Rose y Miller 1992

Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government Author(s): Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller Source: The
British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 173-205 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The London School of Economics and Political Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/591464 Accessed: 27/02/2010 14:44
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Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller
Politicalpowerbeyond the State:problematics of government

A B S'I'RAC'I'
This papersets out an approachto the analysisof politicalpowerin terms of problematicsof government. It argues against an overvaluationof the 'problemof the State'in politicaldebateand social theory.A numberof conceptualtoolsare suggestedfor the analysis of the many and varied alliances between political and other authoritiesthat seek to govern economic activity,social life and individualconduct. Modernpoliticalrationalities and governmentaltechnologiesare shownto be intrinsically linkedto developments in knowledgeand to the powersof expertise.The characteristics of liberal problematicsof government are investigated, and it is argued that they are dependent upon technologiesfor 'governing at a distance',seeking to create locales,entitiesand personsable to operatea regulatedautonomy.The analysisis exemplifiedthrough an investigation of welfarismas a mode of 'social' government.The paperconcludeswitha brief consideration of neo-liberalism which demonstratesthat the analytical languagestructuredby the philosophicalopposition of state and civil society is unable to comprehend contemporary transformationsin modes of exercise of politicalpower. The state,wroteNietzsche,is the coldest of all cold monsters. . . (it) lies in all languagesof good and evil; and whateverits says, it lies- and whateverit has, it has stolen . . . only there,wherethe stateceases,does the manwho is not superfluousbegin . . .1 As post-war'welfarestates'in the Westand centralised'partystates'in the East have come under challenge, contemporarypoliticaldebate has becomesuffused by imagesof the stateas malignand potentially monstrous.Only 'beyondthe State',it appears,can a life worthyof free human individualsbegin. Criticisingthe excesses,inefficiencies
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and injusticesof the extended State,alternatives have been posed in termsof the construction of a 'freemarket' and a 'civilsociety'in which a pluralityof groups,organizations and individuals interactin liberty. This concernhasbeen paralleledin socialtheory,whereanalystshave challenged liberal pluralist and economic determinist theories of power, and argued that the specific form of the state is of crucial impc)rtance, not only in understanding geo-political relations,butalso in comprehendingmodern forms of exerciseof powerover national
9
terrltorles.6
But the politicalvocabulary structured byoppositionsbetweenstate and civilsociety,publicand private,governmentand market,coercion and consent, sovereignty and autonomy and the like, does not adequatelycharacterise the diversewaysin whichrule is exercisedin advanced liberal democracies. Political power is exercised today through a profusionof shiftingalliancesbetweendiverseauthorities in projectsto governa multitudeof facetsof economicactivity,social life and individual conduct.Poweris not so mucha matterof imposing constraints upon citizensas of 'making up'citizenscapableof bearinga kindof regulatedfreedom.Personalautonomyis not the antithesisof politicalpower,buta keytermin itsexercise,the moreso becausemost individualsare not merelythe subjectsof powerbut playa partin its
operations.
In this paper we propose some ways of analyzingthese mobile mechanisms of contemporary politicalpower.Our analysisre-locates 'the State'within an investigationof problematics of government. It is more than ten years since Foucaultsuggested that the conceptsthat organized our thinking about power could not comprehend the exerciseof powerin modernsocieties.Two centuriesafterthe political revolutions that overthrew the absolutist monarchies of Europe, Foucault arguedthatin the fieldof political thoughtwe had not yetcut off the king's head.3 In his remarkson 'governmentality' Foucault sketchesan alternative analyticof politicalpower.4The term governmentalitysought to draw attentionto a certainway of thinkingand actingembodiedin all those attemptsto knowand governthe wealth, health and happinessof populations.Foucaultargued that, since the eighteenthcentury,this wayof reflectingupon powerand seekingto render it operable had achieved pre-eminenceover other forms of politicalpower. It was linkedto the proliferation of a whole range of apparatuses pertaining to government and a complex body of knowledges and 'know-how'about government, the means of its exercise and the nature of those over whom it was to be exercised. From this perspectiveon politicalpower, Foucaultsuggested, one mightavoidover-valuing the 'problemof the State',seeing it either as a 'monstrefroid' confrontingand dominatingus, or as the essential and privileged fulfilment of a number of necessary social and economic functions. The state possessed neither the unity nor the
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functionalityascribedto it; it was a 'mythicalabstraction' which has assumed a particularplace within the field of government. For the present, perhaps, what is really important 'is not so much the State-dominationof society, but the "governmentalization" of the State'.5 These schematicremarksform the startingpoint for the investigations of government proposed in this paper. We propose some elementsof an 'analytic' of problematics of government,and illustrate these through a preliminaryinvestigation of'liberalism','welfarism', and 'neo-liberalism'. The mentalitiesand machinationsof government that we explore are not merelytraces,signs,causesor effects of 'real'transformations in social relations.The terrainthey constitute has a density and a significance of its own. Government is the historically constitutedmatrixwithin which are articulatedall those dreams,schemes,strategiesand manoeuvresof authoritiesthat seek to shape the beliefs and conduct of others in desired directionsby actingupon their will, their circumstances or their environment.It isin relationto thisgridof governmentthatspecifically political formsof rule in the modernWestdefine, delimitand relatethemselves. Central to the possibilityof modern forms of government, we argue, are the associationsformed between entities constituted as 'political' and the projects,plans and practicesof those authoritieseconomic, legal, spiritual, medical, technical - who endeavour to administerthe lives of others in the light of conceptionsof what is good, healthy,normal,virtuous,efficientor profitable.Knowledgeis thus central to these activities of government and to the very formation of its objects, for government is a domain of cognition, calculation, experimentation and evaluation.And, we argue, government is intrinsically linked to the activitiesof expertise,whose role is not one of weaving an all-pervasiveweb of 'socialcontrol', but of enactingassortedattemptsat the calculatedadministration of diverse aspectsof conductthroughcountless,often competing,localtacticsof education, persuasion, inducement, management, incitement, motivationand encouragement.6 Problematics of governmentmaybe analyzed,firstof all, in termsof their political rationalities, the changing discursivefields withinwhich the exercise of power is conceptualised,the moraljustificationsfor particular waysof exercisingpowerby diverseauthorities,notionsof the appropriateforms, objectsand limitsof politics,and conceptions of the proper distributionof such tasks among secular, spiritual, militaryand familialsectors.But, we suggest,problematics of government should also be analyzedin terms of their governmental technologies,the complex of mundaneprogrammes, calculations, techniques, apparatuses,documentsand proceduresthrough which authorities seek to embodyand give effect to governmentalambitions.Through an analysis of the intricate inter-dependencies between political
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rationalities and governmentaltechnologies,we can begin to understand the multiple and delicate networksthat connect the lives of individuals, groupsand organizations to the aspirations of authorities in the advancedliberaldemocracies of the present.
