- Hovedstaden, Denmark
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Michel Foucault, Biopolitics, Poststructuralism, Governmentality, Critical Organization Studies, Welfare State, and 20 moreSociology of the State, Health Promotion, Sociology, Critical Theory, Discourse Analysis, Social Policy, Citizenship, Genealogy, Public Policy - Social Welfare Policy, Philanthropy, Power, Voluntary Associations, Critical Organizational Communication Studies, Dispositif (Apparatus-Theory), Pastoral Power (foucault), Philosophy, Politics, Cultural Theory, History, and The Tea Party Movement edit
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Professor and Director of the Ph.D. program at Dept. of Management, Politics and Philosophyedit
At first glance, Michel Foucault might appear as an unexpected companion for a Special Issue on the themes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability. Foucault never considered the concept of CSR or corporate... more
At first glance, Michel Foucault might appear as an unexpected companion for a Special Issue on the themes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability. Foucault never considered the concept of CSR or corporate sustainability, and he did not comment on the global, ecological crisis, which was already imminent at the end of his life in the first half of the 1980s, although he did not live to see the current loss of biodiversity or escalation of global warming. Furthermore, while Foucault came close to the theme of humanity’s unsustainable exploitation of nature when he analyzed the historical emergence of biopolitical optimization of individuals and populations, he never considered the possibility of absolute extinction of the human species or the global ecosystem. Yet, despite the lack of fundamental concerns and doomsday proclamations regarding ecological crises in Foucault, this Special Issue will demonstrate how Foucault’s analytical frameworks are useful for the analysis of issues related to CSR and corporate sustainability. Overall, we propose that Foucauldian studies have the potential to conduct complex analyses of structural ecological challenges by exploring the contextual interlinkage of discourses (including metaphysical conceptions of nature), political and economic power (including hierarchical governance structures and exploitation), as well as techniques and institutions in their historical situatedness. More precisely, the contributions to this Special Issue inquiry into diverse elements related to CSR, corporate sustainability, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment principles. They carry out this work by using Foucault’s work on archaeology, genealogy, economic reasoning (particularly of neoliberalism), self-techniques, and dispositives.
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During the last decade, ESG has become a globally widespread doctrine of good investment principles. ESG defines investing for broader, extra-financial goals by the use of “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) factors. While... more
During the last decade, ESG has become a globally widespread doctrine of good investment principles. ESG defines investing for broader, extra-financial goals by the use of “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) factors. While commentators generally agree that ESG has become a crucial arena for defining responsible investment, research is so far scarce on the conceptual development of the ESG discourse as well as how companies articulate it in their public communication. By analysing ESG concepts, this article combines methods derived from corpus linguistics with dispositional analytics, inspired by Michel Foucault. The data material consists of 281 annual reports, which contain the self-representation of 24 Danish large-cap companies, including how they communicated their ESG policies from 2010 to 2021. The analysis displays the proliferation of specific ESG keywords as well as changes over time in their frequency, proportional to each other. We supplement the quantitative analyses with dispositional analytics, considering how the dispositives of law, discipline, and security condition Danish companies’ adoption of ESG. We also discuss how companies use ESG concepts ‘tactically’ to navigate a context, in which the dispositives ‘over-determine’ urgent environmental, social, and governance issues.
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A steady stream of commentary criticizes Foucault's 'agentless position' for its inability to observe, much less theorize, the ways in which human actors manoeuvre, negotiate, transform or resist the structures within which they are... more
A steady stream of commentary criticizes Foucault's 'agentless position' for its inability to observe, much less theorize, the ways in which human actors manoeuvre, negotiate, transform or resist the structures within which they are situated. This article does not so much refute this critical consensus but seeks to reconstruct a framework from Foucault's writings, which allows space for 'human agency', including individuals' pursuit of tactics, attempts at solving problems, reactions to unexpected events and their reflexive work on their own subjectivities. The revised analytical framework, 'dispositional analytics', integrates the study of self-techniques with the analysis of dispositifs. Recognizing that Foucault's work eschewed an adequate consideration of individuals' capacity to affect the forces that bear upon them, the article discusses the socio-political conditions for self-formation. Finally, a case study of 'voice-hearers' who use self-techniques to reconstitute themselves in opposition to institutional psychiatry is reinterpreted through the framework of dispositional analysis.
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Pandemic modelling functions as a means of producing evidence of potential events and as an instrument of intervention that Tim Rhodes and colleagues describe as entangling science into social practices, calculations into... more
Pandemic modelling functions as a means of producing evidence of potential events and as an instrument of intervention that Tim Rhodes and colleagues describe as entangling science into social practices, calculations into materializations, abstracts into effects and models into society. This article seeks to show how a model society evinced through mathematical models produces a model not only for society but also for citizens, showing them how to act in a certain model manner that prevents an anticipated pandemic future. To this end, we analyse political speeches by various Norwegian ministers to elucidate how various model-based COVID-19 responses enact a 'model citizen'. Theoretically, we combine Rhodes et al.'s arguments with Foucault's concepts of law, discipline and security, thus showing what a model society might imply for the model citizen. Finally, we conclude that although the model society is largely informed by epidemiological models and liberal biopolitics that typically place responsibility on individual subjects, sovereign state power remains manifestly present in the speeches' rhetoric.
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Although Jane Addams has long been recognized as a pioneer in North American pragmatism, efforts to develop her thought into a distinct research program have been limited. This article develops Addams's work as a method of sociological... more
Although Jane Addams has long been recognized as a pioneer in North American pragmatism, efforts to develop her thought into a distinct research program have been limited. This article develops Addams's work as a method of sociological inquiry by focusing on her notions of "perplexity," "moral adjustment," and "sympathetic understanding." Emphasizing the essential role of language in moral conflicts and reconstruction, the article incorporates Charles Wright Mills's concept of "vocabularies of motives." Together, these notions offer a framework for exploring the moral dilemmas that care workers experience when responding to the imposition of standardization of their working practices. A case study demonstrates how care workers, while coping creatively with the effects of a service reform, develop motive vocabularies in defense of their professional ethics. Such situated creativity on "the shop floor" of social services remains relatively under-explored and under-theorized.
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There is widespread agreement that despite the general scarcity of women among classical sociologists, Jane Addams was the first and probably most influential of early American sociologists. Apart from being a leading figure in the... more
There is widespread agreement that despite the general scarcity of women among classical sociologists, Jane Addams was the first and probably most influential of early American sociologists. Apart from being a leading figure in the settlement movement, she carried out early sociological research in the Chicago slums and had close ties to contemporary pragmatist thinkers like William James, John Dewey, and George Hebert Mead. This chapter reconsiders the general designation of Addams as an "early sociologist." It discusses which criteria are adequate to define someone as a sociologist and considers Addams's activities and writings in light of such criteria. Significant in this assessment is Addams's inspiration from the Christian tradition, evident in her invocation of Christian ethics as a regenerative force and her echoing of principles from social gospel theology. The chapter concludes that Addams's work, both as a turn-of-the-century social critic and intellectual, was shaped as much by Christian values as by activities that would merit the term "sociologist." Paying attention to how Addams articulated notions like "Christian renaissance," "social salvation," and "brotherly love" complicates assessments of her as a pioneer in pragmatist, empirical sociology. Addams's blend of Christian ideas and early social science discourse is not unique but resonates with streams of reformist, sociological writing around the turn-of-the-20th-century North America and Europe. This chapter concludes that rather than constituting a stumbling block for the development of modern sociology, Christian inspirations can be an impetus for critical sociological practice in times of fragmentation and instrumentalization of sociological research.
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This article explores recent HIV prevention campaigns for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), focusing on how they integrate pleasure and desire in their calls for self-discipline through a continual use of pharmaceuticals. This emerging... more
This article explores recent HIV prevention campaigns for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), focusing on how they integrate pleasure and desire in their calls for self-discipline through a continual use of pharmaceuticals. This emerging type of health promotion, here represented by ads promoting the preventive use of pharmaceuticals, no longer simply approaches target groups with demands to abstain from harmful substances or practices and thus control risks, but also includes messages that recognize individuals' habits, values, and their desires for pleasure. Drawing on Foucault's work concerning discipline and security, we suggest that a novel, permissive discipline is emerging in contemporary HIV prevention. Further guided by Barthes's theory of images, we analyse posters used in prevention campaigns, scrutinizing their culture-specific imagery and linguistic messages, i.e. how the words and images interact. We conclude that these campaigns introduce a new temporality of prevention, one centred on pleasure through the pre-emption and planning that PrEP enables.
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The chapter tells the story of how Denmark has transformed from a very welcoming and tolerant country to one whose prime ministers reassure its residents that “We have the strictest Alien Act possible.” The approach is genealogical,... more
The chapter tells the story of how Denmark has transformed from a very welcoming and tolerant country to one whose prime ministers reassure its residents that “We have the strictest Alien Act possible.” The approach is genealogical, following Michel Foucault, and the empirical focal point lies on Danish immigration policies as they evolved from the late 1960s to the present day. This development culminates in the emergence of the concept of “risky immigrants,” which associates immigrants with risks like economic burdens, high unemployment levels, crime, undemocratic attitudes, and the development of ghettos. I analyze the Danish experience from my broader thesis on the welfare state as being caught up between the universality of welfare, industrial-capitalist expansion, and sovereign territoriality. By drawing on Foucault’s work, I study these different logics of statehood as evolving constellations of law, discipline, and security. Danish immigration policy has mutated over time so that policies of security premised on free circulation gradually gave way to discipline and legal sovereignty that blocked, filtered, and segregated immigrants. Together with this movement toward territorial enclosure, the discursive construction of the immigrant changed fundamentally.
