IRSR INTERNATIONAL REVIEW of SOCIAL RESEARCH Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011, 109-124 International Review of Social Research

Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective

Călin COTOI• University of Bucharest

Abstract: The contemporary investigations on power, politics, government and knowledge are profoundly influenced by ’s work. , as a specific way of seeing the connections between the formation of subjectivities and population politics, has been used extensively in anthropology as neoliberal governmentalities have been spreading after the 1990s all over the world. A return to Foucault can help to clarify some overtly ideological uses of ‘neoliberalism’ in nowadays social sciences.

Keywords: governmentality, governance, ethnography, neoliberalism

‘The market is in human nature’ is the proposition that cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged; in my opinion, it is the most crucial terrain of ideological struggle in our time. Frederic Jameson

There is no alternative. Margaret Thatcher

Governmentality or ideology? some kind of vague and simplistic political alignment: anti-neoliberalism Neoliberalism has become – alongside on the left and pro-neoliberalism on or, sometimes, replacing ‘globalization’ the right. – one of the buzzwords in public and ddIn this article I propose a way academic discourses on the ‘form of out a narrow ideological meaning the world-as-a-whole’ (Robertson, of neoliberalism, by a close 1990). It is used to forge new academic reading of Foucault’s research on alliances and to identify new political, governmentality, of Nikolas Rose’s moral and epistemological enemies. governmentality studies and of some It works, many times, as an umbrella ethnographical case studies. concept or a badge that helps to create

•email: [email protected]. This paper was written with the support of the CNCSIS research grant nr 2077, IDEI programme, and the postdoctoral programme POSDRU ID 62259. © University of Bucharest, June 2011 110 | IRSR Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011

Governance or governmentality. A meanings. There is a normative one, question of truth usually spelled as ‘good governance’ - implying also the existence of ‘bad The 1980s were the period when Theda governance’, less used, though, in Skocpol, Juan Linz, P. Rueschemeyer or this negative form. One of the most Alfred Stepan (Evans & Rueschemeyer important texts that introduced this & Skocpol, 1985) were urging social meaning was Reinventing Government: scientists to ‘bring the State back in’, How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is but, also, the time when the critique Transforming the Public Sector of welfarism and all state centred (1992), written by David Osbourne approaches to public and social policies and Ted Gaebler that was used brought the field of ‘governance’ during the neoliberal attacks on ‘big to the fore front of social sciences government’ in USA and coincided investigations. The political power with the emergence of the ‘Washington was not seen anymore as a hegemonic, Consensus’ (Rose, 1999). thoroughly structurant, state dwelling ddThere is also a less normative, power. The analyses of modern control more descriptive and sociological systems were, gradually, disentangled meaning that has to do with the new from state centred theories. Non-state ‘ of governance’ or ‘social- authorities, expert systems (Giddens, political governance’ (Kooiman, 1990), quasi or non-governmental 2003; Rose, 1999). Jan Kooiman organizations, informal power systems defines governing and governance as and new forms of citizenship were connected concepts. Governing is ‘the seen as augmenting, subverting or totality of interactions, in which public competing with the centrality of state as well as private actors participate, power. Governance emerged as another aimed at solving societal problems umbrella concept referring to any or creating societal opportunities; ‘strategy, tactic, process, procedure or attending to the institutions as contexts programme for controlling, regulating, for these governing interactions; and shaping, mastering or exercising establishing a normative foundation authority over others in a nation, for all those activities’ and governance organization or locality’ (Rose, 1999: ‘the totality of theoretical conceptions 15). Used in this way, governance on governing’ (Kooiman, 2003: 4). could be applied to a huge area of ddThere are quite a few resemblances expertise, starting with business and between governance and govern- getting to universities, environment or mentality: both bring a critical stance cyberspace. Compared to the notions towards classic sociology dichotomies: of administration, management or state versus market and public versus reglementation, this notion seemed to private, both try to find new ways of be more flexible, less ideological and describing the ways political power more adapted to the modifications of is developing outside the state, the modern control systems brought by without ignoring, in the process, the global spread of neoliberalism. the importance of the state and the ddBesides this wide semantic field, doctrines and legitimacies connected governance has, also, two more precise with it. Both distance themselves from CĂLIN COTOI Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective | 111 an image of a state that is a continuous knowledges, technologies and experts process of expanding, centralizing and relatively autonomous from state and colonizing the ‘life worlds’ (Habermas, public institutions. 