2.3 Machtanalytik im Anschluss an Foucault: methodologische und analytische Perspektivierungen der governmentality studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-53
Author(s):  
Jan Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Governmentality Studies

Unemployment in the Affective Economy: Exploring the Affective Governing of Young Unemployed People in the Danish Welfare State

2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-361
Author(s):  
Sabina Pultz
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Unemployed People ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Governmentality Studies ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Unemployed ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract This case study investigates the affective governing of young unemployed people, and it concludes that getting money in the Danish welfare state comes with an “affective price”. In the quest for a job, unemployed people have been increasingly responsibilized in order to live up to the ideal of the active jobseeker. Consequently, when faced with unemployment, they are encouraged to work harder on themselves and their motivation. Based on an interview study with young unemployed people (N=39) and field observations made at employment fund agencies in Denmark (2014–15), I explore how young unemployed people are governed by and through their emotions. By supplementing governmentality studies (Foucault et al. 1988, 2010) with the concept of “affective economy” from Ahmed (2014), I discuss how young unemployed people who receive money from the Danish state are placed in a situation of debt. The paper unfolds how this debt becomes visible as the unemployed people often describe feeling under suspicion for not doing enough, for not being motivated enough. Through an abundance of (pro) activity, they have to prove the suspicion of being lazy wrong, and through managing themselves as active jobseekers, they earn the right to get money from the state. Here motivation, passion and empowerment are key currencies. I discuss the intricate interplay between monetary and affective currencies as well as political implications in the context of the Danish welfare. The article contributes by making visible the importance of taking affective matters into account when investigating the complex relationship between politics and psychology.

scholarly journals “Be authentic”: Authenticity Norms in German Politics and Self-Idealizations of Members of the Bundestag

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Geimer ◽  
Steffen Amling
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Authentic Self ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
German Politics ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
German Bundestag ◽  
Governmentality Studies ◽  
Professional Fields

This contribution goes back to a study of the formative power of identity norms in professional fields of occupation (fine arts and politics). In this article, we focus on the understanding of identity norms that members of the German Bundestag have to meet and/or to cope with. Thus, our research question is which demands professional politicians encounter and which ways of dealing with them are established. Operating at the intersection of governmentality studies, subjectivation analysis and qualitative inquiry, and based on narrative interviews with MPs, this paper demonstrates how in the field of German politics (at federal level) the MPs orientate their professional praxis towards the identity norm of an authentic self and conform to the expectation of a contradiction-free relationship between professional and private lives. In the process, the MPs develop idealizations of their selves in which aspects of their habitus become reflexive. We especially discuss these results against the backdrop of the emergence of modern parliaments and, methodologically, regarding the relation between habitual-implicit and reflexive-explicit structures of knowledge which are especially relevant in subjectivation analysis.

Tests, compromises and policy change

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
Magnus Paulsen Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Data Selection ◽  
Discursive Institutionalism ◽  
Case Selection ◽  
Pragmatic Sociology ◽  
Governmentality Studies

Chapter 2 introduces the meta-concepts inspired from French pragmatic sociology in order to develop an analytical model to map the plurality of moral and normative structures that are used to justify and criticise policies in public debate and lead to reforms in the governing of unemployment. The model is compared to other ideational perspective, mainly discursive institutionalism, discourse analysis and governmentality studies. Finally, the chapter presents how the model is operationalised through choices of case selection, data selection and coding procedures.

scholarly journals Governmentality and Statification: Towards a Foucauldian Theory of the State

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Hein Jessen ◽  
Nicolai von Eggers
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Government Administration ◽  
Foucauldian Theory ◽  
Governmentality Studies ◽  
Point Of Departure

This article contributes to governmentality studies and state theory by discussing how to understand the centrality and importance of the state from a governmentality perspective. It uses Giorgio Agamben’s critique of Michel Foucault’s governmentality approach as a point of departure for re-investigating Foucault as a thinker of the state. It focuses on Foucault’s notion of the state as a process of ‘statification’ which emphasizes the state as something constantly produced and reproduced by processes and practices of government, administration and acclamation. As a result of this, the state appears as a given entity which is necessary for the multiplicity of governmental technologies and practices in modern society to function. Only by reference to the state can governmental practices be effective and legitimized. Finally, the article conceptualizes the centrality of the state through Foucault’s (preliminary) notions of the state as a ‘practico-reflexive prism’ and a ‘principle of intelligibility’.

