ABSTRACT
In according at least some subjects a new political subjectivity, and in re-coding the legitimacy of the state in terms of the democratic expression of the popular will, the sovereignty that was claimed by the population could act as a powerful legitimating device for the governmentalization of the state. Early strategies for the ‘totalitarian’ extension of the powers of the sovereign throughout the nation in order to raise taxes and support military expenditure and the control and defence of territory faced resistance and their legitimacy were frequently questioned by those upon whom they sought to act. The problem of ‘maladjustment’ in children, did indeed form in a legal site, in the juvenile courts established in many jurisdictions in the early decades of the 20th century, which acted as the matrix for connecting subjects, objects, authorities and judgements and linking the details of domesticity with the authority of expertise.
