Liberal government and authoritarianism
Top Cited Papers
- 1 January 2002
- journal article
- conference paper
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Economy and Society
- Vol. 31 (1) , 37-61
- https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140120109240
Abstract
This paper examines the intelligibility of authoritarian measures within Foucauldian analyses of the liberal government of the state. Such measures are understood as following from a liberal understanding of the task of government itself This understanding rests on a distinction between the legal and political order (of 'the state') and a 'liberal police' of what is exterior to it, classically conceived as 'civil society'. The relation between these two aspects is conceived as a series of 'foldings' between the two sides of a liberal governing, which turn the injunction to govern through freedom into a set of binding obligations potentially or actually enforceable by coercive or sovereign instruments. The paper places this perspective within aspects of the genealogies of economy, poverty, welfare and police and discusses the trajectories of such foldings in the present.Keywords
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