Liberalism, Governmentality and Counter-Conduct; An Introduction to Foucauldian Analytics of Liberal Civil Society Notions
Pyykkönen, M. (2015). Liberalism, Governmentality and Counter-Conduct; An Introduction to Foucauldian Analytics of Liberal Civil Society Notions. Foucault Studies, 20, 8-35. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i0.4925
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Foucault StudiesAuthors
Date
2015Copyright
© Miikka Pyykkönen 2015. This is an open access article published by Copenhagen Business School.
This article gives an analysis of Foucault’s studies of civil society and the various
liberalist critiques of government. It follows from Foucault’s genealogical approach that “civil
society” does not in itself possess any form of transcendental existence; its historical reality must
be seen as the result of the productive nature of the power-knowledge-matrices. Foucault emphasizes
that modern governmentality—and more specifically the procedures he names “the conduct
of conduct”—is not exercised through coercive power and domination, but is dependent on the
freedom and activeness of individuals and groups of society. Civil society is thus analyzed as
fundamentally ambivalent: on the one hand civil society is a field where different kinds of technologies
of governance meet the lives and wills of groups and individuals, but on the other hand
it is a potential field of what Foucault called ‘counter-conduct’ – for both collective action and
individual political action.
Publisher
Copenhagen Business SchoolISSN Search the Publication Forum
1832-5203Keywords
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http://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/view/4925Publication in research information system
https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/25470187
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