ABSTRACT
With the publication of Michel Foucault’s seminal lecture on governmentality in English in 1991, the Anglophone academic world witnessed a Foucault Effect (Burchell et al. 1991) that triggered the birth of governmentality studies. Strikingly, however, even though the discipline of International Relations (IR) had already been familiarized with Foucault-inspired research since the late 1980s, it took until the 2000s until IR experienced its governmentality-related Foucault Effect (see Walters 2012: 82–83). Ever since, there has been increasing research on governmentality in the context of IR encompassing many different issue areas. Relying on this rich stock of knowledge, this chapter is interested in the question of how order is generated in world society. Addressing this question from a Foucauldian poststructuralist framework, as opposed to more traditional theories in IR, helps make sense of a multiplicity of power relations. In other words, the question of global order is inextricably linked to the question of how power is exercised in world society. In this regard, my research perspective follows existing governmentality studies of the international/global (such as Larner and Walters 2004b; Neumann and Sending 2010). At the same time, however, my approach differs from these studies as I argue that in order to properly make sense of power dynamics in global politics requires embedding governmentality into the overarching context of world society. In this context, I will connect governmentality research with the world society theorization of the Stanford School’s sociological neo-institutionalism. In this regard, as clarified in the introduction, I literally use Foucault’s work in the sense of a ‘tool box’ as he stated it, thus rejecting any theoretical orthodoxy or exegesis. At the same time, this theoretical synthesis rests on the insight that, from an IR perspective, governmentality lacks a coherent reference to global order in a structural sense. Accordingly, I am introducing structuralist elements from world society theory to post-structuralist governmentality research. This appears not only legitimate because, as highlighted in the introductory chapter of this book, both Stanford School and Foucauldian governmentality operate on very compatible epistemological foundations. It also appears useful as governmentality research does not sufficiently take into 41account overarching societal structures in which power relations often are embedded. My understanding of governmentality therefore relies on existing governmentality studies, but at the same time, it goes considerably beyond them.
