Foucault's new conceptualisation of power

Today, very few would doubt that there are plenty of reasons to liken Weber's and Foucault's theories of power. Nevertheless, their respective works have divergent ethical and ontological preoccupations which should be reconsidered. This article explores Foucault's account of a historical episode in Discipline and Punish and Weber's theory of life spheres, uncovering evidence that there is a need to reassess the conceptual bridges which have been built so far. The exploration reveals a radical difference between a monological theory of power (Foucault) and a multidimensional approach to power (Weber). Yet by unbridging the two thinkers and focusing on other aspects of their theories along with their ideas about power, we also find that alternative links between the two frameworks may offer a more promising critical theory.

Sociological Problems (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Special Issue edited by Antoinette Koleva, Kolyo Koev, Michel Foucault: New Problematizations, 2016

Foucault’s lectures in 1976 open with the statement of an intellectual crisis. They proceed to a series of questions about the nature of power and the ways that he has conceived of it up to this point: what is power? How is it exercised? Is it ultimately a relation of force? Only some of these questions are answered in the course of these lectures. His answer to the conceptual questions about the nature of power and the appropriate means to analyze it is not forthcoming until after the discovery of ‘governmentality’ in 1978 and his lectures on liberal and neoliberal governmentality in 1979. This talk aims to retrace his answers to these questions in the light of the published lectures and to examine the consequences of these answers for his overall approach to the analysis power, and for his analysis of liberal and neoliberal governmental power.

This essay analyses Foucault's revolutionary thought on power and knowledge, and their relationship in society. It first ascertains what Foucault means by 'power', i.e. its un-objectivity as 'force relations', to then uncover power's intrinsic relationship with knowledge, or rather 'systems of knowledge' in the form of discourse. Due to Foucault's very atypical, unconventional view on society, and power itself, this essay first ascertains what Foucault does not mean by 'power', as a means of separating any personal preconception the reader may have with Foucault's vision.

The author argues for bringing the work of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt into dialogue with respect to the links between power, subjectivity, and agency. Although one might assume that Foucault and Arendt come from such radically different philosophical starting points that such a dialogue would be impossible, the author argues that there is actually a good deal of common ground to be found between these two thinkers. Moreover, the author suggests that Foucault's and Arendt's divergent views about the role that power plays in the constitution of subjectivity and agency should be seen as complementary rather than opposed.

Academia, 2021

I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyse the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. (Foucault, 1982: 208). Does "Power" Exist? The exercise of power is not simply a relationship between partners, individuals or a collective; it is a way in which certain actions modify others. Which is to say, of course, that something called Power, with or without a capital letter, which is assumed to exist universally in a concentrated or diffused form, does not exist. (Foucault, 1982). "An Economy of Power" The elements Foucault expouses by their very nature are best suited to an economy of power. His questions are not what is power? What is the general system of power?-or even, How is power exercised in organisations? But rather: What are the main characteristics of power relations in our society today? How did they appear? On what rationality are they sustained? 2

International Journal for Innovation Educations and Research, 2018

This work seeks to reconstruct Michel Foucault's power analysis methodology in order to understand how he overcomes the classical theories of power by proposing a way of seeing power as a relation that occurs between subjects. In order to do so, the relations between truth and power will be analyzed, as well as the methodological premises elaborated by the author in his main works on power.

Global Society, 2017

This article demonstrates how Foucault's notion(s) of power can be misappropriated to International Relations (IR) thought. After considering Foucault's early and late work, the article reveals the complexity of his thought, describing how he developed his notion(s) of power and their effects on subjectivity and freedom. Although a number of IR scholars have revealed the challenges of appropriating Foucaultian thought to IR, their approaches highlight the effects rather than the causes of such (mis)appropriation. By unveiling the causes, this article informs IR scholars on how to avoid this (mis)appro-priation and points their attention to the interplay among power, subjectivity and freedom, which is often neglected. Therefore, critical value is added to the Foucaultian IR debate by analysing how Foucault perceived freedom, its association with power and the effects on the subject's agency.

