Saturday, December 01, 2007
PHIL2509 - Second Essay
This essay will examine Foucault’s criticism of the philosophical study of law in the area of power. In particular I will focus on the published lectures entitled Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, primarily lectures two and three where he raises the issue of sovereignty in relation to the study of power. Foucault holds the position that power exists in numerous forms and in modern times both disciplinary power and legal power function. Foucault argues that the theory of sovereignty does not capture the relations of disciplinary power because they each have fundamentally different modes of relation to the subject.
Let me first explain how Foucault understands the theory of sovereignty (as he sets it out in “Lecture Three”). Foucault defines the theory of sovereignty by identifying three key characteristics, which I will now illustrate in order to show that the paradigm of sovereignty establishes a top-down study of power. Foucault claims that the theory of sovereignty establishes a subject-to-subject cycle. This position regarding the nature of sovereignty, has three main claims; that there is an individual person ready to become a subject of a yet more powerful subject; that such an individual is endowed with humanist qualities such as rights and that the legitimacy of these rights are naturally given; and that such an individual has a productive relationship with the property. Secondly Foucault attributes to the theory of sovereignty a need for unity in order to use an assumed multiplicity of capacities to political ends. Foucault recognises that the theory of sovereignty invokes necessarily a system, the exact form is irrelevant, that unifies the disparate and varied capacities that subjects have, in order to politicise such capacities. What he means by politicise in this context is that the capacities are put toward a common goal. The function of the unified system is to make this goal appear common - whether it actually is or not is irrelevant. Thirdly the theory of sovereignty, for Foucault, seeks to illustrate the legitimacy of power and to explain the source of legitimacy. The legitimacy of the sovereign is the foundation for the law and the legal system. Foucault summarises a description of the theory of sovereignty thus;
The theory of sovereignty presupposes the subject; its goal is to establish the essential unity of power, and it is always deployed within the pre-existing element of the law.
Foucault argues that the three characterisitics of the theory of sovereignty, discussed above, are “primitive” and as such the theory of sovereignty attempts to provide an examination of modern power using outdated and inadequate assumptions. To illustrate his argument, Foucault undertakes a “genealogy” of power. His analysis is wide-ranging. However, within the confines of this essay I will focus on his study of ‘legal power’ and the emergence of ‘disciplinary power’ that Foucault presents in “Lecture Two”.
An explanation of legal power, and how the theory of sovereignty is applied to legal power will give a context in which to understand the theory of sovereignty. This context will provide a background that will allow us to understand the issues that Foucault identifies with the theory of sovereignty as a theory of modern power. The genealogy of power that Foucault provides begins with an examination of legal power in which he accounts for the rise of the theory of sovereignty. From his examination of legal power Foucault argues that the theory of sovereignty masks relations of domination by forming legality and legitimacy. Foucault argues that the theory of sovereignty examines power in terms of the entire social body and politic. The theory worked as such because of its inextricable link to the feudal monarchy as a legitimation and legal tool. The practice of legal power by the feudal monarchy was, in short, instigated in order to stop insubordination – any action that would undermine the position of the monarchy. The feudal monarchies were more interested in the retention of power than production, or the development of their subjects. The mechanics of legal power relied on physical, monetary, and exile based punishments. The consequences of insubordination were demonstrated by a theatre of punishment. The use of legal power was inconsistent and on the whim of the sovereign, either to collect a need, i.e. taxes, or to punish the insubordinate. The aim of the punishment is to stop insubordination by the criminal, and by public spectacle to deter others from such insubordination. The retention of power relied on the legitimacy of that power. Divine right provided the feudal monarchies legitimacy and the grounds for exercising dutiful power. The theory of sovereignty encapsulated the legitimacy from the divine as a mechanism of power. The theory of sovereignty expounded the king, head of State, as a legitimate sovereign power who aligned with the divine right and therefore any exercise of power by the sovereign was right, or any action that maintained the exercise of power to a legal framework determined by the sovereign. The concept of sovereignty explained a centralised power handed down by divine right, in which the position was absolute and the exercise of power over subjects was justified.
