Foucault’s Idea of The Relationship Between The Power And Resistance

Michel Foucault was a theorist who provided the groundwork for political philosophy and theory (Oksala, 2013, p. 320). His work has introduced the problem of war while slowly broadening his analysis of power from disciplinary to biopolitical systems and the occurrence of governmentality (Reid, 2006, p. 127). This paper will argue that the key concepts of Foucault’s theory are sovereign power, disciplinary power and biopower (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014). Foucault’s theory is significant to the socio-legal theories because it allows us to comprehend how power moves through institutions, the interrelationship of power and knowledge and discourse and power (Foucault, 2003). I will first analyze the key elements and debates in Foucault’s theory that focuses on the emergence of power and how it exerts control over life (Reid, 2006, p. 134). This will consist of looking at the developments of power, which include; sovereign power, disciplinary power and biopower and governmental management (Foucault, 2003). Secondly, I will discuss the significance these theories have to the relationship between law and society. I will explain how mechanisms of power are used in society by looking at disciplinary apparatuses as well as biopower (Bogard, 1991, p. 335). Finally, I will explore the relationship between power and resistance by bringing about the three different powers defined by Foucault (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014).

One of the key elements in Foucault’s work is the application of knowledge and its connection to power and the usage of discourses as a foundation for power to succeed (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p. 108). These two concepts are linked to each other because it believes the authority of the truth and it holds the power to make itself true (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p. 108).

Foucault’s lectures have presented how the relations of power over life have transformed (Foucault, 2003). The first form of power Foucault analyzed was sovereign power, which focused on the right of life and death (Foucault, 2003, p. 240). This was historically constructed on violence in which the sovereign exercised the right of life by exercising his right to kill or by abstaining from killing (Oksala, 2013, p. 321). When the sovereign kills it means it is the right of the sword, which entails the right to take life (Foucault, 2003, p. 241). Governmentally is one example that is a regime of power that appeared in the 18th century partly from sovereign power that uses the population as its target (Oksala, 2013, p. 324). Racism plays a role in this power because one needs to exercise the right to kill (Foucault, 2003, p. 256). If a power of sovereignty wants to work with the instruments and technology of normalization of power it needs to become racist (Foucault, 2003, p. 256). Racism is a condition that allows killing to become acceptable, which can include exposing someone to death or increasing death (Foucault, 2003, p. 256). This form of murderous or sovereign power is released through a whole social body, which is an historical representation of the Nazi society (Foucault, 2003, p. 259). The Nazi society was a racist and murderous state that controlled the power over life and death through the destruction of other races (Foucault, 2003, p. 259).

From sovereign power, Foucault shifted to the 18th century which focused on two techniques one including disciplinary power (Foucault, 2003, p. 249). This power concentrates on the body, creating individualizing effects and controls the body as a place of forces that have to be rendered both functional and compliant (Foucault, 2003, p. 249). It wants power mechanisms to be changed in order to use surveillance and training to the individual body (Foucault, 2003, p. 250). Some of the body- discipline institutions included schools and hospitals but disciplines could also evolve into the Statist elements in apparatuses like the police (Foucault, 2003, p. 250). Regulatory power was also on the advance during the second half of the 18th century, which integrates itself into the existing disciplinary mechanisms to both form biopower (Foucault, 2003, p. 242). The regulatory instruments need to be set in order to secure equilibrium and create a kind of homeostasis in the population (Foucault, 2003, p. 246). Unlike disciplinary power, this form of power wants to take command of life and making sure that biological processes are regularized and protected from dangers (Foucault, 2003, p. 246-249). Sexuality is the main concept Foucault uses to explain disciplinary and regulatory power as sexuality lives where the body and population meet (Foucault, 2003, p. 251-252). This concept is also linked to power and knowledge, which includes medicine, which can be used to control the body and population because of individual diseases that can affect the next generations (Foucault, 2003, p. 252).

The birth of biopower is another key element in power mechanisms, which Foucault describes as being the transformation from man as body to man as species (Foucault, 2003, p. 239). The apparatus of power and knowledge are seen as accountable for the life process through which biopower is developed (Oksala, 2013, p. 321). Biopower is exercised with governing the life of population while supplying new elements for the approaches of modern regimes that are at war with each other (Reid, 2006, p. 133). Biopower is able to use violence within certain limits, which Foucault demonstrates in his Society Must Be Defended (1975–76) lecture about state racism in Germany (Oksala, 2013, p. 322).

He also identifies a key component in modern political analysis is the theories of biopower and biopolitics (Oksala, 2013, p. 323). The regime of liberalism creates the foundation for interpreting biopolitics (Oksala, 2013, p. 328-329). Biopolitics uses different approaches to take control of bodies and populations through medical care, urban planning and managing behaviour in order to enhance the quality of life (Oksala, 2013, p. 321- 322). Moving from biopower to governmentality discusses his final important component of his power theory (Oksala, 2013, p. 324). His historical investigation of governmentality is crucial to the regime of truth, which still exists today (Oksala, 2013, p. 330). He focused on neoliberal governmentality, which expressed two forms of neo- liberalism, one being created by “Ordoliberals” in Germany and the other by Americans at Chicago school (Oksala, 2013, p. 332). The first form was an assessment of Nazism during post- war liberalism and the other was viewed as radical because it didn’t agree with the division between economic and social circles (Oksala, 2013, p. 332). The main point Foucault was trying to make was that neoliberal governmentality is used to develop social conditions that inspire natural competitiveness and build them (Oksala, 2013, p. 333). It believes competition is an important fundamental truth for leading human behavior from the individual to the society (Oksala, 2013, p. 332).

