University of Flensburg MA European Studies Central European Ideas: Legal History of European Ideas

Critical comment on Michel Foucaults lectures Security, Territory, Population (25 January and 8 February 1978)

Prepared by: Maryna Shchaveleva 2nd Semester

Flensburg

2011

In his cycle of lectures under the name of Security, Territory, Population, Michel Foucault traced the genealogy of liberalism and, in this context, introduced the original concepts of biopower and governmentality with the purpose of explaining contemporary power relations, as he perceived the conventional understanding of the state and the process of governance as too limited and narrow. In a certain way, this makes Foucaults work similar to Machiavellis Prince not only because both of them focused on the art of governance, but also due to the fact that each of these writings became a milestone denoting a significant shift of the paradigms concerning the principles and instruments of governing. While exploring the history of power, Foucault was, in fact, looking at the history of power strategies. He developed a theory in which three kinds of power are outlined. The first one, called sovereign, or juridical, is based on law and is characterized as a negative kind of power meaning that there are legal regulations defining everything that is prohibited, that ought not to be done, dividing thus all possible actions into right and wrong. Foucault refers to the sovereign power as to archaic, the fist one to dominate in the world historically. The second type is the disciplinary power which is positive: it establishes a certain norm on the basis of an optimal way of achievement of certain goals and creates a set of disciplinary regulations prescribing how people should behave, and such regulations are all aimed at reaching this norm. Thus, all people and their types of conduct are divided into normal and abnormal in regard to the predefined norm. Foucault calls the disciplinary power modern, because the period of its manifestation fell in the timeframe of the 16-17th centuries, after the sovereign power partially gave up its positions. The last kind of power, denoted as biopower, is a contemporary one it started unfolding from the 18th century on. It is neither positive, nor negative: it just lets events take their course, and when something unwanted comes up, it uses the mechanisms of security to correct this course, making the natural phenomena work in such a way, that they cancel out their own negative effects. This is quite different from the way other kinds of power usually handle undesired developments, as biopower doesnt try to prevent or suppress them directly. Similar to the disciplinary power, it is also based on the notion of norm, but this norm is of another kind: it is not pre-established, but derived from the specific situation itself, based on various statistical calculations. Foucault illustrates this with an example of combating the smallpox epidemics: unlike it was in cases of leprosy or plague, when the problem was dealt with by means of isolation of ill people or direct treatment of each of them and establishment of a certain prophylactic regimen which the healthy had to uphold (here we can see the legal and disciplinary mechanisms at work), the epidemics of smallpox correlated in time with the invention of vaccination and was managed in rather a different way. First of all, all kinds of statistical 3

calculations were made to determine how the disease spreads, which regions, groups of people and so on are affected most, what is the mortality rate, what are the risks of being infected despite vaccination, what are the costs of vaccination/treatment/losses, etc. Then a general normality curve was drawn out of those calculations, and also a number of more specific normality curves, e.g. for different risk groups. These curves were all different, but they all were, in a way, norms some more favorable, some less. The mechanism of coping with the epidemics consisted of bringing the most unfavorable normality curves closer to the general one and, thus, it was also modified, since its elements were changing. As Foucault puts it, all these mechanisms, unlike those of law or of discipline, do not tend to convey the exercise of a will over others in the most homogeneous, continuous, and exhaustive way possible. It is a matter rather of revealing a level of the necessary and sufficient action of those who govern. Another well-formulated explanation is given by Nick Butler in his review of Foucaults works: In contrast to legal prohibition and disciplinary regulation, security is concerned with the management of inevitable processes (neither good nor bad in themselves) which take place on the largest possible scale, which is to say, at the level of the population. To sum it up, biopower defines some optimal equilibrium and a certain range of acceptable and then tries to keep the situation in that range and bring it closer to the optimum using the principle of minimal intervention into the natural flow of events. This doesnt mean that the other techniques, meaning the techniques of juridical or disciplinary power, arent used when the biopower comes into action they still play a complementary role, but they arent the primary way of solving the problem any more. In fact, these three types of power always coexist, but at certain periods of history one or the other kind prevails, and this is why Foucault lists them as ancient, modern and contemporary. All three kinds of power have the same object, namely, the population, but they interpret this notion differently. For the sovereign power, population is one of its attributes: together with the territory it resides on, population contributes to the sovereigns might on condition that the people are obedient. The greater the territory of a state is, the larger its population, the more troops a king can mobilize to demonstrate his power, threaten and defeat his enemies. With the rise of the disciplinary power, the understanding of population shifted: it was seen now as a productive element, a source of wealth, which is illustrated by the example of mercantilist thought. Again, there was a condition that people needed to be able and willing to work, so that wealth could be created, and the size of the population was considered an important factor of productivity the bigger, the better. Finally, in terms of the biopower, the notion of population adopts the meaning in which Foucault is using it: a natural system with certain processes taking place inside of it, a system dependent on a number of different external variables starting from 4

