ECONOMY AND SOCIETY Michel Foucault and Governmentality

In the past twenty years Economy and Society has been decisive in developing Michel Foucault’s analyses 

of ‘governmentality’, pressing this concept into service in new domains. In a wide range of articles written from 

diverse disciplinary backgrounds, scholars have clarified the conceptual vocabulary and empirical vitality of the 

notion of ‘the conduct of conduct’ for political and social analysis. In addition to a special issue dedicated to this 

theme (‘Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism and Governmentality’ 22.3, 1993), there has been debate about the 

relationships that may pertain between liberal government, despotism and authoritarianism (Valverde 1996, 
Dean 2001), consideration of the ways in which Foucault’s conceptual vocabulary can help to reframe 
key problems in political theory (Burchell 1993, Hunter 1990, Hindess 1997, Pasquino 1993), analysis 
of the implications of Foucault’s work for the methodological assumptions of the human sciences, 
and for the analysis of the social, including the government of diverse fields such as health, 
poverty, unemployment, policing, risk, and ethical conduct (Osborne 1993, Rose 1996, Dean 1992, O’Malley 1992, Cruikshank 1993).  The journal has housed debate about the significance of governmentality outside western liberal  

contexts (eg Sigley 1996, Keane 2002), and concerning the transformations of government produced by new 

technologies of warfare and welfare (Donzelot 2008, O’Malley 2010). 

Governing economic life  

Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose, Volume 19, Issue 1, 1990 

A genealogy of the government of poverty 

Mitchell Dean, Volume 21, Issue 3, 1992 

Risk, power and crime prevention 

Pat O'Malley, Volume 21, Issue 3, 1992 

Liberal government and techniques of the self 

Graham Burchell, Volume 22, Issue 3, 1993 

Revolutions within: self-government and self-esteem 

Barbara Cruikshank, Volume 22, Issue 3, 1993 

The death of the social? Re-figuring the territory of government 

Nikolas Rose, Volume 25, Issue 3, 1996 

"Despotism " and ethical liberal governance 

Mariana Valverde, Volume 25, Issue 3,1996 

Politics and governmentality 

Barry Hindess, Volume 26, Issue 2, 1997 

Governing through risk and uncertainty 

Richard Ericson, Volume 34, Issue 4, 2005 

Michel Foucault and liberal intelligence 

Jacques Donzelot (translated by Graham Burchell), Volume 37, Issue 1, 2008