1 GOVERNMEN I VERSUS I HE S l A I E
Many have recognized that the philosophical and constitutional imagesof the sovereignstate are misleading.To the extent that the modern state'rules',it does so on the basisof an elaboratenetworkof relationsformed amongstthe complex of institutions,organizations and apparatusesthat make it up, and between state and non-state institutions.7 Sociological historiesof stateformationhaveshownthat, in Europefor manycenturies,economicactivitywasregulated,order wasmaintained,lawspromulgatedand enforced,assistance provided for the sickand needy, moralityinculcated,if at all, throughpractices thathad littleto do withthe state.It wasonly in the eighteenthcentury that states began to be transformedfrom limitedand circumscribed central apparatusesto embed themselves within an ensemble of institutions and proceduresof rule over a nationalterritory.8 Historical sociologists havedrawnour attentionto diversemechanismsof state formation:the impositionof a nationallanguageand a level of literacy;a common coinage, the fusing of a territoryinto a single time-space system through innovations in transportation, communication and temporality,the unificationof legal codes and authorities.9Key practicesof rule were institutionalizedwithin a central,more or less permanentbody of officesand agencies,given a certainmore or less explicit constitutionalform, endowed with the capacity to raisefunds in the formof taxes,and backedwiththe virtual monopolyof the legitimateuse of force over a defined territory.This coincidence of a defined territory of rule and a projectand apparatus foradministering the livesand activities of those withinthatterritory, itis suggested,warrantsus to speak of the modern nation-stateas a centralisedset of institutionsand personnel wielding authoritative powerover a nation.lFurther,it has been argued that geo-political relationsand militaryconflicts have provoked and facilitated the centralisation of domestic political power in the hands of a state apparatus. These considerationshave led analyststo treat states as unifiedactors with considerableautonomy,ruling domesticallyand pursuing their interestsupon the worldstage by meansof diplomacy andwarfare. 11 We argue that such a perspectiveobscures the characteristics of modern formsof politicalpower.Withinthe problematics of government,one can be nominalisticabout the state: it has no essential necessity or functionality. Rather,the statecanbe seen as a specificway
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in whichthe problemof governmentis discursively codified,a wayof dividinga 'politicalsphere',with its particular characteristics of rule, from other 'non-political spheres'to which it must be related, and a way in whichcertaintechnologiesof governmentare given a temporary institutionaldurabilityand brought into particularkinds of relationswith one another.Posed from this perspective,the question is no longer one of accountingfor governmentin termsof 'the power of the State',but of ascertaininghow, and to whatextent, the state is articulatedinto the activityof government:what relationsare established between politicaland other authorities;what funds, forces, persons,knowledgeor legitimacyare utilised;and by means of what devicesand techniquesare these different tacticsmadeoperable. Three differencesbetweenour approachand the new sociologyof state formation are relevant here. The first concerns 'realism'. Historical sociologiesof the stateare realistin the sense that they seek to characterise the actualconfigurations of persons,organizations and events at particularhistoricalperiods, to classifythe force relations that obtain between them, to identify determinants and explain transformations.Our studies of government eschew sociological realismand itsburdensof explanationand causation.Wedo not tryto characterisehow social life reallywas and why. We do not seek to penetrate the surfaces of what people said to discover what they meant,whattheir real motivesor interestswere. Rather,we attendto the waysin whichauthoritiesin the past have posed themselvesthese questions:whatis our power;to whatends shouldit be exercised;what effects has it produced;how can we knowwhatwe need to know,and do whatwe need to do in order to govern? Second,language.An analysis of governmenttakesas centralnot so much amounts of revenue, size of the court, expenditure on arms, miles marched by an army per day, but the discursivefield within whichthese problems,sites and forms of visibility are delineatedand accordedsignificance.It is in this discursivefield that 'the State'itself emergesas an historically variable linguistic devicefor conceptualising and articulating ways of ruling. The significance we accord to discoursedoes not arise from a concern with 'ideology'.Languageis not merely contemplative or justificatory, it is performative. An analysisof politicaldiscoursehelps us elucidatenot only thesystems of thoughtthrough which authorities have posed and specified the problemsfor government,but also the systems of action though which they have sought to give effect to government. Third, knowledge.Knowledgehere does not simplymean 'ideas', but refers to the vast assemblage of persons, theories, projects, experiments and techniques that has become such a central component of government. Theories from philosophy to medicine. Schemes from town planning to social insurance.Techniques from double entry book-keeping to compulsory medical inspection of
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schoolchildren.Knowledgablepersons from generals to architects and accountants.Our concern, that is to say, is with the 'knowhow' that has promisedto makegovernmentpossible. issuesas to thosewithin appliesas muchto geo-political Ouranalysis any nationalterritory.Inter 'national'relationsare constitutedin a complex, through complex processes that emmilitary-diplomatic agents and forces to speakand act in the name of a power particular the limitsand coherenceof the domainsof 12These establish territory. and conceptualspaces politicalauthority,demarcatethe geographical of politicalrule, constitutecertain authoritiesas able to speak for a population, and place them in particular'external'configurations with other 'states'and internal relations with events in particular field is established,embodying diplomacy, locales. A 'geo-political' envoys, treaties, agreements,borders, customs and the like, at the same time as the writ of authoritiesis claimedover the subjectsand composlnga natlon. actlvltles War,as a key aspectof such geo-politicalissues,is itself dependent upon certain practicesof government:the elaborationof notions of national sovereignty over a territory unified by practices such as machineriesof language or law; the developmentof administrative as owing persons constituting for various types; and techniques and Warfare and authority. of identity locus particular allegianceto a persons, over distant centre a rule from of exercise as the colonialism, places and goods, involve assemblingsubjectsinto militaryforces, producing,distriskillsand solidarities, discipliningthem, inculcating buting and maintainingequipmentand materialas well as inventing the intellectual technologies required for strategy and planning. Warfare,that is to say, requiresand inspires the invention of new relationstoo, we suggest,the of government:in geo-political practices state should first of all be understood as a complex and mobile resultantof the discoursesand techniquesof rule.
* . . * .
AND'I'HE ANALYSISOF LIBERALISM RA'I'IONALI'I'IES 2 POLI'I'ICAL
In the remainder of the paper we elaborate and illustrate some 13 Let of modernformsof government. conceptualtoolsfor an analysis us begin by considering in more detail the notion of political rationality.Politicaldiscourseis a domain for the formulationand it for representingreality,analyzing of idealisedschemata justification and rectifyingit. Whilstit does not have the systematicand closed characterof disciplinedbodiesof theoreticaldiscourseit is, nonethethatwe term politicalrationalities. less, possibleto discernregularities moral form. They have a characteristically First,politicalrationalities elaborateupon the fitting powers and duties for authorities.They
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addressthe proper distribution of tasksand actionsbetweenauthorities of different types - political, spiritual, military, pedagogic, familial.They considerthe idealsor principlesto which government should be directed- freedom,justice, equality,mutualresponsibility, citizenship,common sense, economicefficiency,prosperity,growth, fairness,rationality and the like. Second,politicalrationalities havewhatone mightterman epistemological character. That is to say,theyare articulated in relationto some conceptionof the natureof the objectsgoverned- society,the nation, the population, the economy. In particular, they embody some accountof the personsover whom governmentis to be exercised.As Paul Veyne has pointed out, these can be specifiedas membersof a flock to be led, legal subjectswith rights, children to be educated, a resourceto be exploited,elementsof a populationto be managed.14 Third, politicalrationalitiesare articulatedin a distinctiveidiom. The language that constitutespoliticaldiscourseis more than rhetoric.1 5 It should be seen, rather,as a kind of intellectual machineryor apparatus for rendering reality thinkable in such a way that it is amenableto politicaldeliberations. It is here thata vocabulary of 'the State'has come to codify and contestthe natureand limitsof political power. Political rationalities,that is to say, are morally coloured, grounded upon knowledge,and made thinkablethrough language. We can illustratethese three points if we consider the question of 'liberalism'. Liberalism is usuallycharacterised as a politicalphilosophyby the limits it places on the legitimate exercise of power by political authorities.Duringthe secondhalfof the eighteenthcenturythe term 'civil society'ceased to designate a particulartype of well-ordered politicalassociation,and came to signify, instead,a naturalrealm of freedomsand activities outsidethe legitimatesphereof politics. 16 The scope of politicalauthoritywas to be limited,and vigilancewas to be exercisedover it. Yet, simultaneously, governmentwasto takeas one of its obligationsand legitimatetasksthe fosteringof the self-organizing capacities of civil society. Political rule was given the task of shaping and nurturingthat very civil society that was to provide its counterweight and limit. Liberalism, in this respect,marksthe moment when the dystopian dream of a totallyadministeredsocietywas abandoned,and government was confrontedwith a domain that had its own naturalness,its own rules and processes, and its own internal forms of selfregulation.l7As Graham Burchell has pointed out, liberalismdisqualifiesthe exercise of governmentalreason in the form of raison d'etat, in whicha sovereignexercisedhistotalising willacrossa national space. Poweris confronted,on the one hand, with subjectsequipped with rights that mustnotbe interdictedby government.On the other hand,governmentaddressesa realmof processesthatit cannot govern