climate and up to traditions and customs. It is at the same time a population of species in a pure biological sense and a public having a set of opinions, beliefs, interests, etc. The population is taken in its heterogeneity and multiplicity, as consisting of a variety of completely different, sometimes contradicting elements. What biopower does is not actually trying to combine all this elements in a certain fixed structure, but establishing flexible links and managing possible conflicts between them, thus reaching a dynamic equilibrium. It treats the population in its totality, not attempting to bring it to some kind of unity. Foucault states that all members of a population are driven, first of all, by their desires, and a combination of these desires forms collective interest. Managing collective interest is the essence of the process of governing the population which is, in fact, the main task of the liberal government (which uses biopower as its strategy). It is important to distinguish between ruling and governing: while ruling implies imposing sovereigns will upon his subjects and is always executed in terms of a definite territory, governing means guiding the subjects in a certain way and is executed precisely over people disregarding the geographical criterion (a king rules, but does not govern). While sovereign is defined as the one who can say no to his people, the person who governs is the one who thinks in which way he can say yes, or how he can handle collective interest. The meaning of Foucaults notion of governmentality is well-defined in Maurizio Lazzaratos essay Biopolitics/Bioeconomics: a politics of multiplicity: To govern means to ask the question of how to conduct the conduct of others. To govern is to exercise an action on possible actions. To govern means to act upon subjects who ought to be considered free. Thus, governing means not only satisfying the collective interest, but also, in a way, shaping it by influencing all spheres of peoples lives. And here we come to a very interesting paradox. On one hand, as its been mentioned before, the process of liberal governing assumes minimal intervention into the natural processes occurring within the population: just the necessary corrective actions should be taken, so that the unwanted phenomena even out themselves. On the other hand, Foucault defines biopower as an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations. So we could say that the maximal freedom and the absence of freedom are implied by this concept at the same time. At the first glance, this statement looks absurd, but, in fact, theres no logical mistake in it. What really happens when biopower comes into action is that the process of governance becomes decentralized (de-statealized, if I may to say so) and dispersed among multiple levels of society the power of governing is delegated to a number of various organizations and communities (e.g. NGOs, trade unions, religious organizations etc.) and to individuals themselves. In other words, governance is carried out both at the micro- and macrolevels. The macrolevel is the sphere of functioning of institutions which belong to the 5

traditional three branches or power legislative, executive and judicial. The microlevel, on the other hand, is the space in which all other non-governmental social structures operate, and this is precisely where the most important governing processes unfold. Furthermore, since governance becomes dispersed to such a great extent, it is able to go much deeper, to reach literally all spheres of peoples lives: the private sphere merges with the public one, zoe becomes, in fact, a part of bios. In terms of biopower, everything is important, nothing is irrelevant. Meanwhile now it gets even trickier biopower doesnt try to directly influence people and the way they act, like the other kinds of power do. Prohibition and coercion arent its instruments. It works in a much more refined way: it modifies the surroundings, the living conditions of people basically, forms the settings in which people make decisions and perform actions. And this leads us to the most interesting part of our analysis. Shaping conditions in which people make decisions is the central theme of the book Nudge. Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein who explore the concept of choice architecture. The fact that the circumstances in which choices are made always influence these very choices has been known to psychologists and marketing experts since long ago. And this is where Thaler and Sunstein depart from. They discuss several ways in which this knowledge can be applied, some of which are aimed at maximizing profits of the choice architects, others at improving the well-being of those who make choices. Since the book focuses mostly on economic implications of the choice architecture, I would like to put its argumentation aside for a moment and look at this concept from a broader perspective. Now, if we consider the fact that the actions of the members of a population can be influenced, without them realizing this, by arranging their habitat (this term seems very appropriate to me when the population is regarded from the biological point of view) in a particular way, we can see and this is very important that this is no less than pure manipulation. Here I would like to make a thesis based on my understanding of Foucault: governing a population in the biopolitical sense means manipulating it. Furthermore, if we recall the twofold definition of population as species and as a public, we could say that manipulation also occurs on the two levels: on one hand, it means influencing the living conditions of people, on the other shaping the public opinion. And this, in fact, implies that the power of governmentality is incredibly strong and far-reaching its much greater than the power which tries to impact people directly, because it is less visible, less identifiable and, therefore, harder to resist or escape. While the sovereigns dream, says Foucault, was a panopticon, so that no one could avoid being caught by his seeing eye, in the world where biopower operates on the basis of subtle influence direct control is simply not needed.

