
UCL Press Limited, University College London, London WC1E 6BT
The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered
irade mark used bv UCL Press with the consent of (hr rnvner.
© Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, Nikolas Rose and contributors, 1996
All rights reserved. Published 1996.
Printed in Great Britain.
04 03 02 0100 99 98 97 96 12 345
ISBN: 0-226-03825-4 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-226-03826-2 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foucault and political reason : liberalism, neo-liberalism and
rationalities of government / edited by Andrew Barry, Thomas
Osborne, Nikolas Rose,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Liberalism. 2. Foucault, Michel—Contributions in political
science. I. Barry, Andrew, 1960- . II. Osborne, Thomas, 1964—
. III. Rose, Nikolas S.
JC261.F68F68 1996
320.5' 1—dc20 95-42968
Clf
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of contributors ix
Introduction 1
Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, Nikolas Rase
1 Liberal government and techniques of the self 19
Graham BurcheU
2 Governing "advanced" liberal democracies 37
Nikolas Rose
3 Liberalism, socialism and democracy: 65
variations on a governmental theme
Barry Hindtss
4 The promise of liberalism and the performance 81
of freedom
VtkkiBell
5 Security and vitality: drains, liberalism and power 99
in the nineteenth century
Thomas Osborne
6 Lines of communication and spaces of rule 123
Andrew Barry
7 Assembling the school 143
Ian Hunter
8 Governing the city: liberalism and early modern 167
modes of governance
Alan Hunt
CONTENTS
9 Risk and responsibility 189
Pat O'MalUy
10 Foucault, government and the enfolding of authority 209
Mitchell Dean
11 Revolutions within: self-government and self-esteem 231
Barbara Crmkshank
12 Foucault in Britain 253
Colin Gordon
Index 271
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Lisa Blackman and Ian Hodges for their help in
organizing the 1992 Foucault and Politics Conference at Goldsmiths
College, University of London from which many of these chapters derive.
The conference was supported by Economy and Society, which initially pub
lished a number of the chapters, and we would like to thank that journal,
and particulariy Grahame Thompson, for supporting this project.
Chapters by Burchell. Cruikshank and Hindess first appeared in a
special issue on liberalism and governmentality. Economy and Society 22(3),
1993. An eariier version of the chapter by Rose first appeared as "Gov
ernment, authority and expertise in advanced liberalism" in Economy and
Society 22(3), 1993, 283-99. An earlier version of the chapter by O'Malley
first appeared as "Risk, power and crime prevention" in Economy and
Society 21(3), 1992, 252-75. We are grateful to Roudedge for permission
to publish these papers. An earlier version of the chapter by Gordon first
appeared as "Foucault en Angleterre" in Cntiqvut 471—2, 1986, 826-40.
The chapters by Barry, Bell, Dean, Hunt, Hunter and Osborne appear
here for the first time.

Contributors
Andrew Barry is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths
College, University of London. He is currendy working on a study of the
history of networks.
Vikki Bell is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths
College, University of London. She has written a number of articles on
and around the work of Foucault and is the author of Interrogating incest:
feminism, Foucault and the law (London: Roudedge, 1993).
Graham Burchell is a freelance writer and translator. He was an editor of
the journals Ideology and Consciousness and Radical Philosophy. He is an editor
of The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality (Hemel Hempstead, England:
Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991) and a translator of Gilles Deleuze & Felix
Guattari's What is philosophy? (London: Verso, 1994).
Barbara Cruikshank is Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is completing a book manu
script titled Democratic subjects, which is a study of governmentality and
democratic welfare reform in the United States.
Mitchell Dean is Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University, Sydney. He is
currently working on a book on governmentality.
Colin Gordon is the editor of Power/knowledge (Brighton: Harvester, 1980)
and the author of a number of articles on Foucault's work. His essay on
governmentality appeared in The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality
(Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991).
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Barry Hindess is Professor of Political Science in the Research Sclwl
of Social Science at the Australian National University, Canberra. Hi)
previous books include Politics and class analysis (Oxford: Basil Blackwd,
1987), Choice, rationality and social theory (London: Unwin Hyman, 198);
and Discourses of power: from Hobbes to Foucaull (Oxford: Basil Blackwil.
1996).
Alan Hunt is Professor in the Departments of Sociology/Anthropokf
and Law at Carleton University, Ottawa. His most recent books JC
Fbucault and law (London: Pluto, 1994) (with Gary Wickham) and fe
once of consuming passions (forthcoming).
Ian Hunter is an Australian Research Council Fellow in the Facul?,:';
Humanities at Griffith University. He is the author of Culture and gnu
ment: the emergence of literary education (London: Macmillan, 1988), R/tkiik{
the school (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) and (with David Saundcr k
Dugald Williamson) On pornography (London: Macmillan, 1992).
Pat O'Malley is Professor of Law and Legal Studies at La Tr::e
University. Most of his research at present concerns models of indmtol
responsibility and enterprise in classical vs. current liberalisms. As palcf
this he is examining changing relations in the life, accident and proprv
fields over the last 150 years.
Thomas Osborne has published widely in social theory and the society
of knowledge. He is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Univcffi'
of Bristol.
Nikolas Rose is Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths College, Uniw*
of London, and author of a number of studies of political par,
the human sciences and the regulation of personal identity, inchfe?
The psychological complex (London: RouUedge, 1985), Governing tkd
(London: Roudedge, 1990) and Inventing ourselves (Cambridge: Gamfajje
University Press, 1996). His current work is on changing stratepof
government.
Introduction
Andrew Barry, Thomas Osborne, Nikolas Rose
The essays in this book propose some new ways of anatomizing political
reason, ways that may operate upon and through history, but which do so
in order to gain a purchase upon our present and its politics. Contempo
rary political reason seems troubled and uncertain. The death of State
socialism as a viable political doctrine has been accompanied, not by an
uncontested triumph of liberal democracy and free-market individualism
but by a proliferation of political doctrines and programmes that are
unstable and difficult to classify in conventional terms. In the name of
empowering both individual and community, parties of both right and
left advocate the removal of aspects of welfare and security from State
control and supply. A revived communitarianism couples an emphasis on
individual responsibility with a critique of the all-powerful State and finds
converts from all parts of the political spectrum. Campaigns for citizen
ship link demands for certain political and legal rights with projects to
reform individuals at the level of their personal skills and competencies.
Ecological politics seem to be so attractive to many because of the simul
taneous demands for action by public authorities and changes in the
conduct of private companies and individuals. Feminist arguments have
gone beyond the twin options of total destruction of patriarchy or simple
campaigns for equality to take on issues raised by the new reproductive
technology, the right to life, sexual abuse and sexual harassment to
engage with a range of other issues such as the organization of work and
child-care that call both for action by political authorities and ethical
transformations across a population. If one thing unites these different
aspects of political thought, it is the ways in which they seek a form of
politics "beyond the State", a politics of life, of ethics, which emphasizes
the crucial political value of the mobilization and shaping of individual
capacities and conduct.