Theorising power in such a way is a top-down approach to understanding power. The theory of sovereignty leads to an examination of power that begins from an assumption that an elite few have power, and that it emanates down from them. . There is no examination of how power works; the mechanisms of the feudal monarchy are taken as given, and give rise to a theory that legitimates and legalises them. And as thus, the theory of sovereignty was used as a tool to legitimise both the monarchical and anti-monarchical positions until the advent of parliamentary democracies. Even now the theory of sovereignty is used to legitimate the position of parliament via the sovereignty of the people.
Foucault argues that discipline and sovereignty are fundamentally different paradigms. The rise of industry, and thus the increased prominence of the bourgeois, saw the invention of a new mechanism of power that sought time and labour from the body in order to fuel production. Foucault terms this power, that consists of constant surveillance and vast real coercions, disciplinary power. For Foucault, the theory of sovereignty cannot account in any way for the effects disciplinary power has on society, nor on how it works, or if it is good or bad, or more importantly if power is dominating or subjugating. Furthermore, it cannot account for disciplinary power because, Foucault argues, the legal power from which the theory of sovereignty originates is at the opposite pole to disciplinary power. Legal power sought to stop prescribed action, was concerned with property ownership, and the movement of object goods, whereas disciplinary power seeks to develop a body to increase its productivity, and so its concerns lie in time and labour. Legal power is founded on the legitimacy of the absolute power of the sovereign and proposes a single unified structure of power, as opposed to disciplinary power which relies on constant surveillance and normalisation that are multiplicitous and multifarious.
To further highlight the differences between legal power and disciplinary power I will look at the techniques of disciplinary power. As a technique, in all its procedural forms, discipline remains highly flexible and adaptable, being able to be wholly taken on or only partially for very specific purposes. Without being simplified to any one procedure, it works to increase efficiency and is concerned primarily with the body. The disciplinary technique may be examined in four aspects of control over the body; physicality; identity; spatiality; and temporality. The control of physicality is the continual repetitive exercise of physical movement, the aim of which is to maximise the efficiency of the particularly desired action. This is best achieved by focusing on the body in its parts, so that the individual trains an aspect (i.e. limb, mind etc) on a particular task. The result is a body that is efficient at the task and can carry out that task without thought. The control of identity is the complete abolishment of any singularly identifying characteristics with the aim of creating objects of people. The purpose of objectification is to empty the individual of any recourse to self-identity or objectives of their own to fulfil, so that in such a void the individual is represented by the norms in which they are being trained. This aspect particularly ensures that the individual will be self monitoring in the physical absence of authority. The control of spatiality is a core requirement of organisation and classification of bodies in large numbers. A properly managed space allows for continual observation of every individual, the ability to locate the absence of a body or the presence of a foreign body, and can also serve as an indicator of performance in relation to peers. The organisation of space plays an integral role in the implementation of the other controls, while also permeating the notion of the controls without their actual presence. The control of temporality breaks the bodily relation to fatigue into regime, which assists in the suppression of challenges to authority. The dimension of time allows for technical measurement and comparative studies that allows for feedback in efficiency. Such feedback can have positive effects to the psychology of the individual, so the individual can see a self improvement. Coupled with the prior knowledge that activities will cease at a time, and the allotment of rest periods, the feedback device increases the individuals passivity to the domination acted upon them. The continual use and application of these controls over the individual as disciplinary technique is in stark difference to the inconsistent use of force and public spectacle that defines legal power. From an analysis of these differences it is possible to identify how a theory of sovereignty applies (inadequately) to modern disciplinary power.