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The marketization of the university is reflected in the demand that universities constantly competeon the international market for publications, research funding, scientific labour and students. Today, university researchers have thus... more
The marketization of the university is reflected in the demand that universities constantly competeon the international market for publications, research funding, scientific labour and students. Today, university researchers have thus become ‘entrepreneurs’ whose most important task is to produce bibliometrically competitive knowledge, generate external funding and offer programmes centred on maximizing candidates ‘employability’. Researchers are increasingly measured and promoted based on their ‘performance’ and ‘innovation’ in these areas rather than their academic skills and knowledge. Research freedom includes not being forced to conduct research aimed at specific journals, selected by politicians or the university management based on bibliometric rankings; a selection that is often a far cry from individual researchers’ and research groups’ academic specialist expertise.
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has spurred extensive governmental reactions worldwide, such as the closure of borders, the lockdown of entire countries, unprecedented economic stimulus packages, and the invention of digital tracking... more
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has spurred extensive governmental reactions worldwide, such as the closure of borders, the lockdown of entire countries, unprecedented economic stimulus packages, and the invention of digital tracking devices that enable authorities to monitor infection rates and the movements of infected individuals. An important question is to what extent the more detailed surveillance of citizens established by health authorities and governments in many countries will outlive the COVID-19 crisis. What does the pandemic tell us about the ease by which governments have revived the timeworn instruments of state sovereignty, such as territorial closure, restrictions of access to public spaces, and the privileging of national populations as the ultimate object of government? Do we witness a certain convergence between countries considered liberal-democratic and authoritarian regimes in terms of the parallel enhancements of citizen surveillance, rule by appeals to fear, and restrictions of our freedom in terms of governments’ use of personal data? In their article, ‘Obedience in times of COVID-19 pandemics: a renewed governmentality of unease?’, Didier Bigo, Elspeth Guild and Elif Mendos Kuşkonmaz (2021) offer a series of timely reflections on the above questions.
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The theme of this chapter is the relationship between the practice of confession and the constitution of economically rational subjects. We emphasize three key components in this economic subjectivity: guilt, desire and moderation, which... more
The theme of this chapter is the relationship between the practice of confession and the constitution of economically rational subjects. We emphasize three key components in this economic subjectivity: guilt, desire and moderation, which have been highlighted by Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault and Mauricio Lazzarato. These thinkers have traced these components historically to Christian morality, hereby problematizing and complicating the commonly accepted demarcation between modern, economistic rationality and pre-modern religious belief. In doing so, they have indicated an intimate historical relationship between what are ostensibly distinct and separate social arenas. In this context, we wish to foreground how the intertwinement between the constitution of subjectivity and the expansion of economic rationality is achieved through the technique of confession. More specifically, the inculcation of guilt, the virtue of responsibility and the control of desire can all be associated with the practice of confession in its broadest sense.
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This article explores the adoption of new technology in organisations that provide senior citizen care. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, we study how technology reduces complexity by identifying client needs and ensuring... more
This article explores the adoption of new technology in organisations that provide senior citizen care. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, we study how technology reduces complexity by identifying client needs and ensuring predictability in service delivery. However, how technologies are adopted in practice is not determined by technology since it is also structured by care-workers' continuous decision-making. Against this backdrop, we explore how technologies alter the conditions for decision-making in two settings of elderly care, and we describe how care workers seek to adapt technologies to their practical needs as well as conception of care ethics. Developing a systems theory approach, the article eschews a priori assumptions of technological constraint on care-work-ers' professional autonomy, offering a more open-ended exploration of diversified strategies for coping with new technology. Our case studies show that employees develop diversified strategies for technology adoption, including both non-usage, heated resistance, excessive embrace, and creative adaption.
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Foucault's notion 'the dispositive' has been introduced in organization studies as a highly promising concept. However, its analytical and empirical potentials remain to be fully explored. This article develops dispositional analytics... more
Foucault's notion 'the dispositive' has been introduced in organization studies as a highly promising concept. However, its analytical and empirical potentials remain to be fully explored. This article develops dispositional analytics which conceives of organizations as pervaded by multiple dispositives that interact, reinforce or contradict one another. In this reconstruction, particular emphasis is given to the visibility produced by dispositives, through which subjects and object emerge in a particular prescriptive light. Furthermore, analytical privilege is given to relations over substance. This means foregrounding the interrelations between dispositives as well as the dispositive's 'internal relationality', that is, the relations established by each dispositive out of which organizational problems arise and transform. The framework's potentials are explored in a study of care workers' responses to a management reform that disciplined and depersonalized care-giving. The difficulties that care workers faced in straddling legal demands, service standardization and care ethics are understood as a situation of heterogeneous dispositions. In this context, care workers and their managers tactically reconstructed their subjectivities, relating to the dispositives in diverse and unexpected ways.
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Critics lament that corporate social responsibility has failed to significantly change business practices and that it became 'de-radicalized' once embraced by corporate business management. Using historical analysis, this article... more
Critics lament that corporate social responsibility has failed to significantly change business practices and that it became 'de-radicalized' once embraced by corporate business management. Using historical analysis, this article reevaluates this de-radicalization thesis, questioning whether corporate social responsibility ever was as inherently radical as the thesis assumes. The article demonstrates that early corporate social responsibility was already invested with a strategy of pragmatism, an investment that traces back to a group of late 19th and early 20th century American Christian reformists, also known as the social gospel movement. They promised that industrialism would unify Christian ethics and capitalist production, thereby reconciling the conflict between profitseeking and social solidarity. The discourse they advanced already contained what would later become key corporate social responsibility components, including (1) the notion of ethical businessmen, (2) the corporation as a morally conscious being and (3) collaboration as the pathway to 'industrial peace'. Theoretically, the analysis finds inspiration in Luc Boltanski's and Eve Chiapello's thesis on modern capitalism's capacity to assimilate the critiques it faces, supplemented by Michel Foucault's fine-grained analyses of the transformation and 'tactical polyvalence' of discourse. The two positions complement each other in their assumptions regarding the dialectical relationship between capitalism/critique (Boltanski and Chiapello) and power/resistance (Foucault). Tracing the origins of corporate social responsibility's pragmatism further back in time than the conventional starting point in the 1950s casts new light on the de-radicalization thesis. In particular, corporate social responsibility emphasizes personal ethics as the key to industrial peace, a social gospel legacy that has steered corporate social responsibility away from demands that fundamentally challenge corporate capitalism.
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This chapter is about borders, images, and counter-conduct. It traces an event that took place in what this book terms the borderlands, not merely because it happend at the borders between the EU and the Middle East, but also because it... more
This chapter is about borders, images, and counter-conduct. It traces an event that took place in what this book terms the borderlands, not merely because it happend at the borders between the EU and the Middle East, but also because it puts fundamentally at stake a number of borders. This includes the borders between life and death, between individual sorrow and collective outrage, and the border between regulated domestic policy and international anarchy. We are particularly interested in how the event, by arising from the borderlands, and by way of its photographic connotations, spurred movements of counter-conduct. It is an event that radically brought the "inexistent" into existence.
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Designated an early pragmatist, Jane Addams has significantly inspired contemporary pragmatist research. However, Addams also consistently articulated ideas harking to primordial Christianity and sought inspiration in the social gospel of... more
Designated an early pragmatist, Jane Addams has significantly inspired contemporary pragmatist research. However, Addams also consistently articulated ideas harking to primordial Christianity and sought inspiration in the social gospel of her time. This article explores how Addams’ writing resonated with key tenets of social gospel theology, which imbued her texts with an overarching vision of humanity’s progressive history. It is suggested that Addams’ vision of a major transition in industrial society, one involving a “Christian renaissance” and individuals’ transformation into “socialized selves”, constitutes a political eschatology. Of particular interest is how Addams conceived the relationship between the individual and society, inventing the term “new social ethics” to reconcile the difficult balance between individual autonomy and social solidarity. The article suggests some ways in which Addams’ writings relate to contemporary issues such as individualism, neo-conservatism, and militarism. Her social thought constitutes a thus far under-examined source of sociological critique in regard to such issues of public concern.
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This article explores the drama performed around a self-proclaimed 'anti-establishment' executive at a Danish film company, Zentropa. The company prides itself on being against the existing 'elitist' and commercialized Danish film... more
This article explores the drama performed around a self-proclaimed 'anti-establishment' executive at a Danish film company, Zentropa. The company prides itself on being against the existing 'elitist' and commercialized Danish film industry. Inspired by the thesis that modern capitalism develops by incorporating the critiques directed against it, the article analyses how Zentropa's Chief Executive Officer invests a 'progressive', counter-cultural spirit in his management practices. We describe how a 'freethinking' a nd 'subversive' CEO uses his dramatized performances to exercise an authority that violates employees' privacy and involves public displays of disrespect. We further examine how employees use impression management to cope with norm-violating management practices, including sexual provocations and the dramatic, unjustified dismissal of an employee. In the context of these disruptions, we analyse how order is reestablis hed through dramaturgical cycles of symbolic events, including sacrifice. In particular, the study provides insights into how theatrically staged, norm-defying performances both disrupt the organization and allow managerial power to be reinstituted. It also demonstrates that anti-establishment management involves and rests upon the occasional exercise of traditional managerial hierarchy and control. Theoretically, the article develops a dramatist perspective, combining Goffman's symbolic interactionism and Burke's dramatism to offer a framework for understanding norm-transgressive management in modern organizations.