2000). Still, governmentality has ddThe analytics of governmentality, far more ambitious theoretical aims. as it is practised, following Michel Scholars working inside the ‘analytics Foucault, by Nikolas Rose, Barry of governmentality’ perspective are Hindes or Thomas Osborne is not critical towards ‘governance’ as they the same thing as the sociology of believe that, under the appearance governance. It is not about describing of a good connection to present day the organization and operationality of world and its new political forms, systems of governing and control, of there still lingers on, an anachronistic, political relations that appear between XIXth century concept of the state that public and private actors or of the sustains a fragmented state/ market/ constitution of self governing networks. civil society model (Rose, 1999). At its best, the object of investigation ddGovernmentality tries to dissolve the for governance is ‘an emergent pattern very roots of this compartmentalization. or order of a social system, arising The borders between public and out of complex negotiations and private, state and non-state, politic and exchanges between intermediate social non-politic are created and defined actors, groups, forces, organizations, inside the governmentality field public and semi-public institutions through historical series of conflicts, in which state organization are only continuities and new constructions one amongst many others seeking to that combine ideologies with practices steer or manage these relations’ (Rose, and technical knowledge. A change in 1999: 21; Kooiman, 1993) governmentality signifies a change in ddThe most concise definition of the ways state and life worlds are being governmentality that Foucault ever defined and separated; the borders produced, states that governmentality between state, market and social is the ‘conduct of conducts’ (conduite society are created by governmentality de conduits) (Foucault, 2008). This and not the other way around. The definition is not as simple as it may neoliberal governmentality is very seem. Governmentality analysis - and active and interventionist even when that differentiates it, radically, from it is a ‘minimal’ one. The interventions governance - a special stratum of are going on, and power seeps through discourses and practices of knowledge various crisscrossing capillaries and power (Rose 1999: 19). It is about in the social body: heterogeneous the emergence of specific ‘regimes of networks of actors and technologies; truth’, exploring the ways in which new fields of knowledge like social various modalities of speaking the sciences, economy, management or the truth are formed, authorised truth sociology of governance; old micro- speaking persons designated, and fields of power and expertise that are areas in which, about whom and from being connected in new ways. The where, statements, discourses and government that emerges is founded on practices rooted in truth are generated. heterogeneous networks of activities, Governmentality does not fetch a 112 | IRSR Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011 new theory or paradigm as much state reason principle and on the older as a new perspective, a new area of knowledge and ordering techniques research. The starting point consists embodied in the police sciences of a basic set of questions: how is it (Polizeiwissenschaften) and the state possible to utter true statements about sciences (Staatswissenschaften) persons, their behaviour and ways of (Foucault, 2007: 291). intervening on these? How were the ddThe French author uses a nominalist truths put into practice and by whom, methodology, which presupposes through which conflicts, alliances, that there are no such things as the blackmails, violences, seductions universals usually employed by social and subordinations, as alternative sciences and historiography: ‘state’, to what other truths? The area that ‘civil society’, ‘people’, ‘sovereign’ is thus opened by the analytics of and ‘subjects’. By dissolving these, governmentality is that part of the Foucault tries to understand how ‘history of the present’ created by practices, discourses and events are the invention, contestation and formed around that ‘something’, that operationalization of various rational empty place, where ‘state’, ‘politics’ programmes and techniques that try or ‘economy’ used to reside. to conduct behaviours so that specific ddFrom this point of view, ‘economy’ results can be obtained (Rose, 1999: does not appear as a kind of 20). The main focus is not so much organization or an organizing process on the significance of fundamental outside or against the state. Foucault texts and concepts but on bringing to considers that the emergence of light the possible ‘enunciation fields’, ‘economy’ means the appearance the practices that connect and make of new forms of knowledge and visible the relationship between words power that are best understood and concepts, the