Governing humans and ‘things’: power and rule in Norway during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

This text focuses on the mentalities and technologies of power employed by the Norwegian government as it attempts to control the Covid-19 pandemic. Utilizing governmentality studies and a Foucauldian discourse analysis, I find life itself to be given primacy within a biopolitical problem space where the government seeks to contain the spread of Covid-19. The government primarily rationalizes its exercises of power in a liberal manner while employing a complex set of liberal and coercive technologies, which it channels towards both the human population, which serves as an object of administration, and Covid-19, which serves as an object of domination.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• governmentality
• Foucault
• biopolitics
• actor-network

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lars Erik Løvaas Gjerde

Lars Erik Løvaas Gjerde is a researcher at the European University Institute. He holds a master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Oslo. His current research focuses on power, ideology and governmentality.