Jean Bodin and biopolitics
While the number of studies on biopolitics, the literal power over life (bios), continues to grow, some parts of Michel Foucault’s original analysis have remained virtually unchallenged. For example, only a few thinkers have managed to contest his claim of biopolitics as an exclusively modern phenomenon. This current study aims to take part in the ongoing discussions concerning the history of biopolitics and the connection between life-optimizing biopolitics and the technology of sovereign power, which either disregards life or negates it altogether. We approach these topics by analyzing Jean Bodin’s political thought, which acts as a prime example of early modern biopolitics. What makes Bodin’s political works especially interesting is the fact that they appear to exemplify both sovereign power and biopolitics. We examine these issues by combining Foucauldian genealogy with political theory and intellectual history.
Bodin is a “populationist” who believes that the high number of citizens ought to be considered as the greatest wealth and strength of a commonwealth. The Angevin author is also interested in controlling the quality of the people with a magistracy of censors that purges undesirable individuals out of the commonwealth. Furthermore, he adopts other ancient and medieval ideas, such as those on climates, humors, and temperaments, which he believes hold considerable political weight. Bodin, who writes at the peak of the European witch hunts, maintains that sorcerers and sorceresses were behind many deaths, abortions, and even the fall of states. This problem includes a (bio)political element; purging the witches equates to safeguarding the people, the commonwealth, and the whole of humankind.
Establishing a biopolitical reading of Bodin’s texts allows us to take part in two additional discussions concerning the notion of biopolitics. Firstly, we assert that Giorgio Agamben’s equation of sovereign power and biopolitics is invalid. Bodin’s political thought proves that the two technologies can co-exist while maintaining their conceptual distinction. Secondly, we argue that Foucault is mistaken to presume that biopolitics is an explicitly modern occurrence. We argue that Bodin acts as a prime example of what could be described as biopolitics before the “biopolitical era” of modernity as defined by Foucault.
...
Publisher
Jyväskylän yliopistoISBN
978-951-39-8974-3ISSN Search the Publication Forum
2489-9003Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
- JYU Dissertations [867]
- Väitöskirjat [3598]
License
Related items
Showing items with similar title or keywords.
-
Legitimizing sex and empowerment : an interpretation of narratives on sex trade in Thailand
Busetto, Elisa (2015)This research investigates how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working against human trafficking in Thailand and male tourists travelling to Thailand for sex legitimize their actions and perspectives on their websites. ... -
Giorgio Agamben’s Critique of the Covid-19 Response has Little to Do with Biopolitics
Lindholm, Samuel (Routledge, 2024)Giorgio Agamben claims that the aggressive coronavirus response in Italy turned the nation’s entire population into formless bare life, which was cast out from meaningful human existence through a sovereign exception. This ... -
Luther and Biopower : Rethinking the Reformation with Foucault
Lindholm, Samuel; Di Carlo, Andrea (Copenhagen Business School, 2024)In this article, we propose an alternative Foucauldian reading of Martin Luther’s thought and early Lutheranism. Michel Foucault did not mention the Reformation often, although he saw it as an amplification of pastoral ... -
When did biopolitics begin? : Actuality and potentiality in historical events
Prozorov, Sergei (SAGE Publications, 2022)The article addresses the ongoing debate about the origins of biopolitics. While Foucault’s analysis of biopolitics approached it as a modern rationality of government, Agamben’s Homo Sacer series presented biopolitics as ... -
Foucault and the birth of psychopolitics : Towards a genealogy of crisis governance
Prozorov, Sergei (SAGE Publications, 2021)The article contributes to the genealogy of current tendencies in crisis governance by reconstructing Michel Foucault’s analysis of the application of the notion of crisis in 19th-century psychiatry. This analysis complements ...