Foucault presents two reasons as to why the theory of sovereignty continued to exist in a society with disciplinary power. The first is that the theory of sovereignty was “a permanent critical instrument to be used against the monarchy and all obstacles that stood in the way of the development of the disciplinary society.” As was mentioned earlier the theory of sovereignty had become a political tool in legitimation and could be just as easily used as a tool for delegitimation. As such was the case, the theory of sovereignty was used to deligitimate any sovereign power that reappeared after the birth of the parliamentary democracy. Parliamentary democracy had found a way to posit sovereignty upon the public thereby limiting the avenues for any legal power that may challenge discipline. For Foucault, the dispersion of sovereign power into the public realm coupled with the legitimation of the judiciary by parliament, “made it possible to superimpose on the mechanisms of discipline a system of right that concealed its mechanisms and erased the element of domination and the techniques.”
Disciplinary power does not reinstall the same political order nor is its effects for political gain, thus disciplinary power is apolitical. Rather the effects of disciplinary power are ‘normalising’ , where the techniques are applied to each individual body in the aim of maximising their useful capacities. The techniques of disciplinary power are best demonstrated by institutions that are informed by the social sciences to produce the best citizen, such as schools, prisons and the military. Foucault illustrates the techniques and mechanisms of disciplinary power with the example of Bentham’s “Panopticon”. For Foucault the architectural design of the “Panopticon” not only controls the bodies that are enmeshed in the system but also transforms them by incorporating the four key aspects of discipline; knowledge, time, the body, and space. The technique can be prescribed to any institution or social faculty, and remains flexible to the needs that arise in each particularity. The mechanics of discipline work primarily in an exacting fashion on individual bodies as objects and tools. The transformation that takes place within the individual being affected upon (by the disciplinary technique) is not a political transformation, rather is a transformation of capacities, where the capacities of the individual are normalised to a point where they function within society free of direct coercion.
In order that we may see the processes of disciplinary power, and come to an understanding of how it works Foucault proposes three tasks. The first of these tasks is the locating and examining of those who use disciplinary techniques to normalise subjects. Foucault puts the first task as such:
Rather than deriving powers from sovereignty, we should be extracting operators of domination from relations of power, both historically and empirically.
Foucault demonstrates the need to locate the operators of techniques of disciplinary power. They are particularly numerous and potentially disparate as opposed to a singular and unified source. In effect Foucault’s first task is to trace the flow of power from the grounds of use, from institutions and social systems, the very point at which people are most effected by the use of disciplinary techniques and are thereby being the most driven toward a category of ‘normal’. It is here Foucault argues that not only the effects of normalisation can be seen but also what normalisation is and how it is operating within society. Tracing the greatest positive benefits of such functioning normalisation and the relations of power formed by this normalisation, brings the analysis closer still to the operators of disciplinary power. Foucault presents a method of examining power that is an inversion of the top-down approach of the theory of sovereignty. Rather than legitimising a central body of power and examining how power may be dispersed from this central body, Foucault is examining the on the ground effects of power and tracing it backward up through its relations to those instigating the techniques used to dominate. Which leads onto the second task, which is to differentiate and expose the relations of power that are domination and subjugation.
Our second task should be to reveal relations of domination, and to allow them to assert themselves in their multiplicity, their differences, their specificity, or their reversibility.
Here Foucault makes it clear that domination is the primary mode of relation that should be investigated. It is by dominating relations of power that power is exercised over people in order to influence and control their behaviour. Power exists in every relation but it is only in relations of domination in which the exercise of power is the means for manipulation. Power relations of domination are used in disciplinary technology, as previously discussed with the “Panopticon”, in which the behaviour of the individual may be shaped to a set of norms. Foucault equally stresses that such an investigation should not restrict the various forms in which relations of domination may be present, and the forms in which it may arise. The second task insists that no schematic nor framework be used because such tools (Foucault argues the theory of sovereignty is one such tool) only assists in the concealment of power relations. Once the relations of domination are shown in all their forms, without schematisation, without narrative, then the third task that Foucault sets out becomes apparent;
We have to try to identify the technical instruments that guarantee that they [relations of domination] function.