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Michel Foucault performed three different decenterings during his influetial governmentality lectures. First, he dissolved the state into social struggles, suggesting the prism of war and battle to analyse statehood. Second, he decentered... more
Michel Foucault performed three different decenterings during his influetial governmentality lectures. First, he dissolved the state into social struggles, suggesting the prism of war and battle to analyse statehood. Second, he decentered the state into administrative technologies, or 'dispositifs' rendering the state and immanent plane of indeterminate problems. Third, Foucualt explored the state, or images of the state, within neoliberal thought and extreme 'political eschatologies'. The chapter reconstructs three frameworks for analysing state formation, and it explores the potentials of these frameworks in regard to the Greek debt crises, EU's reponse to refugees, and the new political movements, Occupy and the Tea Party.
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Smartphones and other mobile communication devices are promoted with promises of enhancing professional competence and individual freedom in working life, and in work–life balance. However, an emerging stream of research demonstrates that... more
Smartphones and other mobile communication devices are promoted
with promises of enhancing professional competence and individual
freedom in working life, and in work–life balance. However, an emerging
stream of research demonstrates that the adoption of such technologies
is accompanied by increasing stress, collective control and work
intensification. This article provides a discussion of recent research on
the effects of smartphone usage in contemporary organizational life.
Generally, this research presents a contradiction between, on the one
hand, the discourse on technologies as a means to enhance individual
autonomy and competence and, on the other hand, the de facto
incorporation of technology users in networks of control and an
unhealthy work culture of permanent connectivity. Finding inspiration in
the work of Slavoj Žižek and his development of psychoanalytical
concepts, this article offers an alternative approach to this issue. It does
so by reconsidering how to understand employee subjectivity and,
specifically, why employees voluntarily embrace company-sponsored
smartphones although they are fully aware of the damage that this
technology creates in their personal lives.
with promises of enhancing professional competence and individual
freedom in working life, and in work–life balance. However, an emerging
stream of research demonstrates that the adoption of such technologies
is accompanied by increasing stress, collective control and work
intensification. This article provides a discussion of recent research on
the effects of smartphone usage in contemporary organizational life.
Generally, this research presents a contradiction between, on the one
hand, the discourse on technologies as a means to enhance individual
autonomy and competence and, on the other hand, the de facto
incorporation of technology users in networks of control and an
unhealthy work culture of permanent connectivity. Finding inspiration in
the work of Slavoj Žižek and his development of psychoanalytical
concepts, this article offers an alternative approach to this issue. It does
so by reconsidering how to understand employee subjectivity and,
specifically, why employees voluntarily embrace company-sponsored
smartphones although they are fully aware of the damage that this
technology creates in their personal lives.
Research Interests:
The Settlement movement, which originated in late nineteenth centur England, was a pioneer in bettering the conditions of the working poor. It pursued the utopian project of locating ‘settlements’ within poverty-ridden neighbourhoods... more
The Settlement movement, which originated in late nineteenth centur England, was a pioneer in bettering the conditions of the
working poor. It pursued the utopian project of locating ‘settlements’ within poverty-ridden neighbourhoods where
respectable students should meet slum dwellers on equal terms. This article explores the trajectory of the comparatively underresearched Danish offspring of the movement. It demonstrates the tempering and compromise that occurred when utopian ideals of ‘brotherly love’, ‘God’s Kingdom’, and ‘radical social change’ were realized in concrete social arrangements. Contradictions and ambiguities arose when utopian ideas were confronted with what could be done. The Settlement became a highly ambiguous space, a ‘heterotopia’. The roots of the contradictions cannot simply be identified in the external pressure of legal requirements and funding criteria represented by public welfare agencies. The contradictions can also be excavated from the Settlement’s own ideological doctrines and its historical development.
working poor. It pursued the utopian project of locating ‘settlements’ within poverty-ridden neighbourhoods where
respectable students should meet slum dwellers on equal terms. This article explores the trajectory of the comparatively underresearched Danish offspring of the movement. It demonstrates the tempering and compromise that occurred when utopian ideals of ‘brotherly love’, ‘God’s Kingdom’, and ‘radical social change’ were realized in concrete social arrangements. Contradictions and ambiguities arose when utopian ideas were confronted with what could be done. The Settlement became a highly ambiguous space, a ‘heterotopia’. The roots of the contradictions cannot simply be identified in the external pressure of legal requirements and funding criteria represented by public welfare agencies. The contradictions can also be excavated from the Settlement’s own ideological doctrines and its historical development.
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The relationship between pleasure and asceticism has been at the core of debates on western subjectivity at least since Nietzsche. Addressing this theme, this article explores the emergence of ‘non-authoritarian’ health campaigns, which... more
The relationship between pleasure and asceticism has been at the core of debates on western subjectivity at least since Nietzsche. Addressing this theme, this article explores the emergence of ‘non-authoritarian’ health campaigns, which do not propagate abstention from harmful substances but intend to foster a ‘well-balanced subject’ straddling pleasure and asceticism. The article seeks to develop the Foucauldian analytical framework by foregrounding a strategy of subjectivation that integrates desire, pleasure and enjoyment into health promotion. The point of departure is the overwhelming emphasis in the governmentality literature on
‘prudence’, ‘self-responsibility’ or ‘risk calculation’, such that pleasure and desire remain largely absent from the framework. Some insights from Zizek’s work are introduced to help us obtain a firmer grasp on the problematic of ‘the well-balanced
subject’. The article argues that, in order to analyse the transformation of interpellation in recent health promotion, we must recognize the mechanism of self-distance or dis-identification as an integral part of the procedure of subjectification.
‘prudence’, ‘self-responsibility’ or ‘risk calculation’, such that pleasure and desire remain largely absent from the framework. Some insights from Zizek’s work are introduced to help us obtain a firmer grasp on the problematic of ‘the well-balanced
subject’. The article argues that, in order to analyse the transformation of interpellation in recent health promotion, we must recognize the mechanism of self-distance or dis-identification as an integral part of the procedure of subjectification.
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The modern social citizen is a dual figure: at one and the same time a legal-universal abstraction and a particular living being with specific capacities, proclivities and attitudes. The Settlement movement from the late nineteenth... more
The modern social citizen is a dual figure: at one and the same time a legal-universal abstraction and a particular living being with specific capacities, proclivities and attitudes. The Settlement movement from the late nineteenth century articulated and shaped both universal and particular dimensions of social citizenship. It contained the imperative of guidance of individual conscience and the modern discourse of universal social rights. The article demonstrates that it is impossible to maintain a division between, on one side, the subject of individualizing pastoral care originating in religious poor relief and philanthropy, and, on the other side, formal rights based on universalism and the modern state. The Settlement movement lies at the pathway of belief, subjective interpretation and respect for the particular person and at the pathway of factual knowledge of social patterns and large-scale policy reforms. The focus on the particular person as subject was the legacy of Christian piety, whereas the concept of universal citizen was associated with the rise of social science at the University of Chicago. We explore this paradox of the particular and the universal through the work of Jane Addams as both sociologist and founder of Hull House.
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This chapter presents a condensed explanation of Foucault's concept of governmentality, examines its different meanings and offer some suggestions for using it for analysis.
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Management and humour are becoming more closely interlinked in contemporary organizational life. Whereas humour was conventionally viewed as a deleterious, alien element at the workplace, it is now increasingly viewed as a valuable... more
Management and humour are becoming more closely interlinked in contemporary organizational life. Whereas humour was conventionally viewed as a deleterious, alien
element at the workplace, it is now increasingly viewed as a valuable management tool. This development raises the question of whether humour can still be regarded as having
critical or subversive potential. This article discusses three research approaches to management and humour: the instrumental, the ideological critical, and contemporary
critical organization studies, giving particular emphasis to extending the last tradition. Hence, the article situates itself in the critical debate on the function of humour in the
workplace and on ‘cynical reasoning’ recently initiated in organization studies. It seeks to contribute to this debate by defining the features of a critical humoristic practice in a
post-authoritarian management context. The point of departure is primarily Žižek’s critique of ideology and its application in recent organization studies.
element at the workplace, it is now increasingly viewed as a valuable management tool. This development raises the question of whether humour can still be regarded as having
critical or subversive potential. This article discusses three research approaches to management and humour: the instrumental, the ideological critical, and contemporary
critical organization studies, giving particular emphasis to extending the last tradition. Hence, the article situates itself in the critical debate on the function of humour in the
workplace and on ‘cynical reasoning’ recently initiated in organization studies. It seeks to contribute to this debate by defining the features of a critical humoristic practice in a
post-authoritarian management context. The point of departure is primarily Žižek’s critique of ideology and its application in recent organization studies.