Significance to Law and Society/Power Mechanisms in Society

Foucault’s theories have become important theoretical concepts in modern political analysis as well as display how Western liberal democracies are governed (Oksala, 2013, p.320). His lectures and theories create a greater understanding on how power moves within structures, this plays a role in law and society’s relationship (Foucault, 2003). One major theory that contributed to socio-legal studies is the theory of discipline, which alters power mechanisms to the individual body through surveillance and training (Foucault, 2003, p.250). He is able to show how mechanisms like the “panoptic diagram” are enforced in structures that survive this present day (Bogard, 1991, p. 327). The panopticon works as a disciplinary apparatus of supervision and a strategy of truth (Bogard, 1991, p.334-335). It is utilized as a strategic surveillance “within a fixed space, for recording movements and changing attitudes” (Bogard, 1991, p.334). The exercise of power inside the panopticon is carried out as invisible in which the guard tower can mask the supervisor’s presence and the inmates can essentially police themselves (Bogard, 1991, p.335). Foucault sees this mechanism also as a strategy of truth because it separates the health individuals from the diseases, the sane from the insane and the normal from abnormal (Bogard, 1991, p.334). Within the late 18th and early 19th century this method is used to correct the problems in society caused by criminal activity, mental illness and disease in contemporary societies (Bogard, 1991, p.334).

From Foucault’s outlook in order to understand power it will confine us to an analysis of the law, as they both are practices (Bogard, 1991, p.338). Foucault believes that with the growth of biopower’s regulatory mechanism based on knowledge we have set foot into juridical regression (Oksala, 2013, p.321). This theory is important to understand the relationship between law and society because law is functioning more as a norm and that the legal institution is integrated into apparatuses that are regulative like medical and administrative (Oksala, 2013, p.321). Foucault presents biopower as a power that uses law as a tactic and biopolitics uses the law as an administrative method among others, which can be applied to control and advance the life of the population (Oksala, 2013, p.322). Law takes the form of tactics and these are expressed as forms of knowledge that are geared to “rates of death, birth, and disease, life expectancy, labor capacity and wealth” (Oksala, 2013, p.328). Foucault’s concept of governmentality, which developed in 1978, contributes to understanding what constructs laws as well as the study of politics (Oksala, 2013, p.324). Governmentality has created the advancement of governmental apparatuses and structures of knowledge (Oksala, 2013, p.324). These governmental technologies placed emphasis on the population and used the existing framework of law and discipline, while also presenting their specific organization and reasoning (Oksala, 2013, p.325).

Resistance

It is evident that there is a relationship between power and resistance that arises from Foucault’s theory on sovereign power, disciplinary power; and biopower (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014). Although these powers emerged during different periods, they never replaced each other, they rose from the modern European state to capitalism and finally modern liberalism (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.108). Foucault makes a strong point in stating that the power and knowledge regime is vital (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014). Disciplinary power can be seen as an example of knowledge that works to understand the individual as an object that becomes recognized by others (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.109). Those who move away from the norm become inferior and are viewed as abnormal and in need of rehabilitation or some corrective technique (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014). On the other hand Foucault outlines the technology of power as being biopower which functions beside sovereign power and regulates social life and populations (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.110-112). These power relations help shape resistance as well as help to produce power relations (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.111). Each power has their own mechanisms, which will determine what is and what isn't achievable in terms of resistance (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.112).

The first form of power is the sovereign, which is about affirming the monopoly to forcefully suppress certain behaviours (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.113). In order to resist this kind of power one needs to “undermine the sovereignty of power centres by breaking the commands and doing deviant interests” (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.113). Resistance can be achieved through individuals or larger groups that create organizations or movements that defeat the pressure to obey and lower the sword (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.113). In order to resist sovereign power, the resistance needs to publicly challenge the sovereign in a way that undermines the commands, punishments and even the monopoly of violence (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.113). An example of this when soldiers individually left the Confederation army, which led to the victory of the Southern states in the United States (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.113). Disciplinary power aims to control individuals through institutions and scientific discourses but resistance is achievable through Foucault’s approach of reversed discourses (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.114).

An example of this discourse is homosexuality which commands its “legitimacy or naturality be acknowledged in the same vocabulary, using the same categories where it was medically disqualified” (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.114). The idea of reserve discourse is to become exploitative of the dominant discourse by challenging it, which portrays resistance against disciplinary power (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.114). From Foucault’s perspective he believes that power is relational and that resistance is important in power relationships (Bogard, 1991, p.328). He also sees how discipline develops gap where there is opportunity for conflict and resistance (Bogard, 1991, p.328). Lastly, biopower works to regulate social life and governmentality in the fields of health, longevity and growth (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.118). The three main components of biopower are; “truth discourses about the character of human beings, techniques of intervention on the health of the community as active health movements (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.119). An historical example of this power is the welfare state, which strives to target the welfare of its civilians (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.119). In order to achieve this biopower utilizes statistics, surveillance within the social body and expand on medicine to increase the capabilities of the population (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.119). To resist is challenging but one needs to undermine biopower through biopolitical practices where individuals start questioning the control over their life and the conduct of their behavior (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.120).

Conclusion

To conclude, Foucault’s analysis of the different forms of power is applied to the field of resistance as a way to understand the relation between the distinct power approaches (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014, p.107).