The structures that exist within society that perpetuate and install the relations of domination are at the core of understanding power. For Foucault, all power relations meet resistance, but it is the structures of knowledge that require change in order to alter power. This is what the third task presents to us, the recognition of the structures of knowledge that are the basis for power relations. It is the connection between knowledge and power that Foucault illustrates in History of Sexuality Vol. 1 and it forms the foundation for the problem of sovereignty in Society Must Be Defended. Thinking about power in terms of sovereignty disallows access to understanding disciplinary power that dominates modern society.
I have sketched Foucault’s understanding of sovereignty and disciplinary power. They are fundamentally different paradigms in that sovereignty is a means by which to theorise power that is centralised and disciplinary power is such that it is decentralised and intrinsically mutliplicitous. It is therefore Foucault’s argument that a theory of sovereignty is not an appropriate methodology for the study of modern power. He does not replace the theory of sovereignty with another theory, because power exists in numerous forms that cannot be captured by a single theory. Instead Foucault presses the need to study power in the places where it has a direct effect upon people and the relationships that it creates between people and structures of knowledge.
Bibliography
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004
Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977
Foucault, M. The History of Sexuality Vol. 1, London: Penguin, 1990
Ivison, D. “The Disciplinary Moment: Foucault, Law and the Reinscription of Rights” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998
Neal, A. Cutting off the King’s Head: Foucault’s Society Must Be Defended and the Problem of Sovereignty, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004
Patton, P. “Foucault’s Subject of Power” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998
Ransom, J. Foucault’s Discipline, London: Duke University Press, 1997
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994
End Notes
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 43
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pg 101
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 43-4
Ibid. Pg. 44
Ibid. Pg. 44
Ibid. Pg. 44
Ibid. Pg. 44
The term legal power is not used specifically by Foucault. I am using this term in reference to the lectures given by Daniel McLoughlin as a term he uses to encapture what Foucault refers to as ‘royal power’, ‘system of right’, ‘monarchical power’, et al. Foucault uses a range of terms to refer to and describe the sovereign power that predated the Enlightenment, and what he terms the advent of disciplinary power.
I will discuss this term later in the paper. Briefly now it is to be understood as the form of power Foucault argues was developed after the Enlightenment, which seeks to create specific subjects by normalisation.
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 26
Ibid. Pg. 35
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pg 100
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 26
Ibid. 34
Ibid. Pg. 26
Ibid. Pg. 26
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pg 100
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 35
Ibid. Pg. 35
Ibid. Pg. 36
Ivison, D. “The Disciplinary Moment: Foucault, Law and the Reinscription of Rights” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998. Pg 135
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 36
Ibid. Pg. 36
Ibid. Pg. 36
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 153
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 153
Ibid. Pg 153-5
Ibid. Pg 153
Ibid. Pg 154
Ibid. Pg 154
Ibid. Pg 154
Ibid. Pg 154
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 37
Ibid. Pg. 37
Ransom, J. Foucault’s Discipline, London: Duke University Press, 1997. Pg 80
The term norm is frequently used by Foucault in his discussion on disciplinary power. In contrast to laws or rules, the norm is the functional medium point for a body. That is to say that when a body is operating its capacities in a self sufficient and productive manner it is operating ‘normally’. Foucault says that norms form a particular social set, and are changed with the needs of society. I will particularly talk later in the essay about norms as they are used in disciplinary mechanics to effect bodily outcomes on individuals.
