This volume focuses on the relation that Foucault established between the ideas of biopower and biopolitics and the studies of governmentality in his last Courses at the Collège de France and in his occasional writings of this period. The essays in this volume adopt and contribute to Foucault’s analysis of biopolitics as a guiding thread to understand why liberalism and neoliberalism is a “government of life.” The essays in this collection, read as a whole, suggest that the linkage between governmentality, understood as a “conduct of conduct,” and biopolitics, understood as power over biologic ... More

This volume focuses on the relation that Foucault established between the ideas of biopower and biopolitics and the studies of governmentality in his last Courses at the Collège de France and in his occasional writings of this period. The essays in this volume adopt and contribute to Foucault’s analysis of biopolitics as a guiding thread to understand why liberalism and neoliberalism is a “government of life.” The essays in this collection, read as a whole, suggest that the linkage between governmentality, understood as a “conduct of conduct,” and biopolitics, understood as power over biological life, is fruitfully illuminated by considering the idea of a “normative order”: a way to regiment and govern the lives of people that brings together the religious as well as the economic dimensions of social order. All the chapters address the relationship between governmentality and biopolitics, but they do so from a variety of perspectives: some emphasize the problem of security; others the problem of managing the life of populations; others focus on the normative order of neoliberalism; still others address the way in which Foucault returns to ancient Greek philosophy and Christian and Islamic religion to understand this relationship.