Foucault News

Sergei Prozorov, Biopolitics After Truth. Knowledge, Power and Democratic Life, Edinburgh University Press, 2021. 2023 paperback

• Critically re-examines canonical theories of biopolitics in the post-truth context
  Argues for a positive role of truth-telling in the democratisation of biopolitical governance
• Undertakes a genealogical investigation of the origins of the contemporary post-truth regime in early post-communist politics
• Puts forward an innovative theory of the speech act of truth-telling in democratic biopolitics
• Draws on familiar examples from contemporary politics such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Greta Thunberg and Brexit

What makes post-truth politics so difficult to resist is its apparently democratic character that claims to challenge bureaucratic depoliticisation, the rule of experts and the disappearance of alternatives to the hegemonic policy. Sergei Prozorov refutes this interpretation, arguing that the post-truth ideology leads to the degradation of the public sphere that is essential to democratic governance. Rather than enable resistance to expertise-based biopolitical governmentalities, truth denialism dissolves the only framework where their contestation and transformation could take place. In contrast, Biopolitics after Truth argues for a positive role of truth-telling in the democratisation of biopolitical governance.

With thanks to Progressive Geographies for this news