emotions that are as transformations of the former mobilized, the conditions of possibility disciplinary regimes. The liberal art of for enouncing ‘serious statements’ government shows the „reason of least (Foucault, 1996b; Dreyfus and government as the principle organizing Rabinow, 1983). Raison d’État itself’ (Foucault 2008: 28). When the bourgeois Le Gendre answers Colbert’s question: ‘What Back to Foucault can I do for you?’ by saying: ‘What can you do for us? Leave us alone’ Foucault’s research on neoliberal (Laissez-nous faire) (Argensson apud governmentality does not take Foucault, 2008: 19) this does not liberalism as a political theory, ideology mean he was placing himself outside or theoretical standpoint on modernity. of government. It is just that the state Liberalism and neoliberalism are reason was articulated on a new truth seen as practices, reflexive modes regime: the political economy. The of action, and special ways of government was, for the first time, rationalizing the governance. (Neo)li- being confronted, from the inside, with beralism differs from the disciplinary a place of its truth: the market, which governmental pattern, based on the became a natural mechanism through CĂLIN COTOI Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective | 113 which the practice of governing could society, based on social bonds created be, rationally, designed. If, beforehand, by the pure exteriority of exchange during the regime of cameralist Raison value, where the nefarious inversion d’État, the market functioned as a of the human relations with relations place of jurisdiction, a place of justice, among things is reigning supreme – of reglementations, ‘fair price’, equity commodity fetishism – may be society and correct distribution of goods, it as Toennies saw it (Gesellschaft) or became, in liberal and neoliberal times, capitalism as Marx analysed it, or a space of veridiction, of enouncing the even XIXth century liberalism, but it truth and of verifying the government. is not the society neoliberalism tries ddThe market creates the exchange to programme. At the core of this values and also the natural truth of neoliberal society is not the laissez- economic and government processes; faire commercial exchange but a the utility principle creates the value concurrential mechanism. It is not of public power acts. The market and about trying to create an exclusive the utility principle converge to form area where the sate cannot go, a kind the category of ‘interest’ and by doing of reciprocal tolerance or ignorance so the government becomes real, between state and market. Concurrence effective and influences individuals, is a formal, regulatory, pure and perfect actions, comportments, discourses structure, but, in the same time, it is a and properties (Foucault, 2007: 52). historically fragile formation that must The governmentality is put into act, be protected in order to be able to effectuated through the interests exist and to exercise its influence on and values that things get in the the whole social body. It emerges as ‘veridiction place’: the market. The the result of a continuous effort, of a people are governed by and through relentless activity of governmentality. their own interests. It is not just an This is, in Foucault’s view, the origin aggregation that happens at the level of ‘neoliberal policies’ – regulatory of political and economic theory. It is and ordering actions on the conditions an intimate modification of knowledge, of existence of this coherent but fragile government and subjectivities. structure of pure concurrence. The ddA new art of governing is being more the governmental intervention formed by the transformation of is abhorred at the level of the market, liberal governmentality. In a way, the more it is required on the technical, neoliberalism opposes one of the main juridical, demographic and social tenets of liberalism. The problem does levels (Foucault, 2007: 140). not consist anymore in the absolute ddThe only sound social policies autonomy of the economy but in are, from a neoliberal point of view, deciding how the political and social economic growth, access to private powers will articulate themselves in property and individual insurance. order to form the market economy Redistribution policies, social security (Foucault, 2007: 120). Neoliberalism or revenue equalization are the paragon is not endorsing a society totally of unsound policies. The neoliberal ensnared by the exchange values. The governance is not intervening on the soulless and inorganic commercial market – as many of the Keynesian 114 | IRSR Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011 policies of the welfare state did – this or that freedom, with but on the social tissue, so that the guaranteeing this or that freedom. concurrential mechanism can expand More profoundly, it is a consumer and multiply at all levels and in all of freedom. It is a consumer of regions of the social body. freedom inasmuch as it can only function insofar as a number of ddThe concurrential society, that is the freedoms actually exist: freedom envisaged result of the colonization of the market, freedom to buy and of this mechanism society wide, has sell, the free exercise of property as model and formative element the