Governmentality Guide: The Art of Governing Populations and Selves
How do we govern? Not just how does the state govern, but how do we govern ourselves—our families, our communities, our own conduct? Governmentality is the study of these practices of governing, from the management of populations to the care of the self.
Governmentality is a concept developed by Michel Foucault in his later work, particularly his lectures at the College de France in the late 1970s. It refers to the organized practices through which we are governed and through which we govern ourselves.
Foucault’s Concept of Governmentality
The Conduct of Conduct
Foucault defined government as “the conduct of conduct”—any attempt to shape, guide, or direct the behavior of others or oneself. This broad definition encompasses not only state governance but the governance of children by parents, of employees by managers, of souls by pastors, and of selves by individuals.
The Governmentality of the State
Foucault traced the emergence of modern governmental rationality in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. The art of government shifted from the sovereign’s concern with territory to the government’s concern with population. Statistics, political economy, and the science of police (regulation) were the technologies of this new governmental rationality.
Liberal Governmentality
Liberalism, in Foucault’s analysis, is not simply a political philosophy but a form of governmentality—a way of governing that works through freedom rather than against it. Liberal government establishes frameworks within which individuals are free to pursue their own interests, and it governs by shaping those frameworks rather than by direct command.
Neoliberal Governmentality
Foucault’s analysis of neoliberalism has been enormously influential. Neoliberalism is not just an economic policy (privatization, deregulation) but a form of governmentality that extends market logic to all domains of life. Under neoliberalism, individuals are governed as entrepreneurs of the self, responsible for investing in their own human capital, managing their own risks, and optimizing their own performance.
Neoliberal governmentality operates through technologies of accountability: audits, performance indicators, rankings, and benchmarks that make individuals and institutions visible and calculable.
Technologies of the Self
Foucault’s later work on ethics examined technologies of the self—the practices through which individuals constitute themselves as ethical subjects. These include self-examination, confession, diary-keeping, and other practices of self-improvement. Governmentality analysis examines how these technologies of the self interact with technologies of power.
Governmentality and Critical Theory
Governmentality analysis has been applied across many fields: criminology (the governance of crime through risk management), social policy (the governance of poverty through activation and conditionality), international relations (the governance of global populations), and management studies (the governance of employees through empowerment and self-management). The biopolitics guide examines a related dimension of Foucault’s thought.
FAQ
How is governmentality different from traditional theories of power?
Traditional theories of power often focus on the state, sovereignty, and prohibition. Governmentality analysis broadens the focus to include the multiple sites and practices through which governing occurs, including self-governance. It asks not just who has power but how governing is practiced.
Is governmentality analysis critical of neoliberalism?
Foucault’s own analysis of neoliberalism was analytical rather than critical—he described neoliberal governmentality without condemning it. Contemporary scholars who use governmentality analysis are often critical of neoliberalism, using the framework to show how neoliberal governance shapes subjects, produces inequality, and depoliticizes social problems.
Can governmentality be resisted?
Yes. If governance works through shaping conduct, resistance involves refusing to be governed in particular ways—or refusing to be governed so much. This can take the form of refusing certain identities, creating alternative practices, or demanding different forms of governance.
How does governmentality relate to the frankfurt school guide?
Both traditions analyze how power operates through modern rationality. The Frankfurt School focused on instrumental reason, the culture industry, and the authoritarian state. Foucault focused on the specific rationalities of governance, the practices through which power operates, and the ways subjects are constituted. Both traditions are concerned with emancipation, though they understand it differently.
Contemporary Importance and Applications
Critical theory is not merely an academic enterprise—it has profound implications for how we understand power, justice, and social change. The concepts and methods explored in this article continue to inform activism, policy, and scholarship across multiple disciplines.
Critical Theory in Practice
Critical theory bridges the gap between abstract philosophical analysis and concrete political engagement. It provides tools for analyzing how power operates through institutions, discourses, and cultural practices. Activists and organizers use critical theory to understand the systems they seek to change and to develop strategies for effective resistance and transformation.