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Michel Foucault has been presented as a unequivocal defender of civil society. He was particularly sensitive to diversity and marginality, aligned with local activism and bottom-up politics. This article re-assesses this view by... more
Michel Foucault has been presented as a unequivocal defender of civil society. He was particularly sensitive to diversity and marginality, aligned with local activism and bottom-up politics. This article re-assesses this view by demonstrating that despite his political militancy, Foucault never viewed civil society as an inherently progressive force. It traces Foucault’s struggle against his own enthusiasm for anti-institutional and anti-rationalist political movements. Inventing the notion of ‘transactional reality’, Foucault escaped the choice between naturalism and ideology critique, presenting civil society as a ‘reality that does not exist’ but still has real effects. This new reality holds contradictory potentials. When articulated by political eschatology, civil society supports prophecies of the end of politics in a final accord where contradictions dissolve and the community absorbs the state. Neoliberal notions of civil society promise, on Foucault’s account, a more open-ended milieu of subject formation.
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The concepts of governmentality and biopolitics were contemporaneous and interlinked in Michel Foucault’s initial analyses. These foregrounded how in the eighteenth century the population emerged as a ‘natural-cultural reality’ resulting... more
The concepts of governmentality and biopolitics were contemporaneous and interlinked in Michel Foucault’s initial analyses. These foregrounded how in the eighteenth century the population emerged as a ‘natural-cultural reality’ resulting from an integration of biological and economic knowledge. Subsequent research on biopolitics and governmentality has tended to separate the concepts, differentiating into distinct research traditions each with different intellectual pathways. We propose to bring these conceptual innovations together to understand contemporary problems of the government of life, that is, of managing, controlling and optimizing a living population. In this domain, the natural/biological continues to intersect with the social/cultural in novel and unexpected ways. Straddling the specter of biopolitics, we examine four dimensions of the concept: vital threats and the resurrection of death power, the interplay of sovereignty, discipline and security, governmentalization through medical normalization, and ‘securitization’ of life as circulations and open series. The article also introduces this special feature on the government of life in which significant scholars explores issues of population management by drawing upon, debating, and developing the conceptual heritage of Foucault.
Keywords: Biopolitics, governmentality, epidemics, scarcity, health statistics, Foucault.
Keywords: Biopolitics, governmentality, epidemics, scarcity, health statistics, Foucault.
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This article explores how an allegedly ‘non-hierarchical’ and aestheticized managerial practice reconfigures power relations within a creative industry. The key problematic is ‘governmental’ in the sense suggested by Michel Foucault, in... more
This article explores how an allegedly ‘non-hierarchical’ and aestheticized managerial practice
reconfigures power relations within a creative industry. The key problematic is ‘governmental’ in
the sense suggested by Michel Foucault, in as much as the manager’s ethical self-practice—which
involves expressive and ‘liberated’ bodily comportment—is used tactically to shape the space of
conduct of others in the company. The study foregrounds the managerial body as ‘signifier’ in
its own right. Empirically, this is done through an analysis of video material produced by the film
company Zentropa about their apparently eccentric Managing Director, Peter Aalbæk. Contrary
to much of the literature discussing embodiment and ethics in organization studies, we do not
identify an ‘ethics of organization’ dominated by instrumental rationality, efficiency and desire for
profit which is ostensibly juxtaposed to a non-alienating, embodied ethics. Rather, when the body
becomes invested in management, we observe tensions, tactics of domination and unpredictability.
reconfigures power relations within a creative industry. The key problematic is ‘governmental’ in
the sense suggested by Michel Foucault, in as much as the manager’s ethical self-practice—which
involves expressive and ‘liberated’ bodily comportment—is used tactically to shape the space of
conduct of others in the company. The study foregrounds the managerial body as ‘signifier’ in
its own right. Empirically, this is done through an analysis of video material produced by the film
company Zentropa about their apparently eccentric Managing Director, Peter Aalbæk. Contrary
to much of the literature discussing embodiment and ethics in organization studies, we do not
identify an ‘ethics of organization’ dominated by instrumental rationality, efficiency and desire for
profit which is ostensibly juxtaposed to a non-alienating, embodied ethics. Rather, when the body
becomes invested in management, we observe tensions, tactics of domination and unpredictability.
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Management and humour are becoming more closely interlinked in contemporary organisational life. Whereas humour was conventionally viewed as a deleterious, alien element at the workplace, it is now increasingly viewed as a valuable... more
Management and humour are becoming more closely interlinked in contemporary organisational life. Whereas humour was conventionally viewed as a deleterious, alien element at the workplace, it is now increasingly viewed as a valuable management tool. This development raises the question of whether humour can still be regarded as having critical or subversive potential. This article discusses three research approaches to management and humour: the instrumental, the ideological critical, and contemporary critical organization studies, giving particular emphasis to extending the last tradition. Hence, the article situates itself in the critical debate on the function of humour in the workplace and on ‘cynical reasoning’ recently initiated in organisation studies. It seeks to contribute to this debate by defining the features of a critical humoristic practice in a post-authoritarian management context. The point of departure is primarily Žižek’s critique of ideology and its application in recent organisation studies.
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MADS PETER KARLSEN OG KASPAR VILLADSEN (RED.) SUNDHED OG MAGT I de senere år er forståelsen af sundhed undergået en række forandringer. Fokus er blevet udvidet fra patienten som biomedicinsk krop til et subjekt, der oplever... more
MADS PETER KARLSEN OG KASPAR VILLADSEN (RED.)
SUNDHED OG MAGT
I de senere år er forståelsen af sundhed undergået en række forandringer. Fokus er blevet udvidet fra patienten som biomedicinsk krop til et subjekt, der oplever sundhedsproblemer og lever med dem i interaktion med det omgivende miljø. Sundhed er blevet et langt mere
omfattende anliggende, der potentielt vedrører alle aspekter af vores tilværelse.
Det betyder samtidig, at ideer om sundhed ikke kan dikteres af sundhedsmyndigheder og eksperter. Sundhedsfremmende tiltag må i dag tage målgruppens værdier og rationaler i betragtning, bl.a. i form af kampagner, der ikke kræver absolut overholdelse af sundhedsdoktriner, men forsøger at få folk til at afveje deres usunde vaner i forhold til sundhedsværdier.
Sundhed og magt er en ny bog, der tager bestik af denne udvikling. Den rummer bidrag fra førende danske og internationale forskere, som anlægger perspektiver, der udfordrer traditionel sundhedsforskning, herunder genealogi, systemteori, psykoanalyse og aktørnetværk-teori.
Den henvender sig til studerende og fagfolk på sundheds- og samfundsvidenskabelige uddannelser.
SUNDHED OG MAGT
I de senere år er forståelsen af sundhed undergået en række forandringer. Fokus er blevet udvidet fra patienten som biomedicinsk krop til et subjekt, der oplever sundhedsproblemer og lever med dem i interaktion med det omgivende miljø. Sundhed er blevet et langt mere
omfattende anliggende, der potentielt vedrører alle aspekter af vores tilværelse.
Det betyder samtidig, at ideer om sundhed ikke kan dikteres af sundhedsmyndigheder og eksperter. Sundhedsfremmende tiltag må i dag tage målgruppens værdier og rationaler i betragtning, bl.a. i form af kampagner, der ikke kræver absolut overholdelse af sundhedsdoktriner, men forsøger at få folk til at afveje deres usunde vaner i forhold til sundhedsværdier.
Sundhed og magt er en ny bog, der tager bestik af denne udvikling. Den rummer bidrag fra førende danske og internationale forskere, som anlægger perspektiver, der udfordrer traditionel sundhedsforskning, herunder genealogi, systemteori, psykoanalyse og aktørnetværk-teori.
Den henvender sig til studerende og fagfolk på sundheds- og samfundsvidenskabelige uddannelser.
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I de senere år er forståelsen af sundhed undergået en raekke forandringer. Fokus er blevet udvidet fra patienten som biomedicinsk krop til et subjekt, der oplever sundhedsproblemer og lever med dem i interaktion med det omgivende miljø.... more
I de senere år er forståelsen af sundhed undergået en raekke forandringer. Fokus er blevet udvidet fra patienten som biomedicinsk krop til et subjekt, der oplever sundhedsproblemer og lever med dem i interaktion med det omgivende miljø. Sundhed er blevet et langt mere omfattende anliggende, der potentielt vedrører alle aspekter af vores tilvaerelse. Det betyder samtidig, at ideer om sundhed ikke kan dikteres af sundhedsmyndigheder og eksperter. Sundhedsfremmende tiltag må i dag tage målgruppens vaerdier og rationaler i betragtning, bl.a. i form af kampagner, der ikke kraever absolut overholdelse af sundhedsdoktriner, men forsøger at få folk til at afveje deres usunde vaner i forhold til sundhedsvaerdier. Sundhed og magt er en ny bog, der tager bestik af denne udvikling. Den rummer bidrag fra førende danske og internationale forskere, som anlaegger perspektiver, der udfordrer traditionel sundhedsforskning, herunder genealogi, systemteori, psykoanalyse og aktør-netvaerk-teori. Den henvender sig til studerende og fagfolk på sundheds-og samfunds-videnskabelige uddannelser.
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This is the introduction from the book 'State Phobia and Civil Society The Political Legacy of Michel Foucault' published by Stanford University Press, January 2016.
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‘Theory is, or should be, the servant and facilitator of empirical inquiry, which cannot take place without it. In this book, Mik-Meyer and Villadsen offer a sustained and disciplined example of that approach to theory. Power and Welfare... more
‘Theory is, or should be, the servant and facilitator of empirical inquiry, which cannot take place without it. In this book, Mik-Meyer and Villadsen offer a sustained and disciplined example of that approach to theory. Power and Welfare is clear and accessible … and will still be read when many fashionable theory texts have vanished from view.’ – Richard Jenkins, Professor, Department of Sociological Studies, The University of Sheffield, England.
