On Foucault and foreign policy: the merits of governmentality for the study of EU external relations

ABSTRACT

This paper demonstrates the merits of governmentality as a tool for studying EU external relations. Existing research tends to fall into the trap of reifying the dichotomy between realist and ideational conceptions of EU external action. Governmentality can serve as a hybrid between these two strands of research, incorporating the preoccupancy with power of the former with the ethical considerations of the latter. It can open up our understanding of power operating in and through the EU’s external relations, by looking at the discursive constructions rendering issues governable and the micro-political practices that follow from it. We provide an overview of existing applications of governmentality in EU external relations and construct a framework allowing researchers to use governmentality to its full analytical potential.

KEYWORDS:

• Michel Foucault
• governmentality
• European Union
• external relations
• post-structuralism

Notes

1 We aim to be consistent in our use of the terms ‘external policies’ or ‘external relations’ in order to make clear we discuss a wide range of EU policies with an external dimension. This includes EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, but also, for example, external trade, development and climate change policies.

2 Sovereign power is power operating through law and violence over a given territory and its subjects. Disciplinary power targets the body in specific and confined settings (e.g. a prison), by employing surveillance and normalizing techniques to produce useful, calculable subjects (Walters & Haahr, 2004, p. 9).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Foundation Flanders [grant number 11ZU217N].