Discipline and Governmentality

This chapter provides an overview and analysis of the governmentality approach inspired by the work of Michel Foucault. It situates the French philosopher’s most popular lecture on the subject within the broader series of lectures of which it formed a part. In this series, Foucault outlined what he saw as a new form of governance which emerged in 18th and 19th century Europe, which gave rise to a complex array of innovative programmes and techniques for the ‘conduct of conduct’. Discipline, one of Foucault’s perhaps most famous ideas, is located here as one of a number of new technologies of rule, though it is no more central to governmentality than biopolitics or police. The chapter goes on to contrast governmental analytics with the more sociological approaches to ‘social control’, and demonstrates that Foucault’s approach provides a useful way past the inherent limitations of such a concept.