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by the exercise of sovereign will because it lacks the requisite knowledge and capacities. The objects, instruments and tasks of governmentmust be reformulatedwith reference to this domain of civilsocietywith the aimof promotingits maximalfunctioning. The constitutionaland legal codificationand delimitationof the powersof politicalauthoritiesdid not so much 'free'a privaterealm from arbitraryinterferencesby power, as constitutecertain realms, such as those of market transactions,the family and the business undertaking,as 'non-political', definingtheir form and limits.Liberal doctrineson the limitsof powerand the freedomof subjects underthe law were thus accompaniedby the working out of a range of new technologiesof government,not havingthe form of directcontrolby authorities,that sought to administerthese 'private'realms, and to programmeand shape them in desireddirections. This does not mean that liberalismwas an ideology, disguisinga state annexationof freedom. The inaugurationof liberalsocietiesin Europe accords a vital role to a key characteristicof modern government:action at a distance.lS Liberalmentalitiesof government do not conceiveof the regulationof conductas dependent only upon politicalactions:the impositionof law;the activities of statefunctionariesor publiclycontrolledbureaucracies; surveillance and discipline byan all seeing police.Liberal governmentidentifiesa domainoutside 'politics'and seeks to manageit withoutdestroyingits existenceand its autonomy. This is made possible through the activities and calculations of a proliferation of independent agents including philanthropists, doctors,hygienists,managers,planners,parentsand socialworkers.And it is dependentupon the forgingof alliances. This takes place on the one hand between political strategies and the activities of these authorities and, on the other, between these authoritiesand free citizens,in attemptsto modulateevents,decisions and actions in the economy, the family, the private firm, and the conductof the individualperson. The elaboration of liberaldoctrinesof freedom went hand in hand withprojectsto makeliberalism operableby producingthe 'subjective' conditionsunder whichitscontractual notionsof the mutualrelations betweencitizenand societycould work.l9Those who could not carry theircontractual obligations werenowto appear'anti-social', and to be confinedunder a new legitimacy. The scandalous and bizarrewere to be placedunder a revisedmedicalmandate,in asylumsthatpromised to cure and not merelyto incarcerate. Law-breakers and malefactors were no longer to have the status of bandits or rebels, but were to become transgressorsof norms motivated by defects of character amenableto understanding and rectification. The inventionof the disciplinary institutionsof prisonand asylum wasaccompanied by the promulgation of a varietyof programmes by lawyers,doctors, philanthropists and other experts, who claimed to
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knowhow to directbusinessactivity,familylife and personalmorality onto the path of virtue. 'The State' was not the inspirer of these programmesof government, nor was it the necessarybeneficiary. Whatone sees is not a uniformtrendof 'Stateintervention' but rather the emergence,at a multitudeof sitesin the socialbody,of healthand disease, of crime and punishment, of poverty and pauperism, of madness and family life as problems requiring some measure of collectiveresponse,and in relationto whichpoliticalauthoritiesplaya varietyof differentroles.20 The domain of politicsis thus simultaneously distinguishedfrom other spheres of rule, and inextricablybound into them. Political forces have sought to utilise,instrumentalise and mobilizetechniques and agents other than those of 'the State' in order to govern 'at a distance';other authoritieshave sought to govern economic,familial and socialarrangementsaccordingto their own programmesand to mobilizepoliticalresourcesfor theirown ends.
3 PROGRAMMES OF GOVERN MENI
Government is a problematizing activity:it poses the obligationsof rulers in terms of the problemsthey seek to address. The ideals of governmentare intrinsically linked to the problemsaround which it circulates, the failingsit seeksto rectify,the illsit seeksto cure. Indeed, the history of government might well be written as a history of problematizations, in which politicians,intellectuals,philosophers, medics, militarymen, feministsand philanthropists have measured the real againstthe ideal and found it wanting.From the danger of de-population,the threatsposed by pauperismor the forecastsof the decline of the race, through the problematization of urban unrest, industrialmilitancy,failures of productivity,to contemporaryconcerns with internationalcompetitiveness, the articulation of government has been bound to the constantidentification of the difficulties and failuresof government. It is around these difficulties and failures that programmes of government have been elaborated.The programmatic is the realm of designsput forwardby philosophers,politicaleconomists,physiocrats and philanthropists,government reports, committees of inquiry, White Papers, proposalsand counterproposalsby organizationsof business, labour, finance, charities and professionals,that seek to configurespecificlocalesand relationsin waysthoughtdesirable.The relation between political rationalities and such programmes of governmentis not one of derivation or determination butof translation - both a movementfrom one spaceto another,and an expressionof a particular concernin anothermodality.Thus in the earlyyearsof this century in Britain, the language of national efficiency served to
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articulate general political ideals concerning the ends to which governmentshouldbe addressed,and provideda wayof formulating a range of competing programmes and disputes from different politicalforces.2lSimilarly, programmesfor administering and managingthe enterprisein the USA in the inter-war periodelaborated the basis of managerial authority in a way that was congruent with American ideals of personal freedom, initiativeand democracy. A translatability wasestablished betweenthe idealsof Americanpolitical culture and programmesfor governing the newly emerged giant corporationswith their professionalmanagers.22 Such translatability betweenthe moralities, epistemologiesand idiomsof politicalpower, and the government of a specific problem space, establishes a mutualitybetween what is desirableand what can be made possible throughthe calculatedactivities of politicalforces.23 Programmes,as Colin Gordon has pointed out, are not simply formulations of wishes or intentions.24 Firstof all, programmeslay claim to a certainknowledgeof the sphereor problem to be addressed - knowledgesof the economy, or of the nature of health, or of the problem of povertyare essentialelementsin programmes thatseek to exerciselegitimate and calculated power over them. a sphererequiresthat it can be represented,depicted in Governing a way which bothgraspsits truthand re-presentsit in a form in whichit can enter thesphereof consciouspolitical calculation. The theoriesof the social sciences, of economics,of sociologyand of psychology,thus provide a kindof intellectual machinery for government, in the form of proceduresfor rendering the world thinkable, taming its intractable reality by subjecting it to the disciplinedanalysesof thought. Theories and explanationsthus play an essentialpart in reversing the relationsof powerbetweenthe aspiringrulerand thatover which rule is to be exercised.Forexample,before one can seek to manage a domain suchas an economyit is firstnecessary to conceptualise a set of processes and relationsas an economywhichis amenableto management.25 In a very real sense, 'the economy'is brought into being by economic theories themselves,which define and individuatea set of characteristics, lawsand processesdesignatedeconomicratherthan, say, political or natural. This enables 'the economy' to become something which politicians, academics, industrialistsand others think can be governedand managed,evaluatedand programmed, order to increasewealth,profitand the like. Similarlysociology, in as a set of techniquesand investigations that reveal the nation as a set of aggregated statistics with their regularfluctuations, and as knowable processes with their laws and cycles, has played a key role in the constitution of societyand its diversecomponentsand domainsas a governable entity. Relationsof reciprocityobtain between the social sciences and government. As government depends upon these sciences for its languagesand calculations, so the socialsciencesthrive
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on the problemsof government,the demand for solutionsand the attractionof theories which have the plausibility of science and the promise of the rationaldiscipliningand technologisingof the social field. Programmespresupposethat the real is programmable, that it is a domain subjectto certaindeterminants,rules, norms and processes that can be acted upon and improvedby authorities.They make the objectsof governmentthinkablein such a way that their ills appear susceptible to diagnosis, prescriptionand cure by calculatingand norma lzlng lnterventlon.