rights, freedom of discussion, enterprise and cannot be equated possible freedom of expression, with the old liberal society, seen, and so on. The new governmental critically, as Gesellschaft, commodity- reason needs freedom therefore, society, or ‘an immense accumulation the new art of government of commodities’ (Marx, 1961). In consumes freedom. It consumes Foucault’s view, neoliberal guvernment, freedom, which means that it must produce it. It must produce ‘which has now become the program it, it must organize it. The new of most governments in capitalist art of government therefore countries, absolutely does not seek the appears as the management of constitution of that type of society. It freedom, not in the sense of the involves, on the contrary, obtaining a imperative: ‘be free,’ with the society that is not orientated towards immediate contradiction that the commodity and the uniformity this imperative may contain. of the commodity, but towards the The formula of liberalism is not multiplicity and differentiation of ‘be free.’ Liberalism formulates enterprises’ (Foucault, 2008: 149). simply the following: I am going to produce what you need to be ddThe transformation brought by free. I am going to see to it that the replacement of exchange with you are free to be free. And so, competition, of liberalism with if this liberalism is not so much neoliberalism, had important effects: the imperative of freedom as the while exchange was seen as a natural management and organization human characteristic, competition was of the conditions in which one understood – by the German neoliberals can be free, it is clear that at the – as an artificial structure that must heart of this liberal practice is be actively protected. The economic an always different and mobile and social concurrential mechanism problematic relationship between the production of freedom and that presupposes a constant intervention which in the production of freedom from the state, not on the market, but risks limiting and destroying it. on the conditions of the possibility Liberalism as I understand it […], of the market (Foucault, 2007: 139; entails at its heart a productive/ Read, 2009: 28). As governmentality, destructive relationship with neoliberalism governs by giving the freedom [...]. Liberalism must impression that it is not governing. It produce freedom, but this very does this remarkable feast by creating act entails the establishment of and consuming a regime of ‘freedoms’: limitations, controls, forms of [T]his governmental practice […] coercion, and obligations relying is not satisfied with respecting on threats (Foucault, 2008: 63-4). CĂLIN COTOI Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective | 115

Human capital. Reverted Marxism into the fix capital (factories and machines) and so, they are reduced By placing Marx and neoliberalism in to an indigent and unqualified the perspective of a similar problem working force – the proletariat – that – that of work or labour – it becomes is historically destined to destroy possible to have a better glimpse on and replace capitalism by a global the functioning of neoliberalism that, historical dialectic (Marx, 1961). by generalizing the models and ideas ddHuman capital theories do not refer, of ‘entrepreneur’, ‘investition’ and explicitly, not even in a critical manner, ‘risk’ at the level of day to day life, to Marxism, but they look as if they radically undermines the possibility of were created as a radical alternative thinking exploitation as part of human to the Marxist analysis of labour and relationships (Read, 2009: 32). commodity. The core model of these ddLabour is, Marx taught us, a theories is the human-entrepreneur commodity amongst other commodities or the individual as entrepreneur of that is sold and bought on the market. herself. Compared to Marxism, the The wage is the pay due for buying the analytical focus is translated towards work-commodity, and is equivalent the subjective rationality of individual to the working time that is spent for choice, guided by interest. The place obtaining enough commodities for of ‘alienation’ is taken by that of reproducing the consumed working ‘rationality’ – understood as the choice force. Nevertheless, when work, the between rare resources. Work is no working force, is bought by the class longer a commodity bought by wage, that owns the production forces – the but a set of choices that constitute, capitalists – it will enter the production reproduce and make competitive the process and will engender plus product human capital. Wage is, basically, and plus value, being exploited and a revenue, a flux of revenues more alienated (Marx, 1949). How does an exactly, linked to a special kind of exchange process, a selling and buying capital: the human one (Becker, 1976). on the free market gives birth to plus- ddThe problem of human capital, value? By grossly simplifying Marx’s similar to the problem of work/ analysis, it can be said that this ‘magical’ working force in Marx’s theory, is that transformation happens because work it cannot be detached – as a system of is a special commodity that not only competences that can attract revenues has value but also produces value and – from the individual that bears it. is organically bounded to