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 156
Foucalt, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977. Pg 205
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 189
Ibid. Pg 188
Foucalt, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977. Pg 170
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg 45
Ibid. Pg 45
Foucalt, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977. Pg 204
Patton, P. “Foucault’s Subject of Power” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998. Pg 68
Ibid. Pg 68
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg 46
Foucalt, M. The History of Sexuality Vol. 1, London: Penguin, 1990. Pg 95
Let me first explain how Foucault understands the theory of sovereignty (as he sets it out in “Lecture Three”). Foucault defines the theory of sovereignty by identifying three key characteristics, which I will now illustrate in order to show that the paradigm of sovereignty establishes a top-down study of power. Foucault claims that the theory of sovereignty establishes a subject-to-subject cycle. This position regarding the nature of sovereignty, has three main claims; that there is an individual person ready to become a subject of a yet more powerful subject; that such an individual is endowed with humanist qualities such as rights and that the legitimacy of these rights are naturally given; and that such an individual has a productive relationship with the property. Secondly Foucault attributes to the theory of sovereignty a need for unity in order to use an assumed multiplicity of capacities to political ends. Foucault recognises that the theory of sovereignty invokes necessarily a system, the exact form is irrelevant, that unifies the disparate and varied capacities that subjects have, in order to politicise such capacities. What he means by politicise in this context is that the capacities are put toward a common goal. The function of the unified system is to make this goal appear common - whether it actually is or not is irrelevant. Thirdly the theory of sovereignty, for Foucault, seeks to illustrate the legitimacy of power and to explain the source of legitimacy. The legitimacy of the sovereign is the foundation for the law and the legal system. Foucault summarises a description of the theory of sovereignty thus;
The theory of sovereignty presupposes the subject; its goal is to establish the essential unity of power, and it is always deployed within the pre-existing element of the law.
Foucault argues that the three characterisitics of the theory of sovereignty, discussed above, are “primitive” and as such the theory of sovereignty attempts to provide an examination of modern power using outdated and inadequate assumptions. To illustrate his argument, Foucault undertakes a “genealogy” of power. His analysis is wide-ranging. However, within the confines of this essay I will focus on his study of ‘legal power’ and the emergence of ‘disciplinary power’ that Foucault presents in “Lecture Two”.
An explanation of legal power, and how the theory of sovereignty is applied to legal power will give a context in which to understand the theory of sovereignty. This context will provide a background that will allow us to understand the issues that Foucault identifies with the theory of sovereignty as a theory of modern power. The genealogy of power that Foucault provides begins with an examination of legal power in which he accounts for the rise of the theory of sovereignty. From his examination of legal power Foucault argues that the theory of sovereignty masks relations of domination by forming legality and legitimacy. Foucault argues that the theory of sovereignty examines power in terms of the entire social body and politic. The theory worked as such because of its inextricable link to the feudal monarchy as a legitimation and legal tool. The practice of legal power by the feudal monarchy was, in short, instigated in order to stop insubordination – any action that would undermine the position of the monarchy. The feudal monarchies were more interested in the retention of power than production, or the development of their subjects. The mechanics of legal power relied on physical, monetary, and exile based punishments. The consequences of insubordination were demonstrated by a theatre of punishment. The use of legal power was inconsistent and on the whim of the sovereign, either to collect a need, i.e. taxes, or to punish the insubordinate. The aim of the punishment is to stop insubordination by the criminal, and by public spectacle to deter others from such insubordination. The retention of power relied on the legitimacy of that power. Divine right provided the feudal monarchies legitimacy and the grounds for exercising dutiful power. The theory of sovereignty encapsulated the legitimacy from the divine as a mechanism of power. The theory of sovereignty expounded the king, head of State, as a legitimate sovereign power who aligned with the divine right and therefore any exercise of power by the sovereign was right, or any action that maintained the exercise of power to a legal framework determined by the sovereign. The concept of sovereignty explained a centralised power handed down by divine right, in which the position was absolute and the exercise of power over subjects was justified.