Critiques and Responses
Critical theory has faced significant criticism. Critics argue that its concepts can be opaque and inaccessible, that it sometimes prioritizes theoretical purity over practical effectiveness, and that its emphasis on power and oppression can lead to pessimism about the possibility of genuine progress. Defenders respond that understanding the depth of structural injustice is a prerequisite for meaningful change, not an obstacle to it. The debate between critical theory’s defenders and critics continues to shape contemporary political thought.
Key Concepts and Theoretical Framework
Critical theory draws on a distinctive set of concepts and analytical tools for understanding society, power, and culture. These concepts provide the vocabulary for critical analysis and the theoretical scaffolding for social critique.
The Concept of Critique
Critical theory understands critique not merely as criticism or fault-finding but as a systematic examination of the conditions that make knowledge possible and the social arrangements that shape human life. Critique in this sense is both descriptive and normative: it reveals how things are and points toward how they could be otherwise. The Frankfurt School distinguished critical theory from traditional theory: traditional theory seeks to describe and explain the world as it is, while critical theory seeks to identify the possibilities for human emancipation embedded within existing social arrangements.
Power and Ideology
A central concern of critical theory is the analysis of power and ideology. Ideology, in the critical theory tradition, is not simply false belief but systematically distorted understanding that serves to maintain existing power relations. Ideology works not primarily through coercion but through consent—people accept social arrangements that are not in their interests because they have internalized the justifications that support those arrangements. The task of ideology critique is to expose these mechanisms and create conditions for genuine understanding.
The Dialectic of Enlightenment
Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) is a foundational text of critical theory. It argues that the Enlightenment’s promise of human liberation through reason has turned into its opposite. Rationality, which was supposed to free humanity from myth and superstition, has become a new form of domination—instrumental reason that treats everything, including human beings, as objects to be calculated and controlled. This thesis remains controversial but has deeply influenced subsequent critical theory.
Recognition and Social Struggle
The concept of recognition has become central to contemporary critical theory, particularly through the work of Axel Honneth. On this view, social conflict is often driven by struggles for recognition—the desire to have one’s identity, contributions, and humanity acknowledged by others. Misrecognition or disrespect is a form of injury that motivates political mobilization. This framework provides a way of connecting individual experience to social structure.
Major Thinkers and Influential Works
Critical theory is defined not only by its concepts but by the thinkers who developed them and the works that continue to shape the field.
Foundational Figures
The first generation of the Frankfurt School included Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm. Each developed the project of critical theory in distinctive ways. Horkheimer articulated the program of interdisciplinary social theory. Adorno developed critical theory in aesthetics and cultural criticism. Marcuse connected critical theory to political activism and the New Left. Their collective project was to understand why the Marxist prediction of revolution had failed and how capitalism had stabilized itself through culture and ideology.
Second Generation and Beyond
Jürgen Habermas transformed critical theory by grounding it in a theory of communicative action and discourse ethics. His work represents a systematic attempt to provide critical theory with normative foundations. Later critical theorists, including Axel Honneth (recognition theory), Nancy Fraser (redistribution and recognition), and Rahel Jaeggi (social criticism), have developed and critiqued Habermas’s project while maintaining the core commitment to social critique oriented toward human emancipation.
Critical Theory and Social Transformation
Critical theory is distinguished by its commitment to social transformation. It is not content to interpret the world but seeks to change it, while recognizing the difficulties and dangers of transformative political projects.
The Relationship Between Theory and Practice
Critical theory has always struggled with the relationship between theory and practice. Too much focus on theory can lead to paralysis and detachment from real struggles. Too much focus on practice can lead to activism without strategic clarity. The relationship between theoretical analysis and political action remains a central concern for critical theory.
Critical Theory and Democracy
Critical theory has an ambivalent relationship to democracy. On one hand, critical theory’s commitment to human emancipation aligns with democratic values. On the other hand, critical theory’s analysis of ideology and manipulation suggests that actual democracies fall far short of democratic ideals. Critical theory provides tools for diagnosing the pathologies of actually existing democracy while remaining committed to the democratic project.