Decentring Global Power: The Merits of a Foucauldian Approach to International Relations

Abstract

In recent times, the value of a critical approach to the study of International Relations (IR) that makes use of the concepts and methods of Michel Foucault has (again) been put on trial. I will argue in this article that both Foucauldians and their critics often neglect Foucault's radical epistemology that always prioritises practices over political theory. The demand of such an approach is the relentless decentring and diversifying of totalising and unifying accounts of (global) power relations, resulting in a continuous challenge of the traditional meta-theories and concepts of any academic discipline—including IR. The present article will follow this approach and challenge, through the investigation of a particular case of what is commonly perceived as an exercise in “global governance”, the idea that contemporary (global) power relations can be depicted solely through the lens of neoliberalism, sovereignty, or biopolitics. Instead, it will show that (global) power is located in a complex and flexible constellation of diverse and contradictory, mutually constituting and mutually destabilising strategies and tactics at particular sites.

Notes

1. David Chandler, “Critiquing Liberal Cosmopolitanism? The Limits of the Biopolitical Approach”, International Political Sociology, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2009), pp. 53–70.

2. Ibid., p. 55.

3. Ibid., p. 56.

4. Ibid., p. 61.

5. Michel Foucault, The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1945–1984, Vol. III: Power (ed. J.D. Faubion) (London: Penguin, 1994), p. 225. Cf. Foucault's notion of “reality” in ibid., p. 125, and to his understanding of “genealogy”, in ibid., pp. 118–119.

6. Cf. Chandler, op. cit., p. 60.

7. Ibid., p. 56.

8. Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78 (Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 3.

9. Bob Jessop, “From Micro-powers to Governmentality: Foucault's Work on Statehood, State Formation, Statecraft and State Power”, Political Geography, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2007), p. 36; referring to Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, op. cit., p. 3.

10. Jonathan Joseph, “Neo-liberalism, Governmentality and Social Regulation”, Paper prepared for the SAID Workshop, 17 April 2007.

11. Jan Selby, “Engaging Foucault: Discourse, Liberal Governance and the Limits of Foucauldian IR”, International Relations, Vol. 21, No. 3 (2007), p. 331.

12. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, op. cit., p. 107.

13. Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979 (Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 21.

14. Jessop, op. cit., p. 39.

15. Kimberly Hutchings, “Foucault and International Relations Theory”, in M. Lloyd and A. Thacker (eds.), The Impact of Michel Foucault on the Social Sciences and Humanities (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), pp. 105, 125.

16. Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (London: Penguin, 1981), p. 92.

17. Ibid., p. 93.

18. Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, op. cit., p. 92.

19. Michel Foucault, Remarks on Marx (New York: Semiotext(e), 1991), p. 28.

20. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, op. cit., pp. 42, 76.

21. John Urry, Global Complexity (Cambridge: Polity Press; Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p. 122.

22. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 2.

23. See, for example, Naomi Klein, The Shock-doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (London: Penguin, 2008).

24. John Clarke, “Dissolving the Public Realm? The Logics and Limits of Neo-liberalism”, Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2005), p. 30.

25. See, for example, Alejandro Colás, “The Power of Representation: Democratic Politics and Global Governance”, Review of International Studies (special issue), Vol. 29 (2003), p. 98.

26. See, for example, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Barry Gills, “Waves of Globalization and Resistance in the Capitalist World-system: Social Movements and Critical Global Studies”, in R.P. Appelbaum and W.I. Robinson (eds.), Critical Globalization Studies (New York and Abingdon: Routledge), p. 52.

27. See, for example, Mary Kaldor, “‘Civilising’ Globalisation? The Implications of the ‘Battle in Seattle’”, Millennium, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2000), pp. 105–114.

28. Wendy Larner, “Neoliberalism?”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Vol. 21, No. 5 (2003), p. 511.

29. Clive Barnett, “The Consolations of ‘Neoliberalism’”, Geoforum, Vol. 36 (2005), p. 8.

30. Larner, op. cit., p. 512.

31. Ibid., p. 511. See also Barnett, op. cit., p. 8.

32. Barnett, op. cit., p. 8.

33. See, for example, Clarke, op. cit., p. 30. Cf. Barnett, op. cit., p. 9.

34. Joseph, op. cit., p. 12.

35. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, op. cit., p. 318.

36. Ibid., p. 120.

37. World Trade Organization, Marrakesh Declaration of 15 April 1994, Article 1, available: <www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/marrakesh_decl_e.pdf> (accessed 27 April 2009).

