The Governmentalities of Neoliberalism: Panopticism, Post-Panopticism and beyond

Abstract

This paper draws on the writings of Michel Foucault, in particular his lectures on biopolitics at the Collège de France from 1978–79, to examine liberalism and neoliberalism as governmental forms that operate through different models of surveillance. First, this paper re‐reads Foucault's Discipline and Punish in the light of his analysis of the art of liberal government that is advanced through the course of these lectures. It is argued that the Panopticon is not just an architecture of power centred on discipline and normalization, as is commonly understood, but a normative model of the relation of the state to the market which, for Foucault, is ‘the very formula of liberal government’. Second, the limits of panopticism, and by extension liberal governance, are explored through analysis of Gilles Deleuze's account of the shift from disciplinary to ‘control’ societies, and Zygmunt Bauman's writings on individualization and the ‘Synopticon’. In response to Deleuze and Bauman, the final section of this paper returns to Foucault's lectures on biopolitics to argue that contemporary capitalist society is characterized not simply by the decline of state powers (the control society) or the passing down of responsibilities from the state to the individual (the individualization thesis), but by the neoliberal marketization of the state and its institutions; a development which is underpinned by a specific form of governmentality. In conclusion, a four‐fold typology of surveillance is advanced: surveillance as discipline, as control, as interactivity, and as a mechanism for promoting competition. It is argued that while these types of surveillance are not mutually exclusive, they are underpinned by different governmentalities that can be used to address different aspects of the relationship between the state and the market, and with this the social and cultural logics of contemporary forms of market capitalism more broadly.

The datafied child: The dataveillance of children and implications for their rights

“…Digitized strategies of covert surveillance remain common, including not only the hidden sensors embedded into physical public spaces, but also internet companies' continual monitoring of online interactions for commercial purposes, and, as revealed by Edward Snowden, the dataveillance of citizens by national security agencies. Some critics have argued for an understanding of 'post-panoptic' forms of surveillance using digital technologies, whereby people are surveilled through partial or 'oligoptic' vantage points (Gane, 2012). Oligoptic surveillance is a particular feature of the combination and alignment of different datasets collected about people as part of their use of digital technologies.…”

Heroic heads, mobility mythologies and the power of ambiguity

“…These networks extend into new territory, while excluding certain actors -particularly 'problematic' entities such as trade unions -because network membership requires being on the same ideological page (Ball 2007, 133). These networks follow certain interests, precluding political debate as the state is legitimated through the private sector while the private sector gains access to new markets (Gane 2012;Gunter and Forrester 2010). Crucially, changes to education's administration and governance are not just technical alterations, but part of a 'broader social dislocation' permeating our relationship to ourselves and others, changing the parameters of action and instigating 'a process of social transformation' (Ball 2007, 186-187).…”

Sociology and Neoliberalism: A Missing History

“…importance because they can be deployed to work in service of the market. As Foucault observes in his biopolitics lectures, particularly in relation to the emergence of ordoliberalism in post-War Germany, what is important about this move is that it is leads to a fundamental redefinition of the role of the state, which is now not just to act as a guarantor of the market but to work actively to promote competition into spaces of the social that the market previously could not be reached (see Gane, 2012a;2012b:72:94). In his opening speech at the inaugural meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society, Hayek declares that 'It is the first general thesis which we shall have to consider that competition can be made more effective and more beneficent by certain activities of government than it would be without them ' (1948:110).…”