It goes without saying that the consequences of misuse of such a power (say, for pursuing whichever interests of those who govern) can be overwhelming, which reveals the urgent necessity of establishing certain limits upon its usage. This brings us back to the solution suggested by Thaler and Sunstein in their book: they come up with a concept of libertarian paternalism (remarkably enough, the contradiction contained in this word combination closely resembles the paradox discussed previously). The libertarian aspect, as the authors claim, lies in the straightforward insistence that, in general, people should be free do to what they like and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so. In other words, it secures the freedom of choice. The paternalistic aspect lies in the claim that it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence peoples behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better. Put somewhat differently, a paternalistic policy tries to influence choices in a way that will make choosers better off, as judged by themselves. So we see here quite an ambiguous phenomenon. Firstly, people are free in their choices, and this freedom is not only nominal, but also factual they arent disallowed or forced to act in a certain way. Secondly, the outcome of their choices is still largely predefined simply because the conditions are organized in a proper way and people are manipulated. But this manipulation has a specific goal the well-being of those who it is aimed at. And this is precisely the limit that should be imposed on the use of governance: governing the population in order to make it better off from its own point of view. In this connection it would be useful to note that Foucault derives governmentality from the pastoral power which, according to his belief, originated neither in the Greek, nor in the Roman tradition, but in the East, and especially in Christianity. The pastoral power is characterized by a number of features which make it different from the kind of power based on ruling (the one of a sovereign) and similar to the strategies based on governing (the disciplinary and the biopower). First of all, it is executed not over the territory, but over the flock (population), namely, the flock in movement, and this strongly relates it to the biopower, for which circulation is essential. Second, what is much more important in the context of what has been discussed previously, it is beneficent and selfless, or intermediary, meaning that it is directed exclusively at taking care of the needs of the flock and must not be used for satisfying interests of the shepherd (here comes a strong link with libertarian paternalism). Besides, the shepherd needs to look after each sheep and the whole flock at the same time, and we see that the first part of this statement resembles the principle of the disciplinary power (for which individuals are the main objects) and the second goes in line with the way biopower treats population no longer as a mass of individual bodies, but taking it as a whole. Saying that the concept of the pastoral power did not come into being in Greece, Foucault notes that the comparison of a ruler with a shepherd did take place in the Greek philosophy, 7

particularly in Platos Statesman, but it had quite a different meaning from that which is implied by Christianity. The power of the Greek, as well as Roman, rulers was characterized by splendor and might, it was exercised over a city state, an empire (i.e. over a definite territory), and it was based on law. So it was the power of a sovereign in its essence. Platos statesman was the one who learnt the divine principle the opinion about the honourable and the just and good and their opposites, which is true and confirmed by reason. In other words, statesman is the person who cognized the law and, thus, knows what is right and what is wrong precisely what defines the sovereign power in Foucaults interpretation. Thereto, we find further proof of the similarities of Platos understanding of the proper politics with Foucaults concept of the sovereign power and its differences with the notion of the pastoral power in Statesman: the legislator who has to preside over the herd, and to enforce justice in their dealings with one another, will not be able, in enacting for the general good, to provide what is suitable in each particular case. The words legislator and enforce justice, once again, indicate that this power is based on the rule of law, while the last part of the phrase contradicts the pastoral requirement of taking care of each sheep in the flock. That Plato speaks about the general good which is the typical goal of a shepherd pictured by Foucault does not, in fact, refute our argument: the pastoral power is characterized mainly and in the first place by pursuing the wellbeing of the flock, while in terms of the sovereign power, its only one of its features, with the prosperity of a sovereign being just as necessary and important. So far we have discussed the connection between the disciplinary and the biopower with the pastoral power on one hand and between the sovereign power and the Greek political philosophy on the other. Now, Foucault didnt explore this, but perhaps it would also be possible to establish a link between these two general tendencies of ruling and governing if we consider the notion of the sacramental power. Taken that God is the ultimate sovereign, the ruler of all people, and at the same time the primary shepherd of the human flock, the one who guides and takes care of all, or delegates these functions to an earthly shepherd a king (this theme can be found in many pre-Christian Eastern traditions, as well as in Christianity itself), we might suppose that Gods power, manifested through the power of the church which both rules (e.g. through the canon law) and governs (e.g. through the procedure of confession) its congregation, is something that, in a way, combines both strategies, exerts control on peoples bodies and souls all at once. Thus, we can complete the circle of different kinds of power now, assuming that despite their being quite different from each other in their essence and in the mechanisms they use, it is still possible to trace a certain association between all of them.

Bibliography 1. Butler, N. (2007). The Management of Populations. Ephemera, vol. 7(3). Retrieved from http://www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/7-3/7-3butler.pdf. 2. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977-78. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 3. Lazzarato, M. (2005). Biopolitics/Bioeconomics: A Politics of Multiplicity. Retrieved from http://www.generation-online.org/p/fplazzarato2.htm. 4. Plato (2008). Statesman. Forgotten Books. Retrieved from http://books.google.de/books? id=VUKZiChXap0C&lpg=PP1&dq=plato%20statesman. 5. Thaler, R., Sunstein, C. (2009). Nudge. Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness. London: Penguin Books.