38. Ibid., Article 2.

39. World Trade Organization, Ministerial Conference, Singapore, 9–13 December 1996: Statement by Mr Gautam S. Kaji of the World Bank, available: <http://www.wto.org/english/theWTO_e/minist_e/min96_e/st33.htm> (accessed 27 April 2009).

40. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, op. cit., p. 147.

41. World Trade Organization, Ministerial Conference, Singapore, 9–13 December 1996: Statement by Mr Michel Camdessus, International Monetary Fund, available: <http://www.wto.org/english/theWTO_e/minist_e/min96_e/st30.htm> (accessed 27 April 2009).

42. World Trade Organization, Address by Renato Ruggiero, Director-General, World Trade Organization, 1996, available: <http://www.wto.org/english/theWTO_e/minist_e/min96_e/sing_dg_e.htm> (accessed 27 April 2009).

43. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, op. cit., pp. 259–260.

44. Helge Torgersen et al., “Promise, Problems and Proxies: Twenty-five Years of Debate and Regulation in Europe”, in M.W. Bauer and G. Gaskell (eds.), Biotechnology—The Making of a Global Controversy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 60, 73.

45. Charan Devereaux, Robert Z. Lawrence and Michael D. Watkins, Case Studies in US Trade Negotiations, Vol. II: Resolving Disputes (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2006), p. 329.

46. Ibid., p. 336.

47. World Trade Organization, European Communities—Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products: Reports of the Panel [WT/DS291/R, WT/DS292/R, WT/DS293/R] (2006), available: <http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds291_e.htm> (accessed 3 November 2008), 4.133.

48. Ibid., 4.136–4.142.

49. Andrew J. Jordan and Timothy O'Riordan, “The Precautionary Principle in Contemporary Environmental Policy and Politics”, Paper prepared for the Wingspread Conference on “Implementing the Precautionary Principle”, 23–25 January 1998, Racine, Wisconsin, available: <http://www.johnsonfdn.org/conferences/precautionary/jord.html> (accessed 23 January 2009).

50. World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., 4.177.

51. World Trade Organization, Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures [SPS-Agreement] (1995), Article 5.5, available: <http://www.wto.int/english/tratop_e/sps_e/spsagr_e.htm> (accessed 3 November 2008).

52. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, op. cit., p. 19.

53. European Communities, Directive 2001/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (2001), Preamble, available: <http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2001:106:0001:0038:EN:PDF> (accessed 3 November 2008); World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., 4.334 (see also 4.332).

54. Jordan and O'Riordan, op. cit.

55. Javier Lezaun, “Creating a New Object of Government: Making Genetically Modified Organisms Traceable”, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2006), p. 500.

56. World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., 4.225–4.226.

57. Cf Lezaun, op. cit., p. 1.

58. Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage, 1999), p. 166.

59. Melinda Cooper, Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008), p. 10.

60. Gerhard Wegner, “Reconciling Evolutionary Economics with Liberalism”, in K. Dopfer (ed.), Economics, Evolution and the State: The Governance of Complexity (Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2005), p. 62.

61. Matthias Klaes, “Historical Economics and Evolutionary Economic Policy—Coasean Perspectives”, in Dopfer (ed.), op. cit., p. 92.

62. Harvey, op. cit., p. 20.

63. Joseph, op. cit., p. 13.

64. Ibid.

65. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, op. cit., p. 2.

66. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 15–16.

67. Ibid., pp. 6–7.

68. See, for example, the contributions in Jenny Edkins, Véronique Pin-Fat and Michael J. Shapiro (eds.), Sovereign Lives: Power in Global Politics (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2004).

69. Andrew Neal, “Foucault in Guantánamo: Towards an Archaeology of the Exception”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2006), pp. 32, 39.

70. Agamben, op. cit., pp. 8, 11.

71. Michael Dillon, “Cared to Death: The Biopoliticised Time of Your Life”, Foucault Studies, No. 2 (2005), p. 38.

72. Mika Ojakangas, “Impossible Dialogue on Bio-power: Agamben and Foucault”, Foucault Studies, No. 2 (2005), p. 26.

73. Miguel de Larrinaga and Marc G. Doucet, “Sovereign Power and the Biopolitics of Human Security”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 39, No. 5 (2008), p. 519.

74. Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 13.

75. Ibid., p. 22.

76. Ibid., p. 1.

77. Following François Ewald, the (biopolitical) “norm” is opposed to the “juridical”. François Ewald, “Norms, Discipline, and the Law”, Representations (special issue), Vol. 30 (1990), p. 138.

