Why More Civil Society Will Not Lead to Less Domination: Dealing with Present Day State Phobia through Michel Foucault and Neo-Republicanism

ABSTRACT

The notion of civil society, as an ontologically distinct sphere, separated from the state thereby serves as an antidote to the sovereign power of the state. Since the 1990s, we have seen reforms and organizational structures that advances the role of the market as well as the civil society along with a voluntary sector, often with the deliberate attempt to disrupt the power of the state and to tame the Leviathan through the promotion of networks, partnerships, co-governance and collaboration. This can be understood in terms of a present day state phobia and builds on a liberal conception of negative freedom understood as non-interference. Yet if we take Foucault‘s theorizations of power as omnipresent as it disrupts the power/freedom dichotomy we need to find alternative ways to cope with relations of power in order to not let them deteriorate into relations of domination. I argue in this article that neo-republican ideal of non-domination can be combined with Foucault’s insights on the nature of power. If correct, a continued promotion of more civil society involvement and partnerships between public and private actors provides a false insurance to diminish domination in contemporary societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Power
• Freedom
• Civil Society
• State-phobia
• Neo-republicanism
• Domination
• non-interference

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented at the ECPR General Conference in Oslo, August 2017. A second presentation at the AAU Republicanism Conference in Prague, November 2017, provided additional feedback. I also wish to extend my gratitude to my former colleagues Josefina Erikson, Johan Wejryd, and Jonas Rosenberg at the Department of Government, Uppsala University for their insightful comments on early drafts. In addition, I also received valuable comments by the two anonymous reviewer during the review process with Journal of Political Power. Any errors that remain in the text are solely mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Oscar L. Larsson

Oscar L. Larsson is Assistant Professor in Military Studies at the Swedish Defense University. Larsson’s main research interest has been the political dimensions of networks and collaboration between public and private actors. His post-doc project was on integration governance in rural contexts in Sweden. Oscar Larson has previously published articles on network governance and sovereign power/domination in Critical Policy Studies, Policy Studies, Regulation & Governance, and Constellations, on neo-institutionalism in Critical Review and crisis management in Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy and Security Dialogue.