THE FOUCAULT EFFECT 1991-2011

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/law/news/the-foucault-effect-1991-2011-conference-3-4-june A Conference at Birkbeck College, University of London

Abstracts
Peter Fitzpatrick and Maria Carolina Olarte : Foucault and the laws of death Leaning heavily on a term used often in relation to Foucault and sometimes by him, we offer a schematic of constituent connections between law, death, and a generative aporia embedded in sociality. Our initial and insistent focus is on the death penalty and on a productive dissonance in Foucaults engagements with it, that focus giving us a pointed perspective on disciplinary and biopower and their limits when set in relation to the aporia. All of which impels us towards a specular dissonance in Foucaults conceptions of law, a dissonance evoking affinities between law and death. Contrary to what such affinities may initially intimate, the aporia then figures in a way whichrenderslawandthedeathpenaltyincompatible.Weendwithacognateexcursusonhowto readFoucault,thepresumptionofwhichisattenuatedbycopiousreferencetotheauthor. Colin Gordon: Governmentality and the genealogy of politics I dont have the competence to survey, still less to assess the vast and varied body of studies in governmentalitywhichhavebeenundertakensincewepublishedTheFoucaultEffect.WhatIwould liketoofferinstead,bywayofanintroduction,isabriefpersonalafterthoughtonourbook,withthe benefit of hindsight, in the light of subsequent history and publications, and with an eye to our current interests and problems. What did we (and I) miss or overlook that might have helped in writing the history of later presents? (I will look here especially at the first lectures of the 1979 series: liberalism and liberty, ways of limiting government, the liberal international order.) Conversely,whatthingsdidwenoticeandhighlight,whichmayhavesubsequentlybeengivenless attention to date than they merit? (I will mention the idea of a collective, continuous history of governmentality, some points about law and neoliberalism, and some challenges about socialist governmentalityandthecultureofcontemporarypoliticalcritique). This brings me to my main topic. A lot of discussion focussed on ideas of standoff or disjunction between Foucaults notion of governmentality and some thing or things (such as sovereignty, the juridical, rights and political theory) which function as governmentalitys other. I know I am not alone in feeling that, without lapsing into undifferentiated eclectic blandness, we need to move beyondsomeofthesedisjunctionsandthebranddifferentiatedsectariansilostheymightbeatrisk ofimprisoningusin.IwanttoarguehereinparticularthatthevastwealthofposthumousFoucault publicationnowallowsustoseeanumberofwaysinwhichthehistoryofgovernmentalitywhich Foucault and others undertook enables, implies and demands an accompanying genealogy of politics,thatistosayofpoliticalculture,conduct,sociabilityandsubjectivity.Tostartwith,wecan look at a number of suggestions in Foucaults lectures about instances of what one might call the