the working- The entrepreneur forms, together creative individual that transforms with his human capital, a ‘’, and creates nature during the working a mechanism for creating a flux of process. The working force is detached revenues. The human capital has, by by the individual through an alienating its human ‘captivity’, inborn, genetic process that stems from the intimate characteristics that enter into the overall workings of the capitalist production mechanism of choice between rare mode (Marx, 1961). The workers resources. Genetic manipulation, the competences - the living labour - are ways efficient genetic equipments are gradually alienated and incorporated managed and reproduced is, gradually, 116 | IRSR Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011 becoming a fundamental problematic of Political rationalities and go- neoliberal governmentality (Foucault, vernment technologies 2008; Rabinow, 1999). ddIn Foucault’s view, the human capital used the notions of theories have the role of expanding the govern/ governing/ government with neoliberal model of homo oeconomicus two meanings. The first is a general and of becoming a privileged partner one, referring to a large area of human for a type of governmentality that existence and experience, made up of works on the environment. It is ways of thinking and acting that have an ambiental governmentality that as their objective the transformation modifies the comportments of of human behaviour. Starting with late entrepreneur-individuals by changing antiquity, stoic philosophy, Christian the stimuli from the environment. This ‘pastoralism’ till modern ‘disciplinary’ kind of governmentality has concrete regimes, the technologies of the self, effects in the new management the various modalities of transforming strategies and techniques used for work and controlling it, are part of a rather organization. What used to be seen as continuous effort of Self care. What a kind of beneficial effect - workers makes these ‘techniques of the Self’, adaptation to big industry working governmental and not just moral, cultures and schedules – of disciplinary religious or philosophical is their technologies, becomes a problem intrinsic technicality. The efficacy of under the label of the ‘passivity’ of the governing of the Self comes from employees. This passivity hinders the connection between ideas and the flux, change and development of principles on one side and apparatuses new forms of capital – like human and physical, psychic, social and capital -, and calls for special kinds on cultural procedures on the other side. interventions: the employees are sent ‘Care for the self and for the other’ to row in canoes on dangerous rivers, enters into the everyday world by to climb rocks or to shoot at each journal writing, daily meditation, other with paint bullets in order to be nursing, confessionals, poverty and able to cope with risk and insecurity poor masses surveillance techniques, at the working place. Through audit financial analyses, and bookkeeping techniques, quality management, forms (Foucault, 2000; Foucault, financial standardization, participative 2007). management and private property ddThe second, narrower meaning of ideologies, managers aim to transform the term, refers to the ways in which the employees in ‘self-entrepreneurs’, the political elites, the ones who are individuals that self-regulate, self- governing a population and a territory, direct and are continuously in a process try to order ‘the multitudinous affairs of redefining their competences and of a territory and its population in of learning, in order to get the human order to ensure its wellbeing, and capital considered necessary for the simultaneously establishes divisions ever changing production conditions between the proper spheres of action (Dunn, 2004: 20; Shore and Wright, of different types of authority’ (Rose, 2000). 1996: 42). It is in this sense that the CĂLIN COTOI Neoliberalism: A Foucauldian Perspective | 117 concept of governmentality is used in populations, nations, economies, this paper. societies, communities, citizens, ddGoverning and behaviour control individuals, and entrepreneurs. This regimes as well as resistance or forms the epistemological structures subversive attempts, are forced to of governmentality. The specific rationalize the behaviours using as languages governmentality uses reference a value of truth. Politics are related to a set of intellectual is usually seen as the area where technologies that have the role to pragmatism, or, at least, an absolute create a reality that can be ‘developed’, and healthy distance to scientific or ‘modernised’ or ‘globalized’ (Rose, academic rationalities and forms, is 1996: 26; Rose, 1999: 42; Rose & carefully maintained. The analytics Miller, 1992: 179). of governmentality tries, counter- ddGovernmentality works through intuitively, to understand politics as a ‘discursive fields characterized by continuous process of rapport to truth. a shared vocabulary within which The perspective of ‘governmentality’ disputes can be organized, by ethical allows us to identify historical areas, principles that can communicate with and moments of emergence of political one another, by mutually intelligible rationalities, that are interwoven