78. Cf. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, op. cit., p. 18.

79. World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., e.g. 4.132–4.133.

80. Ibid., 4.147.

81. Alice Palmer (on behalf of 15 NGOs), Request for Permission to Submit Information to the Panel by the Following Non-Parties (Amicus Curiae Submission) (2004), 3.1.1 (80), available: <http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/PublicInterestAmicus_2.pdf> (accessed 22 January 2009).

82. World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., 4.156, 4.168.

83. World Trade Organization, SPS Agreement, op. cit., Annex A 1(a).

84. World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., 4.162.

85. Michel Foucault, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–76 (London: Penguin, 2005), pp. 183–185.

86. Ibid., p. 186.

87. World Trade Organization, SPS Agreement, op. cit., Annex A (3).

88. World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., 4.137–4.141.

89. World Trade Organization, SPS Agreement, op. cit., Preamble; emphasis in original.

90. Michael Dillon and Luis Lobo-Guerrero, “Biopolitics of Security in the 21st Century: An Introduction”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2 (2008), p. 265.

91. See, for example, Stefan Elbe, “Risking Lives: AIDS, Security and Three Concepts of Risk”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 39, Nos. 2–3 (2008), pp. 177–198; Luis Lobo-Guerrero, “Biopolitics of Specialised Risk: An Analysis of Kidnap and Ransom Insurance”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 38, No. 3 (2007), pp. 315–334; Mark Salter, “Imagining Numbers: Risk, Quantification, and Aviation Security”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 39, Nos. 2–3 (2008), pp. 243–266.

92. Dillon and Lobo-Guerrero, op. cit., p. 267.

93. Michael Dillon and Andrew Neal, “Introduction”, in M. Dillon and A. Neal (eds.), Foucault on Politics, Security and War (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 11.

94. Michael Dillon, “Underwriting Security”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 39, Nos. 2–3 (2008), pp. 309–332 (p. 326).

95. Idem, “Governing through Contingency: The Security of Biopolitical Governance”, Political Geography, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2007), p. 46; idem, “Underwriting Security”, op. cit., p. 312. This argument is taken up again in Michael Dillon and Julian Reid, The Liberal Way of War: Killing to Make Life Live (New York and Abingdon: Routledge).

96. World Trade Organization, WT/DS291[2, 3]/R, op. cit., 4.376.

97. Ibid., 4.198.

98. Brian Wynn, “Reflexing Complexity: Post-genomic Knowledge and Reductionist Returns in Public Science”, Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 22, No. 67 (2005), p. 69.

99. Ibid., p. 71.

100. Ibid., p. 70.

101. Institute of Science in Society Report, Death of the Central Dogma (3 September 2004), available: <http://www.i-sis.org.uk/DCD.php> (accessed 10 June 2009).

102. Wynn, op. cit., p. 75.

103. Michael Dillon and Julian Reid, “Global Liberal Governance: Biopolitics, Security and War”, Millennium, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2001), pp. 41–65. See also idem, The Liberal Way of War, op. cit.

104. Cf. Dillon and Reid, “Global Liberal Governance”, op. cit., p. 51.

105. See, for example, European Communities, Directive 18/2001/EC, op. cit., Preamble (20): “Monitoring of potential cumulative long-term effects should be considered as a compulsory part of the monitoring plan.” See also ibid., Annex II, Preamble: “delayed effects … may not be observed during the period of the release of the GMO, but become apparent as a direct or indirect effect either at a later stage or after the termination of the release”.

106. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, op. cit., p. 20.

107. C. Christian von Weizsäcker, “Is the Notion of Progress Compatible with an Evolutionary View of the Economy?”, in Dopfer (ed.), op. cit., pp. 43–44.

108. Wolfgang Kerber, “Applying Evolutionary Economics to Public Policy—The Example of Competitive Federalism in the EU”, in Dopfer (ed.), op. cit., p. 296.

109. von Weizsaecker, op. cit., p. 44.

110. Kerber, op. cit., p. 296; my emphasis.

111. European Communities, Directive 18/2001/EC, op. cit., Preamble (24); my emphasis.

112. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Penguin, 1979), pp. 157–158.

113. European Communities, Directive 18/2001/EC, op. cit., Annex III A, C (V). Cf. Lezaun, op. cit., who comes to the same conclusion.

114. European Communities, Regulation (EC) 1830/2003. Cf. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, op. cit., p. 203.

115. Nikolas Rose, The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-first Century (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 13.

116. Cf. Ewald, op. cit., p. 142.

117. Lezaun, op. cit., p. 514.

118. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, op. cit., pp. 116–118.