ABSTRACT
There is a certain similarity between the way in which Schmitt presents the gradual progression from territorial state sovereignty to the sovereignty of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ global capitalism through a sequence of spatial revolutions and Michel Foucault’s genealogy of modern political power. With, however, one significant difference: one of the most compelling and controversial arguments that Foucault presented already during his so-called power-analytical phase93
was formulated through a presupposition that he called the ‘repressive hypothesis’. Although a common conception of the development of industrialized societies assumes that an increasing number of ‘deviant’ human behaviour has been brought under control and, consequently, also repressed, the historical facts that Foucault’s investigations reveal seem to tell a more complex story. In fact, Foucault notes that, although, for example, sexual behaviour has clearly been under intensified control, a remarkable proliferation of discourses on sexuality and abnormalities has occurred at the same time.94 On the other hand, the whole notion of ‘repression’ is built around a ‘juridical-discursive’ notion of power that Foucault finds inaccurate. He insists that if we are to grasp the erratic and complex mechanisms of power in modern societies, we must stop considering it as a substantial essence that one can either possess or be short of. This inaccurate notion of power is intimately tied to classic juridical theories:
… power is considered to be a right that one can possess like one possesses a commodity and, consequently, that can be transferred or alienated either completely or partially with a juridical act or an act that founds a right – for the moment it doesn’t matter which – by way of legal transfer or contract. Power is something concrete that every individual possesses and that
he can surrender, either completely or partially, in order to constitute a power, a political sovereignty.