explanatory logics, by commonly with systems of thought, strategies, accepted facts, by significant programmes and tactics. There are, in agreement on key political problems. Nikolas Rose view, two dimensions of Within this zone of intelligible governmentality: political rationalities contestation, different political forces and governing technologies (Rose, infuse the various elements with 1999). distinct meanings, link them with ddGovernmentalities, as political distinct thematics, and derive different rationalities, are like apparatuses that conclusions as to what should be done, create a programmable reality. They by whom and how’ (Rose, 1999: 42). are able to do this by introducing ddThe analytics of governmentality regularities into reality: moral forms, follow a different and more radical epistemological structures and specific trajectory than the sociology of languages. Moral forms are formed by governance. From this perspective, conceptions on the nature and limits of all constitutive features of modernity legitimate authority, by the distribution – new subjectivities, ideas on human of this authority over diverse expertise nature and self, risk and reflexivity, fields – pedagogical, military, family, human ethics and freedom – are not politics and health – and by the ideals outside or antagonist to power and its or principles of political organization technologies. On the contrary, they are that are supposed to guide and the results of power configurations, legitimate the exertion of power: technological inventions, political freedom, equality, moral autonomy, rationalities and techniques of Self representativity and so on. Political governance. Human subjectivity does rationalities are formed in connection not stand alone, outside the pale of with specific scientific discourses power or liberty, outside technology; and their related governable objects: the freedoms we are enjoying inside the 118 | IRSR Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011 present day neoliberal governmentality be treated as causal principles in the are ‘the mobile outcome of a multitude creation of discourses, without giving of human technologies’ (Rose, 1999: way to some kind of structuralism. 55). Discursive regularities cannot be understood outside the institutional and non-discursive practices. What Ethnographies of governmentality stands as of utmost importance is the social-institutional context in which The interpretations provided by regimes of truth are being formed and Thomas Osborne, Nikolas Rose, Barry human behaviour governed (Rabinow Hindess or Ian Harding on Foucault’s & Dreyfus, 1983). work on government, power and ‘truth ddThe influence of Foucault on social regimes’ develop themes that are, sciences has now entered the domain sometimes, on the level of intuitions of the classical. The ‘Key Sociologists’ or unfinished analyses in the work series, edited by Routledge, treats of the French scholar. Especially Foucault among Durkheim, Simmel, Nikolas Rose’s detailed work on Weber, Marx and Bourdieu (Smart, ’advanced liberal democracies’ (Rose, 1985). Nevertheless, the debate on 1996) develops Foucault’s analysis governmentality started earlier when, in of neoliberalism as governmentality, 1991, Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon started with the 1978-1979 course at and Peter Miller edited The Foucault Collège de France, and can be used to Effect. Studies in Governmentality. unveil the features characterizing what His works on governmentality, and has become, since the 1990s, a truly especially on the neoliberal one were global way of governing the world. rather slow to be translated in English. ddThere is, though, inside this ’analytics ‘The Birth of ’, the most of governmentality’ approach, a rather important course delivered by Foucault uncritical Eurocentric approach. on this subject, was translated in Most of the research was done on the English only in 2008. This is probably development of political rationalities one of the reasons why two of the most in Europe and North America and, powerful contemporary accounts of implicitly, takes as unproblematic neoliberalism were formulated in a the extension and transformations of parallel way: Michel Foucault’s and ‘advanced liberal’ governmentalities David Harvey’s. in the non-European or non-north ddFor Harvey, the 1970s are the Atlantic areas. There is an emphasis fateful moment when Fordism – the on ‘political rationalities’ and a rather pact among nation state, corporate vague imagining of the relationship capitalism and sindicates based these entertain with governing on mass production, consumption technologies. This has to do, probably, and democracy - has been replaced with a too close reading of Foucault’s by post-Fordism, characterized by Archaeology of Knowledge or with the flexible accumulation, that: ‘it is influence of althusserian Marxism. Be as characterized by the emergence of it may, discursive regularities and rules entirely new sectors of production, for the formation of discourses cannot new ways of providing financial CĂLIN COTOI Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective | 119 services, new markets, and, above all, for the emergence of discourses. Even greatly intensified rates of commercial, if practices are frequently mentioned technological, and organizational together with discursive formations, innovation. It has entrained rapid and their connection is lavishly shifts in the patterning of uneven stressed, the political economy part development, both between sectors and of the practices themselves is not between geographical regions, giving analysed. Keynesianism is presented rise, for example, to a vast surge in – with a strange lack of attention to its so-called ‘service-sector’ employment internal structure – as a homogeneous as well as to entirely new industrial background against which the ensembles in hitherto underdeveloped contours of neoliberalism are drawn. regions [...]