Theorising power in such a way is a top-down approach to understanding power. The theory of sovereignty leads to an examination of power that begins from an assumption that an elite few have power, and that it emanates down from them. . There is no examination of how power works; the mechanisms of the feudal monarchy are taken as given, and give rise to a theory that legitimates and legalises them. And as thus, the theory of sovereignty was used as a tool to legitimise both the monarchical and anti-monarchical positions until the advent of parliamentary democracies. Even now the theory of sovereignty is used to legitimate the position of parliament via the sovereignty of the people.
Foucault argues that discipline and sovereignty are fundamentally different paradigms. The rise of industry, and thus the increased prominence of the bourgeois, saw the invention of a new mechanism of power that sought time and labour from the body in order to fuel production. Foucault terms this power, that consists of constant surveillance and vast real coercions, disciplinary power. For Foucault, the theory of sovereignty cannot account in any way for the effects disciplinary power has on society, nor on how it works, or if it is good or bad, or more importantly if power is dominating or subjugating. Furthermore, it cannot account for disciplinary power because, Foucault argues, the legal power from which the theory of sovereignty originates is at the opposite pole to disciplinary power. Legal power sought to stop prescribed action, was concerned with property ownership, and the movement of object goods, whereas disciplinary power seeks to develop a body to increase its productivity, and so its concerns lie in time and labour. Legal power is founded on the legitimacy of the absolute power of the sovereign and proposes a single unified structure of power, as opposed to disciplinary power which relies on constant surveillance and normalisation that are multiplicitous and multifarious.
To further highlight the differences between legal power and disciplinary power I will look at the techniques of disciplinary power. As a technique, in all its procedural forms, discipline remains highly flexible and adaptable, being able to be wholly taken on or only partially for very specific purposes. Without being simplified to any one procedure, it works to increase efficiency and is concerned primarily with the body. The disciplinary technique may be examined in four aspects of control over the body; physicality; identity; spatiality; and temporality. The control of physicality is the continual repetitive exercise of physical movement, the aim of which is to maximise the efficiency of the particularly desired action. This is best achieved by focusing on the body in its parts, so that the individual trains an aspect (i.e. limb, mind etc) on a particular task. The result is a body that is efficient at the task and can carry out that task without thought. The control of identity is the complete abolishment of any singularly identifying characteristics with the aim of creating objects of people. The purpose of objectification is to empty the individual of any recourse to self-identity or objectives of their own to fulfil, so that in such a void the individual is represented by the norms in which they are being trained. This aspect particularly ensures that the individual will be self monitoring in the physical absence of authority. The control of spatiality is a core requirement of organisation and classification of bodies in large numbers. A properly managed space allows for continual observation of every individual, the ability to locate the absence of a body or the presence of a foreign body, and can also serve as an indicator of performance in relation to peers. The organisation of space plays an integral role in the implementation of the other controls, while also permeating the notion of the controls without their actual presence. The control of temporality breaks the bodily relation to fatigue into regime, which assists in the suppression of challenges to authority. The dimension of time allows for technical measurement and comparative studies that allows for feedback in efficiency. Such feedback can have positive effects to the psychology of the individual, so the individual can see a self improvement. Coupled with the prior knowledge that activities will cease at a time, and the allotment of rest periods, the feedback device increases the individuals passivity to the domination acted upon them. The continual use and application of these controls over the individual as disciplinary technique is in stark difference to the inconsistent use of force and public spectacle that defines legal power. From an analysis of these differences it is possible to identify how a theory of sovereignty applies (inadequately) to modern disciplinary power.
Foucault presents two reasons as to why the theory of sovereignty continued to exist in a society with disciplinary power. The first is that the theory of sovereignty was “a permanent critical instrument to be used against the monarchy and all obstacles that stood in the way of the development of the disciplinary society.” As was mentioned earlier the theory of sovereignty had become a political tool in legitimation and could be just as easily used as a tool for delegitimation. As such was the case, the theory of sovereignty was used to deligitimate any sovereign power that reappeared after the birth of the parliamentary democracy. Parliamentary democracy had found a way to posit sovereignty upon the public thereby limiting the avenues for any legal power that may challenge discipline. For Foucault, the dispersion of sovereign power into the public realm coupled with the legitimation of the judiciary by parliament, “made it possible to superimpose on the mechanisms of discipline a system of right that concealed its mechanisms and erased the element of domination and the techniques.”
