Governmentality

Governmentality Synopsis

First developed by Michel Foucault more than thirty years ago, "e;governmentality"e; has become an essential set of tools for many researchers in the social and political sciences today. What is "e;governmentality"e;? How does this perspective challenge the way we understand political power and its contestation? This new introduction offers advanced undergraduate and graduate students both a highly accessible guide and an original contribution to debates about power and governmentality. The book aims to serve four main functions:To situate governmentality as an intellectual development within Foucault's thinking about the microphysics of power and his genealogical methods;To reveal how research in governmentality has changed as the idea encounters new academic fields, political contexts and regional settings;To examine one of the more recent encounters between governmentality and the social sciences - its interaction with international relations and global politics;To offer researchers some methodological suggestions for undertaking studies in governmentality, stressing that its critical edge becomes blunted if it is detached from historical/genealogical modes of inquiry.This book offers a set of conceptual and methodological observations intended to keep research in governmentality a living, critical thought project. Above all, it argues that the challenge of understanding the world calls for the addition of new thinking equipment to the governmentality toolbox. Governmentality: Critical Encounters will prove useful for students of social and political theory, international relations, political sociology, anthropology and geography.