. It has also entailed a new Keynesianism has, as Margaret Weir round of what I shall call ‘time-space and Theda Skocpol have shown, a compression’ in the capitalist world – diverse, even heterogeneous, internal the time horizons of both private and and external geography. There used to public decision-making have shrunk, be a Swedish ‘social Keynesianism’ – while satellite communication and an almost full employment economy, declining transport costs have made it with a high level of redistribution of increasingly possible to spread those public revenues and social welfare decisions immediately over an ever – but also an American ‘commercial wider and variegated space (Harvey, Keynesianism’, where the Federal 1990: 147). government used to have tax cuts and ddIf we compare Harvey’s story of ‘automatic’ financial readjustments postfordism and neoliberalism with of public spending, being more Foucault’s neoliberal governmentality, concerned with controlling inflation there are a few disimilarities. For than with eradicating unemployment the French scholar, neoliberalism as (Weir & Skocpol, 1985: 108). Not a governing art emerges as early as to mention that Keynesian policies, 1948, through a series of ruptures like the American agriculture policy and displacements from classical during New Deal, can create neoliberal liberalism. The series of European reactions, or strategies to colonize the governmentalities start with l’État de public institutions by big business Police, followed by classical liberalim interest groups (Weir & Skocpol, and, finally, German ordo-liberalism 1985: 144). and American anarho-liberalism. ddIn David Harvey’s account, Fordism Keynesianism, as a historical form, and Keynesianism appear also as is understudied and seen, mostly, as a homogenous historical block – the ‘adversity field’ against which undermined by the essential tensions of neoliberal thinkers react. Sometimes, the capitalist crises – that has been replaced, analysis of succesive and simultaneous in the 1970s, by flexible accumulation, governmentalities seems to give way neoliberalism and postmodernism. His to the study of theories and writings of focus on accumulation regimes and neoliberal economists and politicians, cultural policies intimately connected of the ‘’ (Foucault, 1996b) to these – like modernism for Fordism that creates the field of possibilities and postmodernism for postfordism – 120 | IRSR Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011 leaves less space for the understanding a central value in our worldview, much of alternative ‘arts of government’. the same as ‘civilization’ use to be in There is no detailed analysis of the the XIXth century. fields where government technologies ddA special discourse of development emerge or of the transformations of is created which constructs the object sovereignty or the human models of development; a knowledge structure involved in the new ‘modes of envelops the object (country, region reglementation’. or community) to be developed. ddThe anthropologies and ethno- ‘Development’ is, though, not just graphies of governmentality and a conceptual apparatus but also an neoliberalism can have an important institutional one, which has real effects role in understanding neoliberalism in social life through document and at work, and in deconstructing false rapports but also through policies, dichotomies like state/ civil society/ programmes and projects (Ferguson, market. The minute descriptions 1990: 73-74). and interpretations of the daily life ddThe rural development programme of governmentality, in marginal but from Thaba-Tseko region, Lesotho, also central social and political areas, started in 1975 and was discontinued in are informed by previous theoretical 1984. The region to be developed was positions. Nevertheless, ethnography imagined as a traditional rural one and can breed, modify, and enrich theory, the project tried to produce economic as it happens in various ethnographies growth by introducing commercial of the state, analyses of failed political cattle raising. The population reacted bodies, withcraft, Georgian pickles, slowly, even aggressively at times to Polish women labourers, African the implementation of the project. The migrants, development programmes, failure was explained, by the project border controls, corruption, colonial team, as due to a lack of education or bodies and internment camps of entrepreneurial competences on the (Comaroff & Comaroff, 1997; Dunn, part of the population to be developed. 