ABSTRACT
In his lectures on governmentality, Foucault repeatedly claims that the liberal governmentality that emerged at the end of the eighteenthcentury still defi nes the political rationalities of the present. Following Foucault, governmentality studies have dwelt upon this persistence of liberal governmental reason and the indirect, entrepreneurial forms of conduct that it employs (Bröckling 2007; Rose 1999). These (neo)liberal rationalities of conduct have been explored in areas as diverse as economic organizations (Miller and Rose 1990; Opitz 2004), welfare programs (Cruikshank 1999; Dean 1995), health care (Greco 1993; Lemke 2006), and criminal policy (Smandych 1999; Krasmann 2003). With a few exceptions (Dean 2001; Valverde 1996), governmentality studies have thereby primarily focused on the extent to which liberal practices are preoccupied with the limitation of direct intervention. This contribution, in contrast, takes a slightly different approach. Instead of investigating the logic of “conduct of conduct” (Foucault 1982) in a further societal domain, it focuses on its limits. More precisely, this text examines how liberal rationality organizes the boundaries of the “powers of freedom” and establishes modes of “illiberal rule.” How does governmentality, as a form of rule based on the logic of limited government, allow for the unlimited and excessive exercise of power? How is the exertion of direct and physical violence strategically integrated into the modern regime of governmentality? How does liberal government switch to an illiberal mode in its own name and on its own grounds?