Disciplinary power does not reinstall the same political order nor is its effects for political gain, thus disciplinary power is apolitical. Rather the effects of disciplinary power are ‘normalising’ , where the techniques are applied to each individual body in the aim of maximising their useful capacities. The techniques of disciplinary power are best demonstrated by institutions that are informed by the social sciences to produce the best citizen, such as schools, prisons and the military. Foucault illustrates the techniques and mechanisms of disciplinary power with the example of Bentham’s “Panopticon”. For Foucault the architectural design of the “Panopticon” not only controls the bodies that are enmeshed in the system but also transforms them by incorporating the four key aspects of discipline; knowledge, time, the body, and space. The technique can be prescribed to any institution or social faculty, and remains flexible to the needs that arise in each particularity. The mechanics of discipline work primarily in an exacting fashion on individual bodies as objects and tools. The transformation that takes place within the individual being affected upon (by the disciplinary technique) is not a political transformation, rather is a transformation of capacities, where the capacities of the individual are normalised to a point where they function within society free of direct coercion.
In order that we may see the processes of disciplinary power, and come to an understanding of how it works Foucault proposes three tasks. The first of these tasks is the locating and examining of those who use disciplinary techniques to normalise subjects. Foucault puts the first task as such:
Rather than deriving powers from sovereignty, we should be extracting operators of domination from relations of power, both historically and empirically.
Foucault demonstrates the need to locate the operators of techniques of disciplinary power. They are particularly numerous and potentially disparate as opposed to a singular and unified source. In effect Foucault’s first task is to trace the flow of power from the grounds of use, from institutions and social systems, the very point at which people are most effected by the use of disciplinary techniques and are thereby being the most driven toward a category of ‘normal’. It is here Foucault argues that not only the effects of normalisation can be seen but also what normalisation is and how it is operating within society. Tracing the greatest positive benefits of such functioning normalisation and the relations of power formed by this normalisation, brings the analysis closer still to the operators of disciplinary power. Foucault presents a method of examining power that is an inversion of the top-down approach of the theory of sovereignty. Rather than legitimising a central body of power and examining how power may be dispersed from this central body, Foucault is examining the on the ground effects of power and tracing it backward up through its relations to those instigating the techniques used to dominate. Which leads onto the second task, which is to differentiate and expose the relations of power that are domination and subjugation.
Our second task should be to reveal relations of domination, and to allow them to assert themselves in their multiplicity, their differences, their specificity, or their reversibility.
Here Foucault makes it clear that domination is the primary mode of relation that should be investigated. It is by dominating relations of power that power is exercised over people in order to influence and control their behaviour. Power exists in every relation but it is only in relations of domination in which the exercise of power is the means for manipulation. Power relations of domination are used in disciplinary technology, as previously discussed with the “Panopticon”, in which the behaviour of the individual may be shaped to a set of norms. Foucault equally stresses that such an investigation should not restrict the various forms in which relations of domination may be present, and the forms in which it may arise. The second task insists that no schematic nor framework be used because such tools (Foucault argues the theory of sovereignty is one such tool) only assists in the concealment of power relations. Once the relations of domination are shown in all their forms, without schematisation, without narrative, then the third task that Foucault sets out becomes apparent;
We have to try to identify the technical instruments that guarantee that they [relations of domination] function.
The structures that exist within society that perpetuate and install the relations of domination are at the core of understanding power. For Foucault, all power relations meet resistance, but it is the structures of knowledge that require change in order to alter power. This is what the third task presents to us, the recognition of the structures of knowledge that are the basis for power relations. It is the connection between knowledge and power that Foucault illustrates in History of Sexuality Vol. 1 and it forms the foundation for the problem of sovereignty in Society Must Be Defended. Thinking about power in terms of sovereignty disallows access to understanding disciplinary power that dominates modern society.