* * * a
4 I ECHNOLOGIESOF GOVERNMEN I
Governmentis a domain of strategies,techniquesand procedures throughwhichdifferent forcesseek to renderprogrammes operable, and by means of which a multitude of connectionsare established betweenthe aspirations of authoritiesand the activities of individuals and groups.These heterogeneousmechanisms we termtechnologzes of gove1mment.26 It is through technologiesthat politicalrationalities and the programmesof governmentthat articulatethem becomecapable of deployment.But thisis not a matterof the 'implementation' of ideal schemesin the real, nor of the extension of control from the seat of power into the minutiaeof existence. Rather,it is a question of the complex assemblage of diverse forces - legal, architectural,professional,administrative, financial, judgmental- such that aspectsof the decisions and actions of individuals,groups, organizationsand populations come to be understood and regulated in relation to authoritativecriteria.We need to study the humble and mundane mechanismsby which authorities seek to instantiategovernment: techniquesof notation,computationand calculation;proceduresof examinationand assessment; the inventionof devicessuch as surveys and presentational forms such as tables; the standardisationof systemsfor trainingand the inculcation of habits;the inauguration of professional specialisms and vocabularies;building designs and architecturalforms - the list is heterogeneous and in principle unlimited. Bruno Latour'sreflectionson power are suggestivehere. Rather than consideringpoweras the explanation of the successof authorities in composinga networkof forces,Latourproposesa viewof poweras an effect of sucha composition.27 A powerfulactor,agentor institution is one that, in the particularcircumstancesobtaining at a given moment, is able to successfullyenrol and mobilise persons, proceduresand artifacts in the pursuitof its goals.Powersare stabilised in lastingnetworksonly to the extent that the mechanisms of enrolment
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are materialised in variousmore or less persistentforms- machines, architecture,inscriptions,school curricula,books, obligations,techniques for documentingand calculating and so forth. These stabilise networks partly because they act as potent resources in the local compositionof forces. Thus architectureembodiescertainrelations betweentime, space,functionsand persons- the separationof eating and sleeping, for example,or the hierarchical and lateralrelationsof the enterprise- not only materializing programmatic aspirations but structuringthe lives of those caught up in particulararchitectural regimes.Writingcodifiescustomsand habits,normalising them, both transformingthem into repeatableinstructions as to how to conduct oneself, and establishing authoritative meansof judgment. 'Power'is the outcomeof the affiliation of persons,spaces,communications and inscriptions into a durableform. To speakof the 'power'of a Government, a Departmentof State,a localauthority,a military commander or a managerin an enterpriseis to substantialise that which arises from an assemblageof forces by whichparticular objectives and injunctions can shape the actionsand calculationsof others. Again, the notion of translationcapturesthe processwherebythisdiversity is composed.28 To the extent thatactors have come to understand their situation according to a similar languageand logic, to construetheir goals and their fate as in some wayinextricable, they are assembledinto mobileand looselyaffiliated networks.Shared interestsare constructedin and through political discourses,persuasions,negotiationsand bargains.Commonmodes of perceptionare formed,in whichcertaineventsand entitiescome to be visualizedaccordingto particularrhetoricsof image or speech. Relationsare established betweenthe nature,character and causesof problems facing various individualsand groups - producers and shopkeepers,doctorsand patients- suchthatthe problemsof one and those of another seem intrinsicallylinked in their basis and their solution. These processesentailtranslation also in the literalsense of moving from one person, place or conditionto another. Particular and local issuesthusbecometied to muchlargerones. Whatstartsout as a claim comesto be transformedinto a matterof fact.The resultof these and similar operations is that mobile and 'thixotropic'associationsare established betweena varietyof agents,in whicheachseeksto enhance theirpowersby 'translating' the resourcesprovidedby the association so that they may functionto their own advantage.Loose and flexible linkages are made between those who are separated spatiallyand temporally, and between events in spheres that remain formally distinctand autonomous.Wheneachcantranslate the valuesof others into its own terms, such that they provide norms and standardsfor their own ambitions,judgments and conduct, a network has been composedthatenablesrule 'ata distance'.
5 INSCRIP'l'IONAND CALCULA'rIONAS'l'ECHNOLOGIESOF GOVERNMEN'l'
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In arguing againsta 'statecentred'conceptionof politicalpower,we do not mean to suggest that governmentdoes not produce centres. But centres of governmentare multiple: it is not a question of the power of the centralised state, but of how, in relation to what mentalitiesand devices, by means of what intrigues, alliancesand flows- is this localeor thatableto actas a centre. Consider, first of all, the notion of statistics.Eighteenth-century Europeanconceptionsof governmentarticulated a notionof statistics, or science of state, in which the operationof governmentwas to be made possibleby the accumulation and tabulationof facts about the domain to be governed. From this statisticalproject, through the requirementsimposed upon firms to keep accountbooks and make tax returns, through censuses and surveys, the investigationsof Victorian social reformers, the records kept by the newly formed police forces and the school inspectors,through the calculationsof such things as gross national products, growth rates of different economies, rates of inflation and the money supply, government inspiresand dependsupon a huge labourof inscription whichrenders reality into a calculableform. Written reports, drawings,pictures, numbers,charts,graphs and statistics are some of the waysin which this is achieved.29 The 'representation' of that which is to be governed is an active, technical process. Government has inaugurateda huge labour of enquiryto transformeventsand phenomenainto information: births, illnesses and deaths, marriagesand divorces, levels of income and typesof diet, formsof employmentand wantof employment.We can utiliseBruno Latour's notionof inscription devices to characterise these material conditionswhichenablethoughtto workupon an object.30 By means of inscription, reality is made stable, mobile, comparable, combinable.It is rendered in a form in which it can be debated and diagnosed. Informationin this sense is not the outcome of a neutral recordingfunction. It is itself a wayof actingupon the real, a wayof devising techniques for inscribingit in such a way as to make the domain in question susceptibleto evaluation,calculationand intervention.
The inscription of realityin these mobile,combinable tracesenables the formation of what we can call, following Latour, centresof calculation.3' Governmentdepends upon calculationsin one place abouthow to affect thingsin another.Information - concerningtypes of goods, ages of persons, health, criminality,etc. - must be transported and accumulatedin locales - the manager'soffice, the war room, the case conference and so forth - so that it can be utilised in calculation.The accumulationof inscriptionsin certain locales, by
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certainpersonsor groups, makesthem powerfulin the sense that it confers upon them the capacityto engage in certaincalculations and to lay a claimto legitimacyfor their plansand strategiesbecausethey are, in a real sense, in theknow about that which they seek to govern. The inscriptionsof the world which an individualor a group can compile, consult or control play a key role in the powers they can exerciseover those whoserole is to be entriesin these charts. Figurestransformthe domain to whichgovernmentis applied. In enablingevents to be aggregatedacrossspace and time, they reveal and constructnorms and processesto which evaluationscan be attached and upon which interventionscan be targeted. The figures themselves are mechanismsthat enable relations to be established betweendifferent phenomena,rendering'the population', 'the economy', 'public opinion', 'the divorce rate' into thought as calculable entitieswitha solidityand a densitythatappearsall theirown. The complex inter-dependenciesbetween inscription,calculation and government in France in the second half of the seventeenth centuryillustratethese processesclearly.Duringthe firsttwo decades of the reignof LouisXIV, Colbert,Superintendent of Commerceand Controllerof Finance,Superintendent of Buildingsand Secretary of State for Marine,can index the formationof a novel programmeof governmentthrough inscription.32 This involvedinnovationsin calculative technologiesfor private enterprise:legal regulationin the Ordinanceof 1673; publicationof numerous textbooksexplaining and commentingon this Ordinanceand providinggeneral adviceto merchants;the elaborationof rationales for understandingthese innovations;and the emergence of new pedagogic mechanismsfor instructing merchants in the techniques of accounting.It alsoinvolved a significant strengtheningand extensionof the role of the intendants as all-purpose local administrators, and the constructionof more systematic, regularand refinedinformationflowsfrom the provinces to the centre,frequentlyby meansof large-scale enquiries. The componentpartsof thistechnologyof governmentwerenot all new,butwhenconnectedtogethertheyoccupieda decisiverolewithin a programmeof governmentthatelevateda desireto knowthe nation andits subjects in fine detailinto an essentialresourceof politicalrule. Distance,delaysarisingas a resultof lengthytraveland other factors such as establishingthe local relaysand networksupon which informationand cooperationdepended undoubtedlyfrustratedand disruptedthis ideal machinery of 'government throughinquiry'.Neverthelessthe Colbertperiodillustrates the formationof a technologyfor governinga nationby exerting a kind of intellectualmasteryover it. Establishing a networkof conduitsfor the detailedand systematic flow of informationfrom individuallocalesof productionand trade to a centrehelped constitutea singleeconomicdomainwhoseconstituent elements could be knownand regulated'ata distance'.