scholarly journals Citizens and Citizenship

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-48
Author(s):  
Dana Rem ◽  
Des Gasper
Keyword(s):  
Problem Formulation ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Policy Document ◽  
World Picture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Language Choices ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Governmentality Studies

The past generation has seen a switch to restrictive policies and language in the governance of migrants living in the Netherlands. Beginning in 2010, a new government with right-wing populist backing went further, declaring the centrality of proposed characteristic historic Dutch values. In this article, we investigate a key policy document to characterize and understand this policy change. Discourse analysis as an exploration of language choices, including use of ideas from rhetoric, helps us apply and test ideas from governmentality studies of migration and from discourse studies as social theorizing. We trace the chosen problem formulation; the delineation, naming, and predication of population categories; the understanding of citizenship, community, and integration; and the overall rhetoric, including chosen metaphors and nuancing of emphases, that links the elements into a meaning-rich world picture. A “neoliberal communitarian” conception of citizenship has emerged that could unfortunately subject many immigrants to marginalization and exclusion.

Making up leaders: Reconfiguring the executive student through profiling, texts and conversations in a leadership development programme

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (9) ◽  
pp. 1226-1248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Meier ◽  
Brigid Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Development Programme ◽  
Leader Identity ◽  
Governmentality Studies ◽  
Made In

Are leaders born or made? In this study of contemporary leadership development programmes, we find that leaders are not only made but also – in Ian Hacking’s sense – made up. Such programmes increasingly employ practices like personality profiling, appraisals, feedback and coaching aimed at creating knowledge about individual leaders in order for them to develop. The effects of these practices on participants have been theorized in terms of identity regulation and resistance, yet in our view the situated accomplishments of authority and identity remain inadequately theorized. This study follows a number of such practices as texts and conversations, and shows how a programme participant’s leader identity becomes authorized and acknowledged as participants and instructors ventriloquize texts in conversations. We theorize this as identity reconfiguration, as it entails the continual staging and authorizing of diverse figures. Our findings have implications for the relation between governmentality studies and studies of texts and conversations in leadership development programmes as well as for how we approach agency and context in this realm.

Genealogy and Governmentality

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Biebricher
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Measuring Device ◽  
Future Research Agenda ◽  
History Of ◽  
Governmentality Studies ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe essay aims at an assessment of whether and to what extent the history of governmentality can be considered to be a genealogy. To this effect a generic account of core tenets of Foucauldian genealogy is developed. The three core tenets highlighted are (1) a radically contingent view of history that is (2) expressed in a distinct style and (3) highlights the impact of power on this history. After a brief discussion of the concept of governmentality and a descriptive summary of its history, this generic account is used as a measuring device to be applied to the history of governmentality. While both, the concept of governmentality and also its history retain certain links to genealogical precepts, my overall conclusion is that particularly the history of governmentality (and not necessarily Foucault's more programmatic statements about it) departs from these precepts in significant ways. Not only is there a notable difference in style that cannot be accounted for entirely by the fact that this history is produced in the medium of lectures. Aside from a rather abstract consideration of the importance of societal struggles, revolts and other forms of resistance, there is also little reference to the role of these phenomena in the concrete dynamics of governmental shifts that are depicted in the historical narrative. Finally, in contrast to the historical contingency espoused by genealogy and the programmatic statements about governmentality, the actual history of the latter can be plausibly, albeit unsympathetically, read in a rather teleological fashion according to which the transformations of governmentality amount to the unfolding of an initially implicit notion of governing that is subsequently realised in ever more consistent ways. In the final section of the essay I turn towards the field of governmentality studies, arguing that some of the more problematic tendencies in this research tradition can be traced back to Foucault's own account. In particular, the monolithic conceptualisation of governmentality and the implicit presentism of an excessive focus on Neoliberalism found in many of the studies in governmentality can be linked back to problems in Foucault's own history of governmenality. The paper concludes with suggestions for a future research agenda for the governmentality studies that point beyond Foucault's own account and its respective limitations.

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