multiple births of politics. Along with these hints, I will draw here on some key, complementary sourcesoutsidethe7879lectureswhichbecameavailableafterTFEwaspublished(notablyWhatis critique?andSocietymustbedefended),lookrapidlyattheimplicationsofthenovelreflectionson philosophyandthepoliticaldevelopedintherecentlypublishedlecturesof19834,andreflecton thatbasisaboutwhatFoucaultmighthavebeenplanningtodonext,havingpromisedhisaudience, inearly1984,animminentendingofhisGrecoRomantrip. Reading that promise today is a reminder of the simple fact that Foucaults work was unfinished, and,asaconsequence,thatalongsidetheevervalidoptiontoinstrumentaliseFoucaultswork,in whateverareaonechoosesandwithasmuchfreedom,inventivenessandfaithfulinfidelityasoneis capable of, there is also the possibility, within the limits of our powers, of trying to finish what Foucaultleftunfinished,oratleastoftakingupsomeofwhatmayhavebeenhisworksunfulfilled aimsandambitions. Hintsorcluestohowthismightbeattemptedincludesomepointsofusefulconnectivitywithother scholars work on the history of early modern thought and politics (Donald Kelley and Peter Donaldson)andsomebriefbutpromisingencounterswiththegovernmentalitythemeinsomeother important currents of contemporary work (Ann Stoler, Duncan Ivison, Keith Baker, Benedict Anderson and Partha Chatterjee). Finally I will ask how and under what conditions this kind of genealogycanmakeausefulcontributiontopublicdiscourse. References. AnnStoler,RaceandtheEducationofDesire:Foucault'sHistoryofSexualityandtheColonialOrder ofThings(1995) Donald R Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation. (1981) PeterSDonaldson,MachiavelliandMysteryofState(1992) Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983, 2006) and Nationalism, Identity and the Logic of Seriality in The Spectre of Comparisons (1998) ParthaChatterjee,ThePoliticsoftheGoverned:ReflectionsonPopularPoliticsinMostoftheWorld (2004) Keith Baker, A Foucauldian French Revolution? in Foucault and the Writing of History. Ed. Jan Goldstein(1994) Paul Patton Governmentality and public reason: the critique of neo-liberalism revisited ReadersoftenassumethattheaimofFoucaults19781979lecturesonneoliberalismwastoprovide acritiqueofneoliberalism,wherethenatureofthiscritiqueisspeltoutinthetermsofoneorother ofhisprogrammaticformulations:exitfromthepresent,nottobegovernedinparticularways,etc.I want to suggest a way of reading those lectures that connects with a different kind of critique, namelyonethatprovidesanormativeframeworkwithinwhichpoliticalpowershouldbeexercised. Foucaultdoesnotventureintothiskindofnormativeterritory,butsuchareadingisjustifiedbyhis question:whatwouldbethegovernmentalityappropriatetosocialism?(Foucault2008:94).

John Rawlss egalitarian conception of political liberal public reason and its associated criterionoflegitimategovernmentoffersausefulguidetohowsuchaprojectmightbepursued.His overtlynormativeapproachtothequestionhowshouldpoliticalpowerbeexercisedconvergeswith Foucaultsdescriptiveapproachtogovernmentalreason.However,hepresentstheformsofpublic reason in which the exercise of power is discussed in relatively static and ahistorical terms. Foucaults genealogical approach promises to show how public reason evolves in the broader context of the public political culture of liberal democracies. Conversely, Rawlss preferred economic models of market socialism and propertyowning democracy point to possible ways to answerFoucaultsquestionabove.Thehistoryoftheideaofpropertyowningdemocracypointsto an egalitarian tendency within twentieth century liberal governmentality that a more comprehensivegenealogywouldneedtoconsider.

Fabienne Brion: Governmentality, citizenship and dangerousness According to Ewald and Fontana, those who attended Foucaults courses were not only held in thrall by the narratives that unfolded week by week and seduced by the rigorous exposition; they alsofoundaperspectiveoncontemporaryreality.()Foucaultsspecificstrengthinhiscourseswas the subtle interplay between learned erudition, personal commitment, and work on the event. Whatperspectiveontherecodificationofmigrantsandminoritiesalongreligiouslinesandontheir criminalization can critical criminologists take from his work and to begin with, from the commentaryonOedipustheKingthatheoffersinhisLecturesontheWilltoKnow?Whatiscrime,if it is through the expulsion of the criminal a gesture that is supposed to clean the city from the impurity that endangers it that the formation of a social space given as the locus of monetary movement and right distribution is completed? Is dangerousness a function of citizenship, and citizenshipafunctionoftheformulaofgovernment?Istheresomethinglikecriminalismthatwould bealayerofstateracism?Andifso,isthisthelayerthatmakestheformsofstateracismchange withthechangesincitizenship? Bernard Harcourt: The Punitive Order: Free Markets, Neoliberalism, and Mass Incarceration in the United States. MuchhasbeenwrittenaboutMichelFoucaultscritiqueofneoliberalism,bothofneoliberalismin generalandofthethreedifferentvarietiesofneoliberalismthathespecificallydiscussedinhis1979 lectures(GermanOrdoliberalism,FrenchGiscardianneoliberalism,andtheChicagoSchool).Inthis essay,IexploreFoucaultscritiqueofAmericanneoliberalismspecifically,anditsrelationtocontem porarypunitivepracticesintheUnitedStates.