‘This book is not only an examination of highly relevant and applicable theoretical approaches to power and welfare. It also shows the multiple forms and aspects of the play of power in the encounters between the citizen and the professional within the highly ambiguous context of contemporary liberalism. In both these respects, it is a leading example of what is emerging as a distinctive Copenhagen approach to public policy and governance.’ – Mitchell Dean, Professor, University of Newcastle, Australia, and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
‘This book is not only an examination of highly relevant and applicable theoretical approaches to power and welfare. It also shows the multiple forms and aspects of the play of power in the encounters between the citizen and the professional within the highly ambiguous context of contemporary liberalism. In both these respects, it is a leading example of what is emerging as a distinctive Copenhagen approach to public policy and governance.’ – Mitchell Dean, Professor, University of Newcastle, Australia, and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.
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Dette kapital præsenterer Foucaults diskursanalyse som metode og giver eksempler på, hvordan man kan anvende diskursanalysen på konkret materiale.
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Dette kapitel præsenterer Foucaults genealogiske metode og diskuterer herunder genealogiens kritiske ambition og principper for udvælgelse og læsning af historiske tekster.
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Dette kapitel henter inspiration hos Foucault suppleret af Gilles Deleuze til at udvikle en strategi for dispositivanalyse. Kapitlet falder i tre dele. Først introduceres dispositivet som begreb, og det fremhæves, hvordan samspillet... more
Dette kapitel henter inspiration hos Foucault suppleret af Gilles Deleuze til at udvikle en strategi for dispositivanalyse. Kapitlet falder i tre dele. Først introduceres dispositivet som begreb, og det fremhæves, hvordan samspillet mellem dispositiver skaber modsætninger og uafgørbare problemer. Den anden del fremhæver dispositivernes iboende 'blik', hvilket indebærer, at de skaber bestemte former for synlighed. Den tredje del præsenterer et empirisk eksempel på, som afprøver dispositivanalysens muligheder i et studie af standardisering af hjemmepleje. Studiet viser, hvordan omsorg på bestemte måder, men også hvordan hjemmeplejere aktivt forholder sig til dispositiverne i deres selvkonstitution.
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Der har med afsæt i den såkaldte identitetspolitik gennem længere tid udspillet sig en ophedet debat om politisering af universitets-forskningen. Identitetspolitik er i korthed en form for politik, der tager udgangspunkt i en bestemt... more
Der har med afsæt i den såkaldte identitetspolitik gennem længere tid udspillet sig en ophedet debat om politisering af universitets-forskningen. Identitetspolitik er i korthed en form for politik, der tager udgangspunkt i en bestemt gruppes religion, etnicitet, seksualitet eller anden særlige identitet, og som sigter på at varetage denne gruppes interesser og sikre, at deres identitet ikke krænkes.
Debatten er prisværdig, for temaet er afgørende for universitetets eksistens: Det handler om den enkelte forskers såvel som universitetets forskningsfrihed. Det er imidlertid et alvorligt problem, at spørgsmålet om identitetspolitik fylder så meget. Ikke kun, fordi der endnu ikke findes nogen videnskabelig undersøgelse, der viser, at identitetspolitik udgør et presserende problem for forskningsfriheden, men især, fordi spørgsmålet om identitetspolitik er med til at fjerne fokus fra det reelle langt mere grundlæggende og strukturelle problem.
Debatten er prisværdig, for temaet er afgørende for universitetets eksistens: Det handler om den enkelte forskers såvel som universitetets forskningsfrihed. Det er imidlertid et alvorligt problem, at spørgsmålet om identitetspolitik fylder så meget. Ikke kun, fordi der endnu ikke findes nogen videnskabelig undersøgelse, der viser, at identitetspolitik udgør et presserende problem for forskningsfriheden, men især, fordi spørgsmålet om identitetspolitik er med til at fjerne fokus fra det reelle langt mere grundlæggende og strukturelle problem.
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Artiklen tager afsæt i den meget udbredte antagelse om, at frivillige organisationer har en række særlige kvaliteter, der sætter dem in stand til at udføre socialt arbejde på en radikalt anderledes måde end offentlige organisationer.... more
Artiklen tager afsæt i den meget udbredte antagelse om, at frivillige organisationer har en række særlige kvaliteter, der sætter dem in stand til at udføre socialt arbejde på en radikalt anderledes måde end offentlige organisationer. Disse antagelser præger med stigende styrke den socialpolitiske debate i Danmark såvel som i mange andre velfærdsstater, og det understøttes af samfundsvidenskabelig forskning i frivillige organisationer og disses relation til det offentlige. Artiklen argumenterer for, at et analytisk perspektiv med udgangspunkt i Michel Foucaults diskursanalyse kan bidrage med en alternativ belysning af problemstillingen. På baggrund af to casestudier af indsatsen overfor narkomaner og alkoholikere i Danmark i henholdsvis 1970'erne og 1990'erne påvises, at socialfaglige tænkemåder og behandlingsteknikker over tid sætter sig igennem på tværs af skellet mellem offentlige og frivillige organisationer. Hvis disse iagttagelser holder stik, bør forskere, politikere og praktikere i socialpolitikken forholde sig kritisk til argumenter, der henviser til organisationers sektorspecifikke rationaliteter og kvaliteter.
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17. november 2017 #MeToo-kampagnen har den seneste tid sat gang i en lavine, hvor en stribe magtfulde maend er blevet anklaget for seksuelt kraenkende adfaerd. Mange af dem er blevet haengt ud i medierne, har vaeret nødt til at opgive... more
17. november 2017 #MeToo-kampagnen har den seneste tid sat gang i en lavine, hvor en stribe magtfulde maend er blevet anklaget for seksuelt kraenkende adfaerd. Mange af dem er blevet haengt ud i medierne, har vaeret nødt til at opgive deres positioner, eller er blevet fyret af virksomheder, som frygter skader på deres omdømme. I USA var Hollywood-filmproducenten Harvey Weinstein den første, som maerkede den eksplosive effekt af den pludselige cirkulation af årtiers anklager om seksuelt kraenkende adfaerd. Herhjemme er Peter Aalbaek, kendt som den (tidligere) farverige og provokerende direktør i Zentropa, også blevet anklaget for seksuelt kraenkende adfaerd, omend de i alvorlighed befinder sig et stykke fra Weinsteins angivelige overgreb og voldtaegter. Figurer som Weinstein og Aalbaek er nok ekstreme, men ikke enkeltstående tilfaelde. De er snarere symptomer på noget mere generelt, for en raekke almene tendenser. Tendenserne drejer sig ikke blot om seksuelle overgreb, men om udbredelsen af normoverskridelser foretaget af personer i magtfulde positioner – direktører, ledere, filminstruktører og toppolitikere. Spørgsmålet er, hvad det er i vores kultur, som muliggør normoverskridende adfaerd. Og om noget saerligt i den danske kontekst giver gode vaekstbetingelser for normbrydende og kraenkende opførsel. Den drifstyrede fejres Den amerikanske kulturkritiker Fredric Jameson bemaerkede allerede for 25 år siden, at normoverskridelser og eksperimenter med den overleverede moral ikke laengere skandaliserer nogen. Tvaertimod er sådanne udfordringer og provokationer i sig selv blevet institutionaliseret og udgør i dag en integreret del af den vestlige kultur. Dagens internet og medier bekraefter umiddelbart Jamesons hypotese med uendelige maengder af mennesker i affekt, aggression, begaer eller i gang med at dyrke sex. Endnu tidligere, i 1970'erne, havde amerikanske sociologer diskuteret, hvorvidt der var ved at ske en grundlaeggende forandring i den Det er ok at vaere i tvivl-men prøv en måned gratis Ja tak!
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Smartphones og andre mobile kommunikationsteknologier indføres med løfter om at give øget handlekraft og individuel frihed i arbejdslivet. Men et voksende forskningsfelt påviser, at indførelse af disse teknologier ledsages af øget... more
Smartphones og andre mobile kommunikationsteknologier indføres med løfter om at give øget handlekraft og individuel frihed i arbejdslivet. Men et voksende forskningsfelt påviser, at indførelse af disse teknologier ledsages af øget netværksbaseret kontrol og selv-pålagt arbejdsintensivering. Artiklen leverer et overblik over og en diskussion af den spirende internationale forskning i betydningen af smartphones i nutidens arbejdsliv. Denne forskning påpeger generelt en modsætning mellem en diskurs om teknologiers påståede styrkelse af individuel autonomi og præstation på den ene side, og den reelle indrullering af teknologibrugere i nye former for kontrol og en usund arbejdskultur, der indebærer konstant ’opkobling’ på den anden. Artiklen foreslår med afsæt hos Žižek en alternativ vinkel på denne problematik, idet den præsenterer en række overvejelser over, hvordan medarbejderes frivillige omfavnelse af smartphones som arbejdsredskab kan begribes, når medarbejderne udtrykker fuld bevidsthed om teknologiens konkrete skadevirkninger på deres private liv.
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Dette kapitel intrdoucerer Michel Foucault som tænker, herunder hans begreb om kritik, institutioner, disciplin, guvernementalitet, diskurs og politisk aktivisme. Kapitlet er fra: Andersen, H. & Kaspersen, L. B. (2013) Klassisk og... more
Dette kapitel intrdoucerer Michel Foucault som tænker, herunder hans begreb om kritik, institutioner, disciplin, guvernementalitet, diskurs og politisk aktivisme.