2004; Mbembe, 2001; Ferguson & Subsequently, more education pro- Gupta, 2001; Escobar, 1995; West, grammes and competence building 2005; Geschiere, 1997; Hansen & strategies were deployed in the region. Sepputat, 2005; Agamben, 2005). In Ferguson’s view, the cattle raisers ddJames Ferguson’s argument in from Thaba-Tseko – many of them his research on the Thaba-Tseko migrant workers to the mines of South project, from Lesotho, financed by Africa, redeployed sets of alliances and the World Bank and CIDA (Canadian conflicts, based on different categories International Development Agency), of interests, alongside the project can be summarized like this: interventionist policies, embedding the ‘development’ is one of the main values project in local, national and regional in the understanding and appraisal of politics. The development project acted the world we live in and guides the as an ‘anti-politics machine’ because it interventions that we consider possible considered government as a technical and desirable. Development is not just device and not as a way of governing a technical or rational project, but also men and women and, an instrument CĂLIN COTOI Neoliberalism: A Foucauldian Perspective | 121 used by some interest groups and emerges in post soviet states like social classes to control the conduct Georgia, where people imagine and choices of others (Ferguson, 1990: different political and bureaucratic 225). orders, incongruent with the neoliberal ddThe development apparatus in ones imagined by political elites, by Lesotho did not function as a device to eating home made pickles, and dying eliminate poverty, that got, accidentally from botulism? What governmentality involved in local and regional politics, is being formed in India on the trails but as a „machine for reinforcing and of the big white jeeps of development expanding the exercise of bureaucratic programme officers? Or in internment state power, which incidentally camps from Africa and Europe? Or takes ‘poverty’ as its point of entry’ in the formation of new ethnicities in (Ferguson, 1990: 255). By transforming postsocialist, post structural reforms poverty into a technical problem and East European countries? by providing apolitical answers to ddWestern donors, Non-Governa- the problem of the reproduction of mental Organisations representatives, subaltern populations, ‘development’ and international investors create the depoliticizes, in the same stroke, the context for the emergence of new poverty and the state. Development is forms of neoliberal governmentalities a kind of governmentality that works that are transnational (Ferguson & in different ways than the classical, Gupta, 2002). The homogeneous European variant, described by grid that seems to define foucauldian Foucault or Rose. governmentality, even in its neoliberal, ddIn Lesotho, Ferguson says, the ambiental guise, does not appear in growth of state bureaucracy power, former socialist Mozambique for intimately connected with the long- example. There, the new government term development project, does not emerged unevenly distributed on the mean an enhanced centralization territory of the state: concentrated of political power. A neoliberal in spaces of commercial investment governmentality with its combination and resource extraction (graphite and of entrepreneurial technologies of the marble mines) and NGO intervention Self and capilar power networks does but almost totally absent from not emerge either. The power relations the spheres of peasant agriculture are rearranged inside bureaucratic (West, 2005: 262). Citizens were circuits. The ‘Development State’, that transformed into NGO or development absorbs the worldview, programmes, programmes ‘beneficiaries’ or weak education, practices and financial counterclaimants to denationalized inputs of the global institutions of resources and, as West puts it, ‘needing development ‘grabs onto and loops nothing from these rural residents, around existing power relations, not investors and their intermediaries had to rationalize or coordinate them, so no reason to offer them anything – no much as to cinch them all together into cause to cultivate their deference and a knot’ (Ferguson, 1990: 274). What loyalty’ (West, 2005: 262). ‘Low- kind of governmentality is this? What intensity governance’ (Hansen and kind of fragmented governmentality Stepputat, 2001: 16), ‘privatization 122 | IRSR Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011 of sovereignty’ (Mbembe, 2001: 78), lens, neoliberalism becomes more government through sorcery and plural and heterogeneous. The counter-sorcery or international and worlds that we inhabit are largely the transnational institutions that deploy product of other’s visions, sciences, state effects (IMF, World Bank and governmentalities and magic. Some many of the big ‘institutions of ethnographical perspectives can adjust development’) do not easily fit into the or partially deconstruct the analytics governmentality of ‘advanced liberal of governmentality, simply by seeing democracies’ (Rose, 1996). governing at work, in the capillarity of ddThere is, probably, no definitive social life, in a truly foucauldian way. answer to these questions and Even more, they can do, sometimes, a problems. Through an ethnographical bit of counter-magic.

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