Talk:Governmentality

Tone and rigour
"The technologies of the market that underlie the practice of going to the gym can be described as the technology of desire..." What kind of a sentence is this? -- Typewritten 12:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * technology of desire is a term - it means that "they" (those who govern) use desire to induce people to govern themselves, it is therefore a type of "technology of rule" specifically, a "technology of the market". JenLouise 23:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually I was talking about the "that underlie the practice of going to the gym" bit (maybe some other bits too). A little bit... err... casual and bizarre, isn't it? Never mind. -- Typewritten 19:47, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It is the example that was used by our lecturer in the course on governmentality which made it eaiser to understand the way it works etc. and how Foucault thought of government as no longer needing to force the population to do things and govern them directly, but was now able to get them to govern themselves. I thought that it would be useful in understanding the concept - but if not, feel free to remove it. JenLouise 02:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Just an idea: what about Wikipedia as an example of governmentality? Might be a good illustration. -- Typewritten 07:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Foucault and others' views
Further reviews of this article may need taking into account the fact that, although originated in Foucault's work, a great deal of what is done under the rubric of "governamentality" in the Anglo-American literature is not always exactly in tune with Foucault's own use of the term (probably because his full 1978-1979 course remained unpublished until 2004 in French, and still not translated to English yet). For instance, seing governmentality as the "dramatic expansion in the scope of government" may be a legitimate vision of the concept, but not Foucault's. For Foucault, the "Etat de police" was one type of governmentality, and the neoliberal "Etat de droit" another one (among others). -- Typewritten 15:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know anything about governmentality as it is used by other theorists, but I believe that the article should not deal with these different definitions together. I would propose having a section on "Focault & governmentality" or something and then another section on each of the other theorists who have differing definitions. However someone else would need to provide the content for these sections. That way anyone who looks at the article hoping to find out about Foucault's governmentality will be able to get a good undertanding of it, anyone else will see all the other definitions. JenLouise 23:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Have changed the heading to reflect that this section is only Foucault's use of the term. Anyone can now add in others use of the concept. JenLouise 02:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry JenLouise. What I meant was precisely the opposite. The article rather expresses the view of the "governmentality school", i.e. the view of the authors referred to (e.g. Mitchell Dean, Nicholas Rose, etc.), not the original use of the term by Foucault himself. This section is thus best titled as "further developments of the concept", or something like that. I will take the liberty to change. On the overall, the only thing that I think needs to be suggested so far (and I added earlier a couple of paragraphs accordingly) is that the notion comes from Foucault, but has become a concept with its own live in the hand of the English-speaking authors that have launched this idea of "governmentality studies", and proposed their own theorising -- creative at some point, and not totaly in line with Foucault. There are ideas in the article that are contradictory with Foucault's lectures. There is no point in mentioning this technical points so far, but it's good at least to mention this. -- Typewritten 07:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Typewritten's first statement is spot on - in fact, it's an enormous understatement: the problem is not that there are other authors whose views on governmentality are cited, but that a) in some cases, these views are plain wrong (e.g. governmentality has precious little to do with "a/the" government, except in the sense that the latter is part of the former, so from what is written here, Hunt & Wickham are a million miles from the mark); and b) Foucault gives a beautiful definition of G as the point of "contact between the technologies of domination of others and [technologies] of the self" (Foucault, Michel. "Technologies of the Self." Technologies of the Self: a Seminar with Michel Foucault. Ed. Luther H. Martin et al. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1988. pp. 16-49; quotation pp.18-19) which for some reason isn't used here. Foucault was also extremely clear that understanding 'Power' means looking at local practices, and seeing how they 'connect up' (not necessarily coherently), and (analysing) what "a/the" government does falls under that rubric. That's the whole point of dropping a 'theory' of power in favour of an analytics of power which 'cuts off the king's head', isn't it? 88.110.254.54 16:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Klimt.Eastwood
 * This article is by no means complete. I'd say the reason Foucault's definition of G as the point of "contact between the technologies of domination of others and [technologies] of the self" was because no-one knows enough about it to add it in. If you do, then please consider adding it in yourself. JenLouise 06:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

While Lemke, Rose & Miller have all contributed quite significantly to the expansion of governmentality, I'm a little surprised that more authors haven't been included. If anyone is interested in expanding this, I think the work of David Garland (such as his book The Culture of Control) would be a good starting point. --Criminologychick (talk) 13:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Governmentality and governance
Another issue for discussion: some people use "governmentality" and "governance" indistinctively. But they are completely different notions -- to some extent. "Governance" is a functional idea, it conveys and idea of regime of coordination. "Governmentality" is a philosophical or sociological concept. Also, on the overall, "governmentality" is not to be used as just another synonym of "government", "governance" or even or "power" or "control". -- Typewritten 07:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Counter-argument: I disagree and would like to see the parenthetical “not to be confused with governance” removed. Plenty (100s of articles across a swath of domains) has been written that directly links governmentality and governance, even in a narrow and specific sense. This may or may not be Foucault’s original idea, but that’s a matter for the Foucault scholars to tease out, not for a encyclopedia to arbiter.Quinn d (talk) 21:12, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with "mentality"
I'm quoting from the english version of Foucault's lectures, a footnote from publishers:

"Contrary to the interpretation put forward by some German commentators [...] – the word “governmentality” could not result from the contraction of “government” and “mentality,” “governmentality” deriving from “governmental” like “musicality” from “musical” or “spatiality” from “spatial,” and designating, according to the circumstances, the strategic field of relations of power or the specific characteristics of the activity of government. The translation of the word by “Regierungsmentalität,” which appears in the text presenting the colloquium “Governmentality Studies” in Vienna on 23-24 March 2001, is therefore a mistranslation". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.236.15.214 (talk) 15:53, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Neoliberal Bias
Feel free to reinstate, but I took this out at the end of 'Mentality of rule': "This freedom is a different freedom to that offered in the past. It is a freedom to realize our potential and our dreams through reshaping the way in which we conduct our lives.". Not cited and pretty political in my opinion! I'm pretty sure not everyone would agree this is the 'mentality' of neoliberalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.80.189 (talk) 16:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

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