Kapitlet er fra: Andersen, H. & Kaspersen, L. B. (2013) Klassisk og moderne samfundsteori. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
Kapitlet er fra: Andersen, H. & Kaspersen, L. B. (2013) Klassisk og moderne samfundsteori. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
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Dean and Villadsen’s State Phobia and Civil Society use Foucault to examine the political concept of the state as an antiquity for the modern world. The two acknowledge that there is an ambiguity to fully defining the state in Foucault’s... more
Dean and Villadsen’s State Phobia and Civil Society use Foucault to examine the political concept of the state as an antiquity for the modern world. The two acknowledge that there is an ambiguity to fully defining the state in Foucault’s works, but they use this as an opportunity to reroute the discussion to political sovereignty. They find that the state may be the fundamental condition for social order and individual security, but the power exerted by those to govern is not beyond critique.
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With the recent publication of the fourth volume of Foucault's History of Sexuality, Les aveux de la chair, the intense editorial activity surrounding his work appears to be drawing to a close. The publication of this long-awaited volume... more
With the recent publication of the fourth volume of Foucault's History of Sexuality, Les aveux de la chair, the intense editorial activity surrounding his work appears to be drawing to a close. The publication of this long-awaited volume comes just after the edition of Theories et Institutions Pénales (2015), the last volume of his lectures at the Collège de France. While several smaller texts, interviews and documents might still appear in years to come, we have probably reached the end of a cycle. The wide range of material currently available has given us a more comprehensive view of Foucault's last decade. Ten years ago almost none of his lectures (either at the College de France or elsewhere) were open to consultation and our understanding of the 'late' Foucault was rather limited.
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In State Phobia and Civil Society: The Political Legacy of Michel Foucault, Mitchell Dean and Kaspar Villadsen discuss Foucault’s interpretation of neoliberalism modelled on the themes of governmentality and biopolitics as being both... more
In State Phobia and Civil Society: The Political Legacy of Michel Foucault, Mitchell Dean and Kaspar Villadsen discuss Foucault’s interpretation of neoliberalism modelled on the themes of governmentality and biopolitics as being both influential but also problematic in relation to a variant of anti-statism. In part, this book arrives at an interesting moment in Foucauldian studies where new questions are being raised over Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics. Allegations of neoliberal sympathies in Foucault’s work have provoked a wave of reaction by theorists located within the more mainstream Foucauldian studies field, with the likes of Antonio Negri even denigrating Ewald as a ‘Right-Foucauldian’ (cited at 151). Knowing Foucault’s evasion of political labels and his experimental style of lecturing which preclude deducing his actual political position from his subject matter – Dean and Villadsen pose instead, what kind of politics should we draw from his genealogical mode of analysis of governmentality, especially, vis-à-vis the state.
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The Marxist literary scholar Fredric Jameson recently remarked that the work of Michel Foucault and that of his intellectual descendants exhibit a quasi-paranoid fear of political organisation, especially in its dominant modern form of... more
The Marxist literary scholar Fredric Jameson
recently remarked that the work of Michel
Foucault and that of his intellectual descendants
exhibit a quasi-paranoid fear of political organisation,
especially in its dominant modern form
of the nation state. Mitchell Dean and Kaspar
Villadsen’s outstanding State Phobia and Civil
Society shows that this statement is both largely
accurate and partly mistaken. Whereas
Foucault’s own perspective reveals a mixed
appreciation of the state, the reception of his
work tends to develop its state-phobic elements.
recently remarked that the work of Michel
Foucault and that of his intellectual descendants
exhibit a quasi-paranoid fear of political organisation,
especially in its dominant modern form
of the nation state. Mitchell Dean and Kaspar
Villadsen’s outstanding State Phobia and Civil
Society shows that this statement is both largely
accurate and partly mistaken. Whereas
Foucault’s own perspective reveals a mixed
appreciation of the state, the reception of his
work tends to develop its state-phobic elements.
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State phobia and civil society: the political legacy of Michel Foucault, by Mitchell Dean and Kaspar Villadsen, Palo Alto, Stanford University Press, 2016, 196, pp., £22.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9780804796972 Michel Foucault introduced and... more
State phobia and civil society: the political legacy of Michel Foucault, by
Mitchell Dean and Kaspar Villadsen, Palo Alto, Stanford University Press, 2016, 196, pp., £22.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9780804796972
Michel Foucault introduced and developed the notion of state phobia in his 1978–1979 lectures on biopolitics (Foucault 2008, 75), observing that his contemporaries were critical of the universal presence and power of the state regardless of whether it was socialist, fascist, or even liberal in character. Foucault himself was well known for questioning the role and legitimacy of the modern state, which was perhaps most evident in his calls to ‘cut off the king’s head,’ move beyond the state, and analyze the micro-foundations of power. However, state phobia appears to have become an even more widely discussed theme today. Not only does the state suffer from a poor reputation across the political spectrum, many scholars have addressed how the nation-state is
becoming increasingly hollowed out by globalization, the emergence and promotion of network governance, and the ever greater importance placed upon civil society and community-based politics. State phobia, which has come to question whether the state is the obvious center of control and power, thus now extends well beyond the poststructuralist
and nominalist approach launched by Foucault.
Against this background, the main concern in State Phobia and Civil Society is to problematize Foucault’s legacy by investigating the poststructuralist tradition, which appears to encourage state phobia by virtue of its denunciation of collective public efforts as well as its promotion of local and community-based solutions. Dean and Villadsen refer to the latter as ‘multitude, molecular and minor politics, grassroots movements or vital politics and ethopolitics’ (5). (Quote from the page 1, The Review)
Mitchell Dean and Kaspar Villadsen, Palo Alto, Stanford University Press, 2016, 196, pp., £22.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9780804796972
Michel Foucault introduced and developed the notion of state phobia in his 1978–1979 lectures on biopolitics (Foucault 2008, 75), observing that his contemporaries were critical of the universal presence and power of the state regardless of whether it was socialist, fascist, or even liberal in character. Foucault himself was well known for questioning the role and legitimacy of the modern state, which was perhaps most evident in his calls to ‘cut off the king’s head,’ move beyond the state, and analyze the micro-foundations of power. However, state phobia appears to have become an even more widely discussed theme today. Not only does the state suffer from a poor reputation across the political spectrum, many scholars have addressed how the nation-state is
becoming increasingly hollowed out by globalization, the emergence and promotion of network governance, and the ever greater importance placed upon civil society and community-based politics. State phobia, which has come to question whether the state is the obvious center of control and power, thus now extends well beyond the poststructuralist
and nominalist approach launched by Foucault.
Against this background, the main concern in State Phobia and Civil Society is to problematize Foucault’s legacy by investigating the poststructuralist tradition, which appears to encourage state phobia by virtue of its denunciation of collective public efforts as well as its promotion of local and community-based solutions. Dean and Villadsen refer to the latter as ‘multitude, molecular and minor politics, grassroots movements or vital politics and ethopolitics’ (5). (Quote from the page 1, The Review)
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Spanking and naked sauna sessions with the boss have been part of the management style at the Danish film company Zentropa for years. Many dissociate themselves from such absurd behavior, but this informal way of practicing leadership is... more
Spanking and naked sauna sessions with the boss have been part of the management style at the Danish film company Zentropa for years. Many dissociate themselves from such absurd behavior, but this informal way of practicing leadership is not an isolated case. Along with two CBS professors, CBS WIRE will look into this phenomenon, which also reflects a general tendency within management today.
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Zentropa er ikke kun værd at studere med henblik på at ændre arbejdsforholdene i det filmselskab, som Peter Aalbæk og Lars von Trier grundlagde for 25 år siden. Aalbæks grænseoverskridende måde at lede virksomheden på er også interessant,... more
Zentropa er ikke kun værd at studere med henblik på at ændre arbejdsforholdene i det filmselskab, som Peter Aalbæk og Lars von Trier grundlagde for 25 år siden. Aalbæks grænseoverskridende måde at lede virksomheden på er også interessant, fordi den er et illustrativt eksempel på mere generelle tendenser inden for nutidens ledelse. Det mener to forskere fra CBS, der har arbejdet med Zentropa som case i flere år.
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Philosophy and Politics
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This book aims to show how the concept of technology in systems theory contributes to a better understanding of illusions of control. The book is driven by a double ambition. First, it represents an attempt to describe illusions by means... more
This book aims to show how the concept of technology in systems theory contributes to a better understanding of illusions of control. The book is driven by a double ambition. First, it represents an attempt to describe illusions by means of paradoxes and how they relate to existing technologies of public regulation. Second, it introduces the systems theoretical concept of technology and explores the ways in which it stimulates the analysis of paradoxes of control. The following credo sums up the relevance of the book: no management without technologies. And this pertains to public regulation as well as to management in general. No doubt, the function of public management is to implement policies designed by others, most often within the parliamentary chain of control, or to implement strategies for organizational development. But managers would be lost without technologies to effect such implementation. This has become a generally accepted idea ever since the work of Taylor and Fayol and is maintained within current management literature. And from the perspective of public regulation, technologies are, and have been, imperative for the implementation of New Public Management and Public Governance.