Praxis International

Until his untimely death in 1984, Michel Foucault had been theorizing about and practicing a new form of politically engaged reflection on the emergence and nature of modern societies. This reflection, which Foucault called "genealogy," has produced some extremely valuable results. It has opened up new areas of inquiry and problematized new dimensions of modernity; as a result, it has made it possible to broach political problems in fruitful new ways. But Foucault's work is also beset by difficulties. It raises a number of important philosophical questions that it is not, in itself, equipped to answer. This paper aims to survey the principal strengths and shortcomings of Foucault's work and to provide a balanced assessment of it. Most generally, it is my thesis that Foucault's most valuable accomplishment I, consists of a rich empirical account of the early stages in the emergence of some distinctively modern modalities of power. This account yields important insights into the nature of modern power, and these insights, in turn, bear political sig-This paper was originally written in 1980431, before Michel Foucault's death. I cast it in the present and future tenses on the assumptions that my dialogue with him would be ongoing and that his thinking on the subjects discussed would continue to develop. Now that these assumptions no longer hold, I have had to reconsider the question of tense. I have proceeded as follows: in instances where the present or future tense seemed to me jartingly inappropriate, I have substituted the past tense; in instances where the present tense seemed to suggest, entirely rightly, the continuing relevance of Foucault's work, I have left it unchanged.

Rasiński L., Power, Discourse, and Subject. The Case of Laclau and Foucault, 2011

In this text the author draws on two contemporary accounts of power—by Michel Foucault and Ernesto Laclau—and, on the basis of thorough analysis and comparison, he argues for “the discursive account of power” (DAP) as a new concept reflecting the novel approach to the theory of power developed by these two philosophers. He opens with a broad methodological outline of contemporary concepts of power, distinguishing between the “classical” and the “modern” approaches. Basing his find-ings on Laclau’s and Foucault’s work, he then presents DAP as a theory characterized by decentralizing, on normative, and conflict-based tendencies that does not exhibit many of the limitations that usually characterize both classical and modern concepts of power. In the second part of the article the author presents a detailed methodological analysis of Foucault’s and Laclau’s concepts of power, focusing on three axes: power, discourse, and the subject. The author dedicates the last section to a comparison of both approaches, concluding that DAP is an inspiring project that exceeds the limits of traditional liberal theories of power and politics.

Systems practice

In this paper an interpretation of Foucault's work on power is presented. One aim is to introduce this aspect of Foucault's work to the emerging debate on Critical Systems Thinking. Another goal is to clarify how Foucauldian discourse about power can be framed within the notion of "interpretive analytics" (a term that describes Foucault's work, conceived by Dreyfus and Rabinow). This metalogical thinking proposes that archaeological and genealogical dimensions are proper methods for the study of the History of Thought. The interpretive space of experience-in which knowledge, power, and self are the axes of experience-is presented as a comprehensive model of the critical task of the History of Thought. Foucault's work is analyzed according to this model. Two conceptions of power arise from this analysis: the first conception is a peripheral view of power which raises key questions that drive the second, microphysical conception of power. We then demonstrate how the latter absorbs the former. The microphysical conception is based on a nominalistic view, which raises issues about nominalism in Foucault's critical thinking. These are addressed at the end of the article. KEY WORDS: interpretive thinking; critical thinking; power; systems philosophy. "... If experience is not a given that is then interpreted, but is itself already interpreted, observable change in patterns of interpretation and action will be the same as changes in subjective experience." D. Couzens Hoy 1. AN OVERVIEW OF FOUCAULT'S NOTION OF POWER 1.1. Introduction Seven years passed between the publication of Volumes 1 and 2 of the History of Sexuality. It seems that this was a time of rich reflection for Michel Foucault. The Introduction of the second volume provides a reflection on Foucault's pre-~Translated from Spanish and French by J. D~ivila and R. L. Flood. 2The translation was made possible by a British Council grant supporting research between the