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From the inventionof double entry book-keepingto the contemporary deployment of accounting techniques such as Discounted CashFlowanalyses,eventsin the internalrealmof the 'rrivate'enterprise have been opened up to governmentin this way.3 Government here works by installing what one might term a calculativetechnology in the heart of the 'private'sphere, producing new ways of renderingeconomicactivityinto thought, conferring new visibilities upon the componentsof profitand loss, embeddingnew methodsof calculationand hence linking privatedecisionsand publicobjectives such in a new way- through the mediumof knowledge.Mechanisms the distinctionbeas this, as we have shown elsewhere,problematize tween centrally planned and market economies: for example, the problems and techniques in the regulation of'nationalised' enterprises in the UK following the Second WorldWar were of a similar in modalityto those used to encourage efficiency and profitability enterprises.34 'private' Inscriptionitself can be a form of actionat a distance.Installinga technologyin the enterprise,in the hospital,in the school calculative or the familyenjoinsthosewithinthese localesto workout 'wherethey are', calibratethemselvesin relation to 'where they should be' and devisewaysof gettingfromone stateto the other. Makingpeoplewrite things down and count them - registerbirths,report incomes,fill in censuses- is itself a kind of governmentof them, an incitementto individualsto construetheir lives accordingto such norms. By such mechanisms,authoritiescan act upon, and enrol those distantfrom them in space and time in the pursuitof social,politicalor economic objectiveswithout encroachingon their 'freedom'or 'autonomy'indeed often preciselyby offering to maximise it by turning blind we argue habitinto calculatedfreedom to choose. Such mechanisms, contemporary in importance later,have come to assumeconsiderable modesof government.
AND GOVERNMEN'l' 6 EXPER'l'ISE
There are a numberof versionsof the processin whichthe personage of the expert, embodying neutrality,authority and skill in a wise figure, operatingaccordingto an ethicalcode 'beyondgood and evil' In our argumentthe rise of in our society.35 has becomeso significant expertise is linked to a transformation in the rationalitiesand technologiesof government.Expertiseemergedas a possiblesolution to a problemthatconfrontedliberalmentalitiesof government.How mightone reconcilethe principlethatthe domainof the politicalmust of be restricted,with the recognitionof the vitalpoliticalimplications The 'private'enterprisewas to become a formallyprivateactivities? vitallocalefor the governmentof the economiclife of the nation;the
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'private' familywasto be a resourcefor the governmentof sociallife. Eachwasa complexmultivalent machinewithinternalrelationswhich could be understood and administeredand external consequences whichcould be identifiedand programmed.The inhabitants of these private domains - bosses, managers and workers; parents and children - were to be simultaneouslythe locus of private hopes, ambitionsand disappointments, the source of varied types of social difficultiesand the basisof all sortsof sociallydesirableobjectives. The vitallinksbetweensocio-political objectives and the minutiaeof daily existence in home and factory were to be established by expertise.Expertswould enter into a kind of double alliance.On the one hand, they would ally themselves with political authorities, focusing upon their problemsand problematizing new issues, translating political concerns about economic productivity,innovation, industrial unrest, social stability, law and order, normality and pathologyand so forth into the vocabulary of management,accounting, medicine,socialscienceand psychology. On the other hand, they would seek to form allianceswith individualsthemselves,translating their daily worries and decisions over investment, child rearing, factory organizationor diet into a language claiming the power of truth,and offering to teachthem the techniquesby whichthey might managebetter,earnmore,bringup healthieror happierchildrenand much more besides. Expertisenonetheless poses problemsfor politicalauthority.Experts have the capacityto generatewhatwe term enclosures: relatively bounded localesor types of judgment withinwhich their power and authorityis concentrated, intensifiedand defended.3fi Enclosures may be generated in governmentalnetworksthrough the use of esoteric knowledge,technicalskill,or establishedpositionas crucialresources which others cannot easilycountermandor appropriate.Of course, such enclosuresare only provisional, and the claimsof any particular expertise are alwayssubjectto contestation.But the example of the BritishNationalHealthService,whichwe discussbelow,illustrates the ways in which doctors could deploy their expertise to translatethe interestsof civil servantsand governmentministersinto their own. They managedto make their argumentsand calculations the obligatory mode for the operationof the networkas a whole, the lines of force flowing, as it were, from the operating theatre to the cabinet office and not viceversa. The complex of actors, powers, institutionsand bodies of knowledge that comprise expertise have come to play a crucial role in establishingthe possibilityand legitimacyof government. Experts hold out the hope thatproblemsof regulationcan removethemselves from the disputedterrainof politicsand relocateonto the tranquil yet seductive territoryof truth. By means of expertise, self regulatory techniquescan be installedin citizens that will align their personal
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choiceswith the ends of government.37 The freedom and subjectivity of citizenscan in such waysbecome an ally, and not a threat, to the orderlygovernmentof a polityand a society.
7 'l'HE GOVERNMEN'l'ALlZA'l'lON OF'l'HE S'l'A'l'
The problematics of governmentoffer a different perspectiveon the politicalphenomenaconventionallyaddressedin terms of the state. The discursive,legislative,fiscal,organizational and other resources of the public powers have come to be linked in varying ways into networksof rule. Mobiledivisionsand relationshavebeen established between political rule and other projects and techniques for the calculated administration of life. Diversepartsare playedin technologies of rule by the political actors who hold elected office, make aut zorltatlve pronouncements as to po lCy and prlorltles, create legislationand get it enacted, calculatenationalbudgets, raise taxes and adjusttheir levelsand incidence,disbursebenefits,give grantsto industryand charities,commandand directbureaucratic staffs,set up regulatorybodies and organizations of all sorts,and, in certaincases, set in actionthe legitimateuse of violence. Such 'political'forces can only seek to operationalizetheirprogrammes of government by influencing, allying with or co-opting resources that they do not directlycontrol - banks, financialinstitutions,enterprises,tradeunions,professions,bureaucracies, families and individuals.38 A 'centre' canonlybecomesuchthroughitsposition within the complex of technologies,agents and agencies that make governmentpossible.But, once establishedas a centre, a particular localecanensure thatcertainresourcesonlyflowthroughand around these technologiesand networks,reaching particularagents rather thanothers,by meansof a passagethrough'thecen-tre'. Financial and economiccontrolsestablishedby centralgovernmentset key dimensions of the environment in which private enterprises and other economic actors must calculate. Money, raised in taxes or public borrowing,is disbursedthroughthe network,to certainlocalcentres, but the continuedsupplyof financial resourcesis conditionalupon the convictionthat an alignmentof interestsexists,that the localauthorities, firmsand so on willremainmore or less faithfulallies.Hence the threatof withholdingof funds can be a powerfulinducementto other actorsto maintainthemselveswithinthe network,or an incentivefor them to seek to convincethe centre that their concernsand strategies are translatable and mutual. The enactmentof legislationis a powerfulresourcein the creation of centres,to the extent that law translates aspectsof a governmental programmeinto mechanismsthat establish,constrain,or empower certain agents or entities and set some of the key terms of their
. . . . . . .