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This essay tells the story of how Denmark transformed from a very welcoming and tolerant country to one whose prime ministers reassure its residents, “We have the strictest Alien Act possible.” The approach is genealogical, following... more
This essay tells the story of how Denmark transformed from a very welcoming and tolerant country to one whose prime ministers reassure its residents, “We have the strictest Alien Act possible.” The approach is genealogical, following Michel Foucault, and the empirical focal point is Danish immigration policies as they evolved from the late 1960s until today. This development culminates in the emergence of the “restrictionist policy paradigm,” which associates immigrants with risks like economic burdens, high unemployment levels, crimes, undemocratic attitudes, and the development of ghettos. From the perspective of the welfare project, the immigrants became “risky” as they were profiled in terms of their higher probability of developing suboptimal or dysfunctional behaviors that endanger the welfare state. The Danish experience is analyzed from a broader thesis on the welfare state as caught up between welfarist universality, industrial-capitalist expansion, and sovereign territoria...
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The different approaches explained and examined are these of Foucault (genealogy of power), Goffman (power in social interactions), Bourdieu (power in fields), Luhmann (power in systems), neo-institutional theory (power in organisations)... more
The different approaches explained and examined are these of Foucault (genealogy of power), Goffman (power in social interactions), Bourdieu (power in fields), Luhmann (power in systems), neo-institutional theory (power in organisations) and risk theory (power and culture). A succinct presentation of each perspective is made, followed by two examples of researches (case studies of patients, nursing home residents, unemployed people, homeless people and young offenders, from the USA, Denmark, France, Sweden, Canada and Australia). The authors note that these approaches are very different; some are linked with one main author, other with multiples authors; some form a coherent theoretical perspective, and some not. Explaining that ‘power is always at stake in the citizen’s encounters with welfare institutions,’ they argue that the researcher must be ‘able to discern and problematise the complex form of power at play in those encounters’ (p. 126). If the justification of the choice of approaches is rather convincing, we can regret the absence, in a book especially designed for students, of the classic discussion between Marxist and Weberian perspectives upon power. In the conclusive chapter, the authors propose an integration of the different approaches examined, in order to draw a programme for analysing state’s encounter with the citizen. They suggest combining the different perspectives, for example Bourdieu’s perspective with Goffman’s: Bourdieu’s theory of society as consisting as a number of fields can provide an analytical tool with which to analyse the surrounding or ‘outer’ framework for interaction between people (p. 136). The book is ambitious but not fully convincing; in trying to reconcile antinomic perspectives on society, the authors not only pass over the differences between them (e.g. agency in the interactionist perspective is not agency in the theory of habitus), but also discuss similar theories that have not the same ambitions, complexity or the same heuristic value. But this didactic and well-documented book is an interesting tool for teaching power theory to social work students.
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A steady stream of commentary criticizes Foucault's 'agentless position' for its inability to observe, much less theorize, the ways in which human actors manoeuvre, negotiate, transform or resist the structures... more
A steady stream of commentary criticizes Foucault's 'agentless position' for its inability to observe, much less theorize, the ways in which human actors manoeuvre, negotiate, transform or resist the structures within which they are situated. This article does not so much refute this critical consensus but seeks to reconstruct a framework from Foucault's writings, which allows space for 'human agency', including individuals' pursuit of tactics, attempts at solving problems, reactions to unexpected events and their reflexive work on their own subjectivities. The revised analytical framework, 'dispositional analytics', integrates the study of self-techniques with the analysis of dispositifs. Recognizing that Foucault's work eschewed an adequate consideration of individuals' capacity to affect the forces that bear upon them, the article discusses the socio-political conditions for self-formation. Finally, a case study of 'voice-hearers' who use self-techniques to reconstitute themselves in opposition to institutional psychiatry is reinterpreted through the framework of dispositional analysis.
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Pandemic modelling functions as a means of producing evidence of potential events and as an instrument of intervention that Tim Rhodes and colleagues describe as entangling science into social practices, calculations into... more
Pandemic modelling functions as a means of producing evidence of potential events and as an instrument of intervention that Tim Rhodes and colleagues describe as entangling science into social practices, calculations into materializations, abstracts into effects and models into society. This article seeks to show how a model society evinced through mathematical models produces a model not only for society but also for citizens, showing them how to act in a certain model manner that prevents an anticipated pandemic future. To this end, we analyse political speeches by various Norwegian ministers to elucidate how various model-based COVID-19 responses enact a ‘model citizen’. Theoretically, we combine Rhodes et al.’s arguments with Foucault’s concepts of law, discipline and security, thus showing what a model society might imply for the model citizen. Finally, we conclude that although the model society is largely informed by epidemiological models and liberal biopolitics that typical...
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Although Jane Addams has long been recognized as a pioneer in North American pragmatism, efforts to develop her thought into a distinct research program have been limited. This article develops Addams’s work as a method of sociological... more
Although Jane Addams has long been recognized as a pioneer in North American pragmatism, efforts to develop her thought into a distinct research program have been limited. This article develops Addams’s work as a method of sociological inquiry by focusing on her notions of “perplexity,” “moral adjustment,” and “sympathetic understanding.” Emphasizing the essential role of language in moral conflicts and reconstruction, the article incorporates Charles Wright Mills’s concept of “vocabularies of motives.” Together, these notions offer a framework for exploring the moral dilemmas that care workers experience when responding to the imposition of standardization of their working practices. A case study demonstrates how care workers, while coping creatively with the effects of a service reform, develop motive vocabularies in defense of their professional ethics. Such situated creativity on “the shop floor” of social services remains relatively under-explored and under-theorized.
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There is widespread agreement that despite the general scarcity of women among classical sociologists, Jane Addams was the first and probably most influential of early American sociologists. Apart from being a leading figure in the... more
There is widespread agreement that despite the general scarcity of women among classical sociologists, Jane Addams was the first and probably most influential of early American sociologists. Apart from being a leading figure in the settlement movement, she carried out early sociological research in the Chicago slums and had close ties to contemporary pragmatist thinkers like William James, John Dewey, and George Hebert Mead. This chapter reconsiders the general designation of Addams as an “early sociologist.” It discusses which criteria are adequate to define someone as a sociologist and considers Addams’s activities and writings in light of such criteria. Significant in this assessment is Addams’s inspiration from the Christian tradition, evident in her invocation of Christian ethics as a regenerative force and her echoing of principles from social gospel theology. The chapter concludes that Addams’s work, both as a turn-of-the-century social critic and intellectual, was shaped as ...
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This chapter presents a condensed explanation of Foucault's concept of governmentality, examines its different meanings and offer some suggestions for using it for analysis.
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Sociology and Pragmatism
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This chapter is about borders, images, and counter-conduct. It traces an event that took place in what this book terms the borderlands, not merely because it happend at the borders between the EU and the Middle East, but also because it... more
This chapter is about borders, images, and counter-conduct. It traces an event that took place in what this book terms the borderlands, not merely because it happend at the borders between the EU and the Middle East, but also because it puts fundamentally at stake a number of borders. This includes the borders between life and death, between individual sorrow and collective outrage, and the border between regulated domestic policy and international anarchy. We are particularly interested in how the event, by arising from the borderlands, and by way of its photographic connotations, spurred movements of counter-conduct. It is an event that radically brought the "inexistent" into existence.
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This article explores the adoption of new technology in organisations that provide senior citizen care. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, we study how technology reduces complexity by identifying client needs and... more
This article explores the adoption of new technology in organisations that provide senior citizen care. Inspired by Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, we study how technology reduces complexity by identifying client needs and ensuring predictability in service delivery. However, how technologies are adopted in practice is not determined by technology since it is also structured by care-workers' continuous decision-making. Against this backdrop, we explore how technologies alter the conditions for decision-making in two settings of elderly care, and we describe how care workers seek to adapt technologies to their practical needs as well as conception of care ethics. Developing a systems theory approach, the article eschews a priori assumptions of technological constraint on care-work-ers' professional autonomy, offering a more open-ended exploration of diversified strategies for coping with new technology. Our case studies show that employees develop diversified strategies for technology adoption, including both non-usage, heated resistance, excessive embrace, and creative adaption.
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Critics lament that corporate social responsibility has failed to significantly change business practices and that it became ‘de-radicalized’ once embraced by corporate business management. Using historical analysis, this article... more
Critics lament that corporate social responsibility has failed to significantly change business practices and that it became ‘de-radicalized’ once embraced by corporate business management. Using historical analysis, this article reevaluates this de-radicalization thesis, questioning whether corporate social responsibility ever was as inherently radical as the thesis assumes. The article demonstrates that early corporate social responsibility was already invested with a strategy of pragmatism, an investment that traces back to a group of late 19th and early 20th century American Christian reformists, also known as the social gospel movement. They promised that industrialism would unify Christian ethics and capitalist production, thereby reconciling the conflict between profitseeking and social solidarity. The discourse they advanced already contained what would later become key corporate social responsibility components, including (1) the notion of ethical businessmen, (2) the corpo...