I have sketched Foucault’s understanding of sovereignty and disciplinary power. They are fundamentally different paradigms in that sovereignty is a means by which to theorise power that is centralised and disciplinary power is such that it is decentralised and intrinsically mutliplicitous. It is therefore Foucault’s argument that a theory of sovereignty is not an appropriate methodology for the study of modern power. He does not replace the theory of sovereignty with another theory, because power exists in numerous forms that cannot be captured by a single theory. Instead Foucault presses the need to study power in the places where it has a direct effect upon people and the relationships that it creates between people and structures of knowledge.
Bibliography
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004
Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977
Foucault, M. The History of Sexuality Vol. 1, London: Penguin, 1990
Ivison, D. “The Disciplinary Moment: Foucault, Law and the Reinscription of Rights” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998
Neal, A. Cutting off the King’s Head: Foucault’s Society Must Be Defended and the Problem of Sovereignty, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004
Patton, P. “Foucault’s Subject of Power” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998
Ransom, J. Foucault’s Discipline, London: Duke University Press, 1997
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994
End Notes
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 43
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pg 101
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 43-4
Ibid. Pg. 44
Ibid. Pg. 44
Ibid. Pg. 44
Ibid. Pg. 44
The term legal power is not used specifically by Foucault. I am using this term in reference to the lectures given by Daniel McLoughlin as a term he uses to encapture what Foucault refers to as ‘royal power’, ‘system of right’, ‘monarchical power’, et al. Foucault uses a range of terms to refer to and describe the sovereign power that predated the Enlightenment, and what he terms the advent of disciplinary power.
I will discuss this term later in the paper. Briefly now it is to be understood as the form of power Foucault argues was developed after the Enlightenment, which seeks to create specific subjects by normalisation.
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 26
Ibid. Pg. 35
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pg 100
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 26
Ibid. 34
Ibid. Pg. 26
Ibid. Pg. 26
Rouse, J. “Power/Knowledge” in The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Gutting, G. (Ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pg 100
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 35
Ibid. Pg. 35
Ibid. Pg. 36
Ivison, D. “The Disciplinary Moment: Foucault, Law and the Reinscription of Rights” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998. Pg 135
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 36
Ibid. Pg. 36
Ibid. Pg. 36
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 153
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 153
Ibid. Pg 153-5
Ibid. Pg 153
Ibid. Pg 154
Ibid. Pg 154
Ibid. Pg 154
Ibid. Pg 154
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg. 37
Ibid. Pg. 37
Ransom, J. Foucault’s Discipline, London: Duke University Press, 1997. Pg 80
The term norm is frequently used by Foucault in his discussion on disciplinary power. In contrast to laws or rules, the norm is the functional medium point for a body. That is to say that when a body is operating its capacities in a self sufficient and productive manner it is operating ‘normally’. Foucault says that norms form a particular social set, and are changed with the needs of society. I will particularly talk later in the essay about norms as they are used in disciplinary mechanics to effect bodily outcomes on individuals.
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 156
Foucalt, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977. Pg 205
Dreyfus, H. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982. Pg 189
Ibid. Pg 188
Foucalt, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977. Pg 170
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg 45
Ibid. Pg 45
Foucalt, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977. Pg 204
Patton, P. “Foucault’s Subject of Power” in The Later Foucault: Politics and Philosophy, Moss, J. (Ed.), London: Sage Publications, 1998. Pg 68
Ibid. Pg 68
Foucault, M. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College of France, 1975-76, London: Penguin, 2004. Pg 46
Foucalt, M. The History of Sexuality Vol. 1, London: Penguin, 1990. Pg 95
Labels: Foucault, law, patton, philosophy, power, sovereignty
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