ABSTRACT
The Governmentality perspective makes a significant contribution to the sociological study of medicine. Risk theorists argue that throughout human history, societies have always sought to risk-manage threats, hazards and dangers. Over the last hundred years or so, sociologists have considered the causes and consequences of medical power within society, and more lately, they have considered its decline or, at the very least, just what new form it is transforming into. As illustrated by the reappropriation by medical elites of an emergent rationalistic-bureaucratic discourse of outcomes-based standard setting and performance appraisal in the face of its increasing use by 'outsiders', such as hospital management, to monitor the activities of doctors. Furthermore, the development of new forms of expertise, Foucault's dubious human sciences such as psychology, medicine and sociology, are tied up with this need to govern the population to ensure its betterment.