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Sociology, Corporate Social Responsibility, Genealogy, Political Science, Radicalization, and 10 moreCapitalism, Michel Foucault, Critical Organization Studies, Christian Social Ethics, Organization, Philosophy and Religious Studies, Social Gospel, Luc Boltanski, New Spirit of Capitalism, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
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ABSTRACT Smartphones and other mobile communication devices are promoted with promises of enhancing professional competence and individual freedom in working life, and in work–life balance. However, an emerging stream of research... more
ABSTRACT Smartphones and other mobile communication devices are promoted with promises of enhancing professional competence and individual freedom in working life, and in work–life balance. However, an emerging stream of research demonstrates that the adoption of such technologies is accompanied by increasing stress, collective control and work intensification. This article provides a discussion of recent research on the effects of smartphone usage in contemporary organizational life. Generally, this research presents a contradiction between, on the one hand, the discourse on technologies as a means to enhance individual autonomy and competence and, on the other hand, the de facto incorporation of technology users in networks of control and an unhealthy work culture of permanent connectivity. Finding inspiration in the work of Slavoj Žižek and his development of psychoanalytical concepts, this article offers an alternative approach to this issue. It does so by reconsidering how to understand employee subjectivity and, specifically, why employees voluntarily embrace company-sponsored smartphones although they are fully aware of the damage that this technology creates in their personal lives.
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The relationship between pleasure and asceticism has been at the core of debates on western subjectivity at least since Nietzsche. Addressing this theme, this article explores the emergence of ‘non-authoritarian’ health campaigns, which... more
The relationship between pleasure and asceticism has been at the core of debates on western subjectivity at least since Nietzsche. Addressing this theme, this article explores the emergence of ‘non-authoritarian’ health campaigns, which do not propagate abstention from harmful substances but intend to foster a ‘well-balanced subject’ straddling pleasure and asceticism. The article seeks to develop the Foucauldian analytical framework by foregrounding a strategy of subjectivation that integrates desire, pleasure and enjoyment into health promotion. The point of departure is the overwhelming emphasis in the governmentality literature on ‘prudence’, ‘self-responsibility’ or ‘risk calculation’, such that pleasure and desire remain largely absent from the framework. Some insights from Žižek’s work are introduced to help us obtain a firmer grasp on the problematic of ‘the well-balanced subject’. The article argues that, in order to analyse the transformation of interpellation in recent he...
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Michel Foucault has been presented as a unequivocal defender of civil society. He was particularly sensitive to diversity and marginality, aligned with local activism and bottom-up politics. This article re-assesses this view by... more
Michel Foucault has been presented as a unequivocal defender of civil society. He was particularly sensitive to diversity and marginality, aligned with local activism and bottom-up politics. This article re-assesses this view by demonstrating that despite his political militancy, Foucault never viewed civil society as an inherently progressive force. It traces Foucault’s struggle against his own enthusiasm for anti-institutional and anti-rationalist political movements. Inventing the notion of ‘transactional reality’, Foucault escaped the choice between naturalism and ideology critique, presenting civil society as a ‘reality that does not exist’ but still has real effects. This new reality holds contradictory potentials. When articulated by political eschatology, civil society supports prophecies of the end of politics in a final accord where contradictions dissolve and the community absorbs the state. Neoliberal notions of civil society promise, on Foucault’s account, a more open-e...
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During the last decade, ESG has become a globally widespread doctrine of good investment principles. ESG defines investing for broader, extra-financial goals by the use of “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) factors. While... more
During the last decade, ESG has become a globally widespread doctrine of good investment principles. ESG defines investing for broader, extra-financial goals by the use of “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) factors. While commentators generally agree that ESG has become a crucial arena for defining responsible investment, research is so far scarce on the conceptual development of the ESG discourse as well as how companies articulate it in their public communication. By analysing ESG concepts, this article combines methods derived from corpus linguistics with dispositional analytics, inspired by Michel Foucault. The data material consists of 281 annual reports, which contain the self-representation of 24 Danish large-cap companies, including how they communicated their ESG policies from 2010 to 2021. The analysis displays the proliferation of specific ESG keywords as well as changes over time in their frequency, proportional to each other. We supplement the quantitative ana...
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Debat og Bogreception: Sundhed og Magt - Perspektiver på biopolitik og ledelsesteknologi Bogen er redigeret af Mads Peter Karlsen og Kaspar Villadsen. Bogen indeholder artikler af bl.a. Nikolas Rose, Thomas Lemke og Mitchell Dean. På... more
Debat og Bogreception: Sundhed og Magt - Perspektiver på biopolitik og ledelsesteknologi
Bogen er redigeret af Mads Peter Karlsen og Kaspar Villadsen. Bogen indeholder artikler af bl.a. Nikolas Rose, Thomas Lemke og Mitchell Dean.
På dansk side bidrager Niels Åkerstrøm, Lars Thorup Larsen, Ayo Wahlberg, Ole Bjerg,Anders La Cour, Justine Grønbæk Pors, Holger Højlund, Kathrine Hofmann Pii, Mads Peter Karlsen og Kaspar Villadsen.
Bogen er redigeret af Mads Peter Karlsen og Kaspar Villadsen. Bogen indeholder artikler af bl.a. Nikolas Rose, Thomas Lemke og Mitchell Dean.
På dansk side bidrager Niels Åkerstrøm, Lars Thorup Larsen, Ayo Wahlberg, Ole Bjerg,Anders La Cour, Justine Grønbæk Pors, Holger Højlund, Kathrine Hofmann Pii, Mads Peter Karlsen og Kaspar Villadsen.
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PhD Course: Foucault and Organization, Technology, and Subject-formation. Copenhagen (2023) 11th September – 14th September, 2023 Registration Deadline Monday 7 August 2023 at 09:00 Organizer Copenhagen Business School. PhD School Nina... more
PhD Course: Foucault and Organization, Technology, and Subject-formation. Copenhagen (2023)
11th September – 14th September, 2023
Registration Deadline
Monday 7 August 2023 at 09:00
Organizer
Copenhagen Business School. PhD School
Nina Iversen
Phone: +45 3815 2475
ni.research@cbs.dk
Michel Foucault’s work continues to offer a major source of inspiration for PhD projects across a wide range of disciplinary domains. This PhD course explores how Foucault’s work speaks to three broad themes in contemporary business school research and beyond: Organization, technology, and subject-formation. The lecturers on the course have all pursued substantive research on these themes, drawing upon different parts of Foucault’s authorship, and they will base their teaching on this research experience. Overall, we will explore how Foucault’s thinking can help to inquire into the organizations, technologies and techniques of self-formation that make up the conditions of possibility for our contemporary experiences. A key aim of the course is that the participants acquire an effective overview of analytical possibilities in Foucault’s work, effective for selecting and deploying such analytics in their own research.
More information and registration: https://phdsupport.nemtilmeld.dk/38/
Course coordinator:
Kaspar Villadsen, Department of Business Humanities and Law (BHL)
Faculty
Professor Sverre Raffnsøe
Department of Business Humanities and Law, CBS
Associate Professor Marius Gudmand-Høyer
Department of Business Humanities and Law, CBS
Professor (mso) Kaspar Villadsen
Department of Business Humanities and Law, CBS
Prerequisites
Only PhD students can participate in the course.
Participation requires submission of a short paper (see more below). Papers must be in English and deadline is 1st September 2023.
It is a precondition for receiving the course diploma that the PhD student attends the whole course.
Aim
The course will provide the participants with:
a) An introduction to key analytical potentials reconstructed from Foucault’s wide-ranging authorship as well as the lecturers’ own research projects.
b) In particular, we will discuss different approaches to themes of organization, technology, and subject-formation as they are deployed in state-of-the-art Foucault-inspired scholarship.
c) The potentials and limits of the particular way Foucauldian analytics can be applied in the participant’s research will be discussed. Hence, a range of analytical resources and potentials will be explored and discussed in relation to the participants’ current research.
11th September – 14th September, 2023
Registration Deadline
Monday 7 August 2023 at 09:00
Organizer
Copenhagen Business School. PhD School
Nina Iversen
Phone: +45 3815 2475
ni.research@cbs.dk
Michel Foucault’s work continues to offer a major source of inspiration for PhD projects across a wide range of disciplinary domains. This PhD course explores how Foucault’s work speaks to three broad themes in contemporary business school research and beyond: Organization, technology, and subject-formation. The lecturers on the course have all pursued substantive research on these themes, drawing upon different parts of Foucault’s authorship, and they will base their teaching on this research experience. Overall, we will explore how Foucault’s thinking can help to inquire into the organizations, technologies and techniques of self-formation that make up the conditions of possibility for our contemporary experiences. A key aim of the course is that the participants acquire an effective overview of analytical possibilities in Foucault’s work, effective for selecting and deploying such analytics in their own research.
More information and registration: https://phdsupport.nemtilmeld.dk/38/
Course coordinator:
Kaspar Villadsen, Department of Business Humanities and Law (BHL)
Faculty
Professor Sverre Raffnsøe
Department of Business Humanities and Law, CBS
Associate Professor Marius Gudmand-Høyer
Department of Business Humanities and Law, CBS
Professor (mso) Kaspar Villadsen
Department of Business Humanities and Law, CBS
Prerequisites
Only PhD students can participate in the course.
Participation requires submission of a short paper (see more below). Papers must be in English and deadline is 1st September 2023.
It is a precondition for receiving the course diploma that the PhD student attends the whole course.
Aim
The course will provide the participants with:
a) An introduction to key analytical potentials reconstructed from Foucault’s wide-ranging authorship as well as the lecturers’ own research projects.
b) In particular, we will discuss different approaches to themes of organization, technology, and subject-formation as they are deployed in state-of-the-art Foucault-inspired scholarship.
c) The potentials and limits of the particular way Foucauldian analytics can be applied in the participant’s research will be discussed. Hence, a range of analytical resources and potentials will be explored and discussed in relation to the participants’ current research.