Handbook on Governmentality. Research Handbooks in Political Thought series
Edited by William Walters and Martina Tazzioli. Edward Elgar Publishing 2023
The Handbook on Governmentality discusses the development of an interdisciplinary field of research, focusing on Michel Foucault’s post-foundationalist concept of governmentality and the ways it has been used to write genealogies of modern states, the governance of societal problems and the governance of the self.
Bringing together an international group of contributors, the Handbook examines major developments in debates on governmentality, as well as encouraging further research in areas such as climate change, decolonial politics, logistics, and populism. Chapters explore how governmentality reshapes policy analysis as political practice, the relationship between Foucault’s ideas of government and postcolonial experiences, and how governmentality can illuminate discourse on the green economy and biopolitics. Analysing how contemporary socio-political issues including feminist politics, migration, and racialized medicine are interwoven with the concept of governmentality, this Handbook sheds light on the modern-day uses of Foucault’s work.
Providing a comprehensive overview of research on governmentality, this Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of development studies, geopolitics, political economy, organizational studies, political geography, postcolonial theory, and public policy. It will also be a key resource for policy makers in the field looking for a deeper theoretical understanding of the topic.
Keywords: Governmentality; Biopolitics; Neoliberalism; Foucault; Genealogy; Power
Part I: GOVERNMENTALITY: GENESIS, ENCOUNTER, TRANSFORMATION
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Chapter 1: Foucault, governmentality, and the techniques of the self
Daniele Lorenzini
Chapter 2: The yoke of law and the lustre of glory: Foucault and Dumézil on sovereignty
Stuart Elden
Chapter 3: Governmentalizing ‘policy studies’
Carol Bacchi
Chapter 4: Governmentality and international relations: critiques, challenges, genealogies
Hans-Martin Jaeger
Chapter 5: Towards a postcolonial theory of crisis, neoliberal government, and biopolitics from below
Ranabir Samaddar
Part II: TALKING GOVERNMENTALITY
Chapter 6: Governmentality: a conversation with Wendy Brown, Partha Chatterjee and Nikolas Rose
Wendy Brown, Partha Chatterjee, Nikolas Rose, Martina Tazzioli, and William Walters
Chapter 7: Governmentality and beyond: an interview with Colin Gordon
Colin Gordon, Martina Tazzioli, and William Walters
Chapter 8: Governmentality in translation: an interview with Graham Burchell
Graham Burchell, Martina Tazzioli, and William Walters
Part III: GOVERNMENT AND ITS PROBLEMS
Chapter 9: The neoliberal welfare state
Ian Alexander Lovering, Sahil Jai Dutta, and Samuel Knafo
Chapter 10: Governmentality and security: governing life-in-motion
Jef Huysmans
Chapter 11: Secrecy beyond the state: governmentality, security and truth effects
Susanne Krasmann
Chapter 12: Governmentality and the subject of rights
Ben Golder
Chapter 13: Algorithmic governmentality: questions of method
Claudia Aradau
Chapter 14: Logistical power
Brett Neilson
Chapter 15: Governmentality and political ecology
Emanuele Leonardi and Luigi Pellizzoni
Part IV: GOVERNMENTALITY ACROSS NATIONS AND OTHER POLITICAL FORMATIONS
Chapter 16: Diminishing life: racialized medicine, neoliberalism, and precarity in the United States
Jonathan Xavier Inda
Chapter 17: French humanitarianism: governmentality and its limits
Miriam Ticktin
Chapter 18: EUrope’s border ensemble and the disorder of migrant multiplicities
Maurice Stierl
Chapter 19: Hukou and suzhi as technologies of governing citizenship and migration in China
Chenchen Zhang
Part V: GOVERNMENTALITY AND CONTESTATION
Chapter 20: Feminist politics and neoliberal governmentality: from co-option to counter-conduct
Srila Roy
Chapter 21: The practice of parrhēsia and the transformation of managerial governmentality
Richard Weiskopf
Chapter 22: Countering governmentality: enacting diverging territorialities by former enslaved people in Cauca, Colombia (1849-1886)
Cristina Rojas
Chapter 23: Insurgent politics: refugees, sans-papiers and deportees under asylum and migration laws
Clara Lecadet
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