Peter Miller: The Calculating Self Overthirtyyearsago,itwassaidthatwegoinsearchofourselvesthroughthegenitals.Today,in contrast,wefindwhowearethroughtheincessantcalculationsthatweperformonourselvesand others.Thisisnodoubttooverstatethingssomewhat,butrecenteventsinfinancialmarketsand theirconsequentimpactonpublicservices,combinedwithongoingattemptstomodernisepublic services,havegivenevengreaterprominencetothecalculatingselfinallitsmanifestations.

IfIcanclaimtohavelearnedanythingfromthewritingsofMichelFoucault,itistheimportanceof exploring how ways of calculating go hand in hand with the shaping of subjectivity or forms of personhood. For some years now, along with others, I have been trying to explore how one particularsetofgovernmentalpracticeswhichgoesveryroughlyundertheheadingofaccounting hasenabledthecalculatedmanagementoflife(KurunmkiandMiller,2006;Miller,1994,1998; MillerandOLeary,1987).Thisadjustmentoralignmentbetweentheaccumulationanddistribution ofpersonsandtheircapacitiesontheonehand,andtheaccumulationanddistributionofcapitalon the other, was at the heart of what Foucault called biopower. But, perhaps due to the long shadow cast by Marxism, this is something that has been relatively neglected by those working withinandthroughgovernmentality(MillerandRose,2008;RoseandMiller,1992). I offer here four propositions that I have found helpful as a way of framing the sorts of questions that can be asked about this specific, albeit increasingly generalised modality of being and acting. Many (if not all) of these will be familiar to those who have been working in and around governmentality,butIwanttosuggestthattheyhaveaparticularmeaningwhenviewedintermsof thecalculatingself. First, and in common with many other technologies of the self, to attend to the calculating self means attending to the possibilities for acting on oneself and on the actions of others. But, by abstractingfromthesubstanceofthings,andbydistillingsubstantivelydifferentkindsorclassesof thingsintoasinglefinancialfigure,aparticulartypeofactionismadepossiblehere.Itisonethat allows the actions of free individuals to be linked, directly or indirectly, to the requirements of markets and the commensuration that they engender. The term mediating instruments (Miller, KurunmkiandOLeary,2010;MillerandOLeary,2007)captureswellthisabilityofthecalculating selftocarrywithinitatleastadualsetofideas,whetherthesepertaintoscienceandtheeconomy, ormedicineandfinance. Second, a concern with the calculating self means paying attention to the particular ideas of personhood that are brought into play in all these attempts to act on the actions of others. It concerns what Nietzsche called the possibility of breeding an animal with the right to make promises,butagaininaspecificsense.Thisisnotamatterofconductinginvestigationsatthelevel of political theory, but within and across the lowly domain of administrative discourse and administrative science, where notions of responsibility accounting, decisionmaking and much elsebesideshavesoughttoimposeasortofmoralconstraintortemplateontheactionscarriedout undertheiraegis.Itishere,Isuggest,thatweseeoneoftheclearestformsofatypeofpowerthat presupposesratherthanannulsthecapacitiesofagents. Third,Isuggestweneedtoattendtotheassemblageswithinwhichthecalculatingselfoperates,and theterritorialisationstheyseektoimpose.Forthecalculativeinstrumentsofaccountancynotonly transformthepossibilitiesforpersonhood.Theyalsoconstructthecalculablespacesthatindividuals inhabitwithinfirmsandotherorganizations.Whetheritisanactualphysicalspacesuchasafactory floor or a hospital ward, or an abstract space such as a division, a cost centre or a profit centre,orevenanideasuchasfailure,thecalculativeinstrumentsofaccountancyterritorialise, andintheprocessreframetheobjectsandobjectivesofgoverning.Andtheydosoinsuchawayas tolinkhighlyspecificdomainssuchashealthcareorsocialcarewithlargerpoliticalcategories.