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deliberations. Imposinga regimeof licensure,for example,empowers certain bodies to regulate those who seek to act in a certain professionalcapacity,both legitimatingand regulatingat the same time. Embodyingthe principleof 'the best interestsof the child'in law may not deternzine the decisionsof socialworkersand the courts,but it sets one of the terms in which those decisions must be calculatedand justified. Programmesand strategiesformulatedat the centre may lead to attemptsto establish regulatory or negotiatingbodies,and may lead to more or less autonomybeing granted to other aspectsof the bureaucraticweb of government such as Departmentsof State or LocalAuthorities. Yet entities and agents within governmental networks are not faithfulrelays,mere creaturesof a controllersituatedin some central hub. They utiliseand deploy whateverresourcesthey have for their own purposes, and the extent to which they carry out the will of another is always conditional on the particularbalance of force, energy and meaning at any time and at any point. Each actor, each locale,is the pointof intersection betweenforces,and hence a pointof potentialresistance to anyone wayof thinkingand acting,or a pointof organizationand promulgationof a different or oppositionalprogramme. Entities may defect from a network, may refuse to be enrolled, or may bend its operations at certain points beyond all recognition.Budget holderswillrefuse to releasesufficientfunds, or recipientsof funds will divert them to other purposes.Expertsand academicswill seize upon the tacticalpossibilities open to them and seek to deflectthem to theirown advantage.And professionalgroups will bargain,bickerand conteston the basisof quite different claims and objectives instead of meshing smoothly and with complete malleability in the idealisedschemesof a programmatic logic. Governmentis a congenitallyfailingoperation:the sublimeimage of a perfect regulatory machine is internal to the mind of the programmers.The world of programmes is heterogeneous, and rivalrous. Programmescomplexify the real, so solutions for one programmetend to be the problemsfor another.Things, personsor eventsalwaysappearto escapethosebodiesof knowledgethatinform governmentalprogrammes,refusing to respond according to the programmatic logicthatseeksto governthem. Technologiesproduce unexpectedproblems,areutilisedfor theirownends by thosewhoare supposedto merelyoperate them, are hamperedby under-funding, professional rivalries, and the impossibility of producingthe technical conditionsthat would make them work- reliablestatistics,efficient communication systems,clear lines of command,properlydesigned buildings,wellframedregulations or whatever.Unplannedoutcomes emergefrom the intersection of one technologywithanother,or from the unexpected consequencesof putting a techniqueto work. Contrariwise, techniques invented for one purpose may find their
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governmentalrole for another, and the unplanned conjunctionof techniquesand conditionsarisingfrom verydifferentaspirations may allow something to work without or despite its explicit rationale. Whilst we inhabit a world of programmes,that world is not itself programmed.We do not live in a governedworldso muchas a world traversedby the 'willto govern',fuelled by the constantregistration of 'failure',the discrepancybetween ambition and outcome, and the constantinjunctionto do betternext time.
8 WELFAREAND'l'HE GOVERNMEN'l'ALIZA'l'ION OF'l'HE S'l'A'l'
Politicalcommentatorstend to agree that during the first half of the present century, many western societies became 'welfarestates',in which the State tried to ensure high levelsof employment,economic progress,socialsecurity,healthand housingthroughthe use of the tax systemand investments,through state planningand interventionin the economy, and through the development of an extended and bureaucratically staffedapparatus for socialadministration. Fromour perspective,however,thisis less the birthof a new formof statethana new mode of governmentof the economic,socialand personallivesof citizens. This mode of government, that we term 'welfarism',is constitutedby a politicalrationality embodyingcertainprinciplesand ideals, and is based upon a particularconception of the nature of society and its inhabitants.This welfaristrationalityis linked to an arrayof mutuallytranslatable programmes,technologiesand devices ranglng trom tax reglmes to socla Insurance,trom management trainingto socialcasework,from employmentexchangesto residentialhomes for the elderly. We have discussedwelfarismand the governmentof economiclife elsewhere.39 Let us here considerwelfarismand 'social'government. 'Social'does not refer in this instanceto a given repertoireof social issues, but to a terrainbroughtinto existenceby governmentitselfthe locationof certainproblems,the repositoryof specifichopes and fears, the target of programmes and the space traced out by a particularadministrativemachinery.40 The programmesof social government that proliferated in the nineteenth century involved complexalliancesbetweenprivateand professional agents- philanthropists,charitable organizations, medics,polemicists and others, and the state - formed around problemsarising in a multitudeof sites withinthe socialbody. Fromthe latterhalf of the nineteenthcentury onwards,these programmes,and the schemesthey gave rise to, were graduallylinked up to the apparatusof the state. These connections were, no doubt, inspired by diverse aims and principles,but they appeared to offer the chance, or impose the obligation,for political authorities to calculate and calibrate social, economic and moral
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affairsand seek to governthem.Yetthe did not, could not, eliminateallothercentresof power stateapparatus its creatures whether through the or decision,or reducethemto mechanismsof command and obedience or by subjectingeveryone to perpetual normalization.Welfarismis not so much a matter surveillanceand interventioniststate as the assemblingof diverse of the rise of an argumentsthrough which politicalforces seek mechanismsand to secure social and economic objectives by linking up a plethora aspirations to know,programmeand transform of networks with the socialfield. Governing thenetworks of welfare TheEnglishexampleillustrates three firstconcerns the relations between key featuresof welfarism.The political formationof networks of government. As a rationalitiesand the welfarism is structuredby the wishto encourage political rationality, nationalgrowthand wellbeing through the promotion of social responsibilityand the mutuality of socialrisk.This rationality wasarticulated in a numberof different ways.The BeveridgeReportwas framed in terms of a kind of contractbetweenthe stateand itscitizens,in which both parties had their needs and theirduties.4'The statewould accept responsibility to attack the 'five giants of Want, Disease, Idleness, Ignorance and Squalor' through a nationalisedhealthservice,a commitmentto full employment and a socialinsurancesystemwhich would preventthe social demoralization and other harmfuleffects of periods redistributing incomeacrossthe life cycle.In return,the of wantby citizenwould respect his or her obligationsto be thrifty, industrious, and socially responsible. The LabourParty,on the other hand, articulated this rationality in termsof thejust andequaltreatment for each and for all, to be realized by planned, rationalised and universal state dispensation of security,health,housingand The rationalityof welfarismwas education.42 elaboratedin relation to a range of specific programmatically problematizations: the declining birthrate; delinquencyand anti-social behaviour; the problem family; the socialconsequences of ill healthand the advantages conferred by a healthy population; and the integration of citizens into the community. These were not novel problems,but in the post-warperiod they were to be problematized by a multitudeof officialand unofficial experts and, crucially,were to be governed in ways. The key innovations of welfarism lay in the attemptsnew to link the fiscal, calculative and bureaucratic capacities of the apparatus of the stateto the governmentof sociallife. The socialdevicesof the pre-warperiod consisted of a tangleof machinery for the surveillance and regulation of thesocial,familialand personalconduct of the problematic sectors of the population. The personnel, procedures, techniques and calculations that made up these devices were attached to specific
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localesand organizations: the courts, the reformatories,the schools and the clinics.Welfarismsought to articulatethese variedelements into a network and to direct them in the light of centralised calculations as to resources,servicesand needs. However,welfarewasnot a coherentmechanismthatwouldenable the unfolding of a centralplan. The networkswere assembledfrom diverseand often antagonistic components,from warringWhitehall departmentsto peripheraland ad hocagencies.43 This was no 'state apparatus', but a compositionof fragileand mobilerelationships and dependencies making diverse attempts to link the aspirationsof authoritieswith the lives of individuals.Assemblingand maintaining such networksentailedstruggles,alliancesand competitionsbetween different groups for resources,recognitionand power.The problem posed for the next thirtyyears, for those aspiringto form a 'centre' from which the welfare apparatuscould be governed, was one of regulatingthose who claimeddiscretionary powers becauseof their professionalor bureaucratic expertise. The exampleof healthillustrates these difficultiesof welfarismas a technology of rule.44 How was one to make administrablethe multitude of hourly and daily individual decisions by physicians, consultants,general practitioners, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and others? Each of these agents claimed and practisedtheir rights to make decisions not on the basis of an externallyimposed plan, or accordingto criteriareachingthem from elsewhere,' but accordingto professional codes,training,habit,moralallegiances, and institutional demands. The problem was one of connectingthem instead to the calculations and deliberations of other authorities. Between the Ministryof Health and the practitioners of the cure during the 1950s,a complexadministrative structurewas assembled. In the hospital sector alone this comprised 14 Regional Hospital Boards,36 Boardsof Governancefor Teaching Hospitalsand some 380 Hospital ManagementCommittees.To govern this system in a 'rationaland effective'manneras envisagedin the 1944 WhitePaper posed a problem of information:even the most basic information about the number and distributionof doctors was lacking at the periphery let alone the centre. This 'lack'was to be the start of a massiveattemptto transformthe activities of healersinto figuresthat wouldmakemedicinecalculable. The initialformof problematization wasfinancialfor the new technologydisplacedearlierwaysof relating medical care to money. A series of studies lamented the limited informationpossessedby the Ministry on the financialadministration of hospitals,the absence of costing yardsticksto judge the relative efficiencyor extravagance of administration of varioushospitals,and hence the invidious alternativesof accepting the plans of medical agents wholesale as submitted without amendment, or applying overallcuts in a more or less indiscriminate manner.45