Fourth, a concern with the calculating self means that we need to understand better its ability to travel.Whilesomeideasandpracticestravellight,othersappeartooheavytotraveleasily.Put differently, the interdependence between the instruments for the governing of conduct, and the rationalitiesthatarticulatetheaimsandobjectivesofgoverning,seemsattimestoencounterlimits regarding what can be done and where (Mennicken, 2008). Standard costing, for instance, was equallyathomeintheverydifferentassemblagesoftheSovietUnionandtheUnitedStatesinthe earlydecadesofthetwentiethcentury.Audit,likewise,seemstodaytotraveleffortlesslyacrossa vast range of territories (Power, 1997). But other devices (for instance, something called accruals accounting)seemtotravellesseasily.Thissuggeststhatwestillhavemuchtofindoutabouthow the calculating self travels, and how this peculiarly modern form of personhood is fashioned and refashionedinhistoricallyspecificassemblages. References Kurunmki, L. and P. Miller (2006) Modernising Government: The Calculating, Self, Hybridisation andPerformanceMeasurement,FinancialAccountabilityandManagement22,pp.87106. Mennicken,A.(2008)ConnectingWorlds:TheTranslationofInternationalAuditingStandardsinto PostSovietAuditPractice,Accounting,OrganizationsandSociety33,pp.384414. Miller, P. (1994) Accounting and Objectivity: The Invention of Calculating Selves and Calculable Spaces,inA.Megill(ed.),RethinkingObjectivity(Durham:DukeUniversityPress). Miller, P. (1998) The Margins of Accounting, in M. Callon (ed.), The Laws of the Markets (Basil Blackwell,1998)pp.174193. Miller, P. and OLeary, T. (1987) Accounting and the Construction of the Governable Person, Accounting,OrganizationsandSociety,Vol.12,No.3(1987)pp.235265. Miller, P., L. Kurunmki and T. OLeary (2010) Calculating Hybrids, in V. Higgins and W. Larner (eds.),CalculatingtheSocial:StandardsandtheReconfigurationofGoverning(Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan). Miller, P. and T. OLeary (2007) Mediating Instruments and Making Markets: Capital Budgeting, ScienceandtheEconomy,Accounting,OrganizationsandSociety32,pp.701734. Miller, P. and Rose, N. (2008) Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life(Cambridge:PolityPress). Power,M.(1997)TheAuditSociety:RitualsofVerification,Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress. Rose, N. and P. Miller (1992) Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government, BritishJournalofSociology43,pp.173205.

Jonathan Simon : From the Medical Model to the Humanitarian Crisis Model: Californias Prison Health Crisis and the Future of Imprisonment

FoucaultsDisciplineandPunishwaspublishedintheUnitedStatesin1977justasCaliforniasprison systemwasundergoinganepochalshift.Inthemid70sitwasreachingits20thcenturylowinterms ofimprisonmentrateasitpursuedjustthekindofcommunitybasedrehabilitativepenalpractices Foucaultwouldhavepredicted.Howeverafterabriefrerunofthelate18thcenturydebatesabout punishmentandjustice,thestatesetitselfonacourseofrapidprisonexpansionthatwouldseea quintuplingoftheprisonerpopulationbytheendofthecentury;andembracedamodelofpenality that would see therapy and rehabilitation shunted aside for maximum security incapacitation. In betweenthesepointswecandiscerntwodistinctpenalregimes,andpossiblytheemergenceofa third.Eachreflectsthecontinuingfertilizationbetweenthepenalfieldandthehealthcarefieldthat FoucaultdemonstratedinDisciplineandPunish.Inthe1970sCaliforniaprisonswerestillorganized alongamedicalmodelinwhichpenaltechniquesaimedatresolvingindividualdiseasesofthewill. Inthe1980sand1990sCaliforniareorganizedprisonsaroundamodelofquarantineinwhichprisons wereexpanded(andyetemptiedoftheirtherapeutictechnologiesofpower)tocontainagrowing class of high risk Californians whose collective physical presence was deemed a threat to the community.Theresulthasbeenahumanrightscatastropheinwhichprisonsareoperatedat2to3 times the design capacity and inmates die weekly from routine unmet medical and mental health needs.Courtshoweverhavebeguntointervene,orderingthestatetoreduceitsprisonpopulation and restore adequate physical and mental treatment of the individual prisoner. Out of this, it is possible, a new model of imprisonment is emerging, one based on the global practice of humanitariancrisismedicine.