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Diverseprogrammes soughtto transformthe healthapparatus into a calculable universein whichentitiesand activities wouldbe mapped, enumerated, translatedinto information, transmittedto a centre, accumulated, compared,evaluated,and programmed.The duties of eachactorand localewouldbe relayedbackto themdownthe network in the form of norms, standardsand constraints.The problemsof calculability were to be raised again and again over the next thirty years, and in relation to differing political rationalitiesand programmes. But in the 1950s, Ministryof Health policy making was more or less limitedto operatingby exhortatory circular - an average of 120a yearthroughoutthe 1950s- and politicalexhortations canbe ignored.For the medicalprofessionestablishedthe NHS as a medical enclosure. Medics drew on a profound optimism concerning the abilityof medicalscienceto alleviateillnessand promotehealth,in a varietyof tacticsthat succeeded both in shaping the 'policyagenda' concerning health and in placing certain issues out of bounds for non-professionals.4fi Further,medicscame to dominatethe administrativenetworksof health,forminga medico-administrative bloc that appeared resistant to all attempts to make it calculablein a nonmedicalvocabulary. By the 1960s,the technological questionsof how the machineryof health was to be governedwere re-posedwithina more generalshift of governmentalrationalities. The notion that efficiencyand rationalitycould be achievedthrough mechanisms of planningcrossedthe boundariesof economicand socialpolicyand the bounds of political party. The Plowden Report of 1961 called for the use of public expenditure control as a means to stable long-term planning, with greater emphasis on the 'wider avplication of mathematicaltechniques,statistics and accountancy'.4 A range of new techniqueswere invented by which civil servantsand administrators might calculate and hence control public expenditure: the Public Expenditure Survey Committee(PESC),the use of cost benefit analysis,of PPB (Planning,Programming,Budgeting)and PAR (ProgrammeAnalysis Review).And officialdocumentslike the FultonReportenvisaged these as gaining their hold upon the machinery of government through their inculcationinto a professionalcorps of administrative experts, specialistsboth in techniquesof managementand those of
numeracy.48
Management,mathematicsand monetarisation were to tame the wildexcessesof a governmental complexin dangerof runningout of control. The Ministryof Health set up its AdvisoryCommitteefor ManagementEfficiencyin 1959 and expenditure on 'hospital efficiencystudies'rose from 18,000 in 19634 to 250,000 in 1966-7. Health economistsinvented themselvesand installedthemselvesin the Ministry of Healthandoutsideit, articulating a newvocabulary for definingproblemsand programming solutions.49 Yet for some fifteen
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years these new mechanisms for central planning according to rationalcriteriaappeareddestinedto fail. enclosure of It was in the 1970s that the medico-administrative and plannersbegan to speakof healthwas to be breached.Politicians of the demand for medical servicesand hence the the insatiability need to impose some politically acceptable limits upon national provision. The very success of medics in promoting high-tech medicinehad vastlyincreasedthe cost of treatment.Sociologistsand demographersissued dire predictionsabout the consequencesof the aging populationand increasesin life expectancyfor demandson the health apparatus.Further,the medical monopoly over the internal workingof the health apparatusbegan to fragment. General practitionersand consultantsbegan to stake rivalclaimsfor dominance. New actors proliferated in the health networks- nurses, physios, occupational therapists - and began to organize themselves into 'professional'forces, claiming special skills based upon their own esoteric knowledge and training, demanding a say in the adminisof medical of the superiority trationof health,contestingassumptions and unionised expertise. Ancillary workers became increasingly and planning rational between conflicts The wages. pressedfor better threatapparatus health As the evident. more expert powersbecame ened to become ungovernable,a new form of rational expertise, grounded in the discourse of health economics, began to provide resources for those who wished to challenge the prerogativesof doctors. New devicesbegan to be developed for evaluatingthe costs and benefits of different treatmentsand decisions,rendering them judgments made neither by doctorsnor by amenableto non-clinical but by managers.5 localpoliticians, Further,the healthconsumerwas transformed,partlyby developments in medical thought itself, from a passive patient, gratefully of the medics,to a person who was to be receivingthe ministrations wasto of healthif the treatment engaged in the administration actively be effectiveandpreventionassured.The patientwasnowto voicehisor her experiencesin the consultingroom if diagnosiswasto be accurate and remedieseffective.The patientwasalso to be activelyenrolled in the government of health, educated and persuaded to exercise a of diet,lifestyle of thehealthconsequences continualinformedscrutiny were to organizeand represent and work.And patients,reciprocally, for themselvesin the strugglesoverhealth.By 1979,230 organizations patientsand disabledpeople could be listed in a directory,providing forums for sufferers of particularconditions and their relatives, pressingfor increasedresourcesfor problemsrangingfrom migraine to kidney transplants,demanding their say in decisionsconcerning of death.Outof everythingfrom the placeof birthto the management this concatenationof programmes,strategiesand resistances,a new mode of governmentof healthwasto takeshape. 'neo-liberal'
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Welfare antlresponsible citizenship Welfarismembodiesa particular conceptionof the relationbetween the citizen and the public powers. As the 'contractual' language of Beveridge's programme indicates, welfarism is a 'responsibilizing' mode of government.Social insurance,which BeveridEemade the centrepiece of his report, will serve to illustratethis. ' Insurance fundamentallytransformsthe mechanismsthat bind the citizeninto the socialorder. A certainmeasureof individualsecurityis provided againstloss or interruptionof earningsthrough sickness,unemployment, injury, disablement, widowhood or retirement. Yet simultaneouslythe subjectsof these dangersare constitutedas the locus of socialresponsibility and locatedwithina nexus of socialrisk. Prior to insurance, perhaps the principal socially regulated relationshipwas between the employer and the employee. The technology of insurance not only entails the direct interventionof the stateas third partyinto the contractof employment,it articulates this relationwithin a different but complementary contractbetween the insuredindividualand society,introducinga relationof mutualobligation in which both partieshave their rights and their duties. Programmesof insurance did not merely aspire to the prevention of hardshipand want.They also sought to reduce the socialand political consequencesof economic events such as unemploymentby ensuringthat, whether workingor not, individualswere in effect employees of society. Within the political rationality of welfarism, insuranceconstitutedindividualsas citizensbound into a systemof solidarity and mutual inter-dependency.Insurantialtechnologydid notcompose a mechanismwhere premiumswere adjustedto riskor contributionswere accumulated in order to provide for future benefits.Rather, the vocabularyof insuranceand the techniqueof contribution were chosen in the belief that this would constitutethe insuredcitizen in a definite moral form: paymentwould qualifyan individualto receive benefits, would draw the distinctionbetween earnedand unearned benefits,and teach the lessons of contractual obligation, thriftand responsibility. Welfarism andthetechnicisation ofpolitics The system of social insurance embodied definite politico-ethical aspirations.However, it had the paradoxicaleffect of expelling certain issuesand problemsfromthe political to the technicaldomain. Thisillustrates a third key featureof welfarism:the role accordedto expertise.By incorporatingexpertise into a centrallydirected network, welfarismfacilitatesthe creationof domainsin which political decisions are dominatedby technicalcalculations. In most European societies, sickness and insurance funds were
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developed by voluntaryassociations,trade unions, politicalparties form, in that and religiousgroups.They had an immediate'political' by the insured in decisionsover they allowedfor some participation the administrationof these benefits, provided a base for workers' organizations,served as a resource for the creation of collective of membersfor such issuesas elections identitiesand the mobilization in two ways:either by and strikes.Such issues can be 'de-politicized' re-locating them as 'private'matters to be resolved by individual market transactions,or by transformingthem into technical, proof mattersto be resolvedby the application fessionalor administrative rationalknowledgeand professionalexpertisein relationto objective and apparentlyneutralcriteria.52 wasto write as T. H. Marshall Evensuch a perceptivecommentator wasa scientificnot a of socialinsurance,that 'This new sophistication politicalphenomenon. . . applyingtechniques,whichwereof universal validity, to problems that were an intrinsic part of modern Yet asJaques Donzelotsuggests,one of the most industrialsociety'.53 important results of insurance is the de-dramatisationof-social conflicts,through for the origin of eliding the questions of assigning responsibility 'socialevils'and shiftingthe issue to the different technicaloptions requiredto 'optimise' regardingvariationsin different parameters etc.54 employment,wages,allowances And, at the same time, insurancecreatesa form of passivesolidarity amongstits recipients,de-emphasisingboth their activeengagement in collectivemechanismsof providing for hard times such as trade unions or friendly societies and their individual striving for selfoption, protectionthroughsavings.Insuranceis certainlya 'technical' but it is a technology that redraws the social domain and simultaneouslyreadjuststhe territoryof the politicalon the one hand repressions- and the economicon the otherstruggles,contestations, and poverty. wage labour,the role of the market,subsistence of government of welfareas a rationality 'crisis' If the contemporary arose, in part, out of the difficultiesengendered by the technologies of supplantingwelfare it, the possibility that sought to operationalise of a of governmentaroseout of the proliferation by a new rationality range of other, more indirectmeans, for regulatingthe activitiesof private agents. This entailed the implantationof technologies of calculationand the developmentof varioustechniquesfor attaching rewardsto certaindecisionsand makingothers actualor psychological wasto be vestedin Government lessattractive. or culturally financially the entrepreneurialactivitiesof producersof goods and suppliersof services, the expertise of managers equipped with new modes of of the operationof a marketthatwouldalignthe activities calculation,
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producers and providers with the choices of consumers, actively seekingto maximisetheir'lifestyles' and their'quality of life'.
9 FROMWELFARE IO NEO-LIBERALISM
Letus returnto the contemporary political challengesto the extended state with which we began. For some thirty years following the publicationof TheRoadto Serfdom neo-liberalhostilityto the 'interventionist state' seemed eccentric to the main lines of political debate.55 From the mid-seventiesonwards,in Britain,the USA and elsewhere in Europe, neo-liberalanalyses began to underpin the appeal of conservativepoliticalprogrammesand pronouncements. The politicalmentalityof neo-liberalism breakswithwelfarismat the level of moralities,explanationsand vocabularies.Against the assumptionthatthe illsof socialand economiclife are to be addressedby the activities of government, it warns against the arrogance of governmentoverreachand overload.It counter-posesthe inefficiencies of planned economies to the strengthof the marketin picking winners.It claimsthat Keynesian demandmanagement setsin motion a viciousspiralof inflationary expectationsand currencydebasement. It suggests that big government is not only inefficientbut malign: partiesare pushed into makinglavishpromisesin their competition for votes, fuellingrisingexpectationswhichcan only be met by public borrowingon a grand scale.='6 Because'the welfarestate'depends on bureaucracy, it is subjectto constant pressure from bureaucratsto expandtheirown empires,againfuellingan expensiveand inefficient extensionof the governmental machine.Becauseit cultivates the view thatit is the role of the stateto providefor the individual,the welfare statehasa morallydamagingeffect upon citizens,producing'aculture of dependency' basedon expectations thatgovernmentwilldo whatin reality only individuals can. Neo-liberalismreactivatesliberal principles:scepticismover the capacities of politicalauthoritiesto govern everythingfor the best; vigilance over the attemptsof political authorities to seekto govern.Its languageis familiarand needs littlerehearsal.Markets are to replace planningas regulatorsof economicactivity. Those aspectsof governmentthat welfareconstruedas politicalresponsibilities are, as far as possible,to be transformedinto commodifiedforms and regulated accordingto market principles. Economic entrepreneurshipis to replaceregulation, as active agents seeking to maximisetheir own advantage are both the legitimatelocus of decisionsabout their own affairs and the mosteffectivein calculating actionsandoutcomes.And moregenerally,activeentrepreneurship is to replacethe passivity and dependency of responsiblesolidarity as individuals are encouragedto strive to optimisetheirown qualityof life and thatof their families.
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Neo-liberalismre-codes the locus of the state in the discourseof politics.The statemustbe strongto defend the interestsof the nation in the internationalsphere, and must ensure order by providing a legal frameworkfor socialand economiclife. But withinthis framework autonomous actors - commercialconcerns, families, individuals - are to go freely about their business, making their own decisions and controlling their own destinies. Neo-liberal political weave these philosophicalthemes into an operativepolrationalities itical discourse.A rhetoricof the nation, the family, the traditional greatnessof Britain,the virtuesof lawand order, and the respectfor between neo-liberalismand tratradition provides a translatability opens a complexspace ditionalrightwing values,and simultaneously for the elaborationof governmentalprogrammes. of government,neoWhateverits rhetoric,withinthe problematics a noncounterposing by intelligible rendered is not liberalism state. Rather,it shouldbe seen as to an interventionist interventionist thatbringsthem into a kind of politicalrationalities a re-organization of alignment with contemporarytechnologiesof government.The new politicalinitiativesoften take the form of an attempted'autonoof mization'of entities from the state, or rather, an autonomization for, the actions the state from directcontrolsover, and responsibility and calculationsof businesses,welfare organizationsand so forth. They entail the adoption by the centre of a range of devices which seek both to create a distancebetween the formal institutionsof the state and other social actors, and to act upon them in a different manner. One of the central mechanismsof neo-liberalismis the proliferation of strategiesto create and sustain a 'market',to reshape the forms of economic exchange on-the basis of contractualexchange. programmesof the new politicshave formed perThe privatization haps the most visiblestrandof such strategies,and one most aligned with the politicalidealsof marketsversusstate. But in termsof economic regulationat least, a rigid distinctionbetweennationalizedand private enterprisesis misleading.On the one hand, the degree of politicaldirection over the activitiesof nationalizedcompanies was variable but small - perhaps the principal form that intervention took was the provisionor refusalof investmentcapital.On the other hand, privatesectorenterpriseis opened, in so manyways,to the action at a distance mechanismsthat have proliferatedin advanced beliberaldemocracies,with the rise of managersas an intermediary tween expert knowledge,economicpolicyand businessdecisions.Of course,'marketforces'intersectin differentwayswithinvestmentdecisionsand the like when businessesare no longer formallyowned by the state, as do the imperativesto profit. But we might considerthat of the form of economicregulationis less a revolthis reconstruction real failuresof centralplanning,than a rejectionof ution againstthe
200
Roseand PeterMiller Nikolas
of planning that ideals of knowledge,power and the effectivity the embodied. rationalities such neo-liberalismalso At the rhetorical and programmaticlevel, for governmechanisms in the a profound transformation embodies the solidarity social and sociallife. In placeof collectiveprovision of securityprovided ing notions of governmentproposes rationality new health care the private purchase of insurance schemes, through industry, health the by by individuals and provided purchased secured efficiency and offered through the private sector housing public The market. the the disciplineof competitionwithin through a vital as appears longer no of welfare and social security provision and socialefficiency. of a programmefor politicalstability part the enclosuresof breaching in has playeda keyrole Monetarisation example, when within the machinery of welfare. For expertise their theraBritishhospitalsare requiredto translate into cash contemporary room, activities,from operatingtheatresto laundry peutic them, new upon conferred is a new form of visibility equivalents, making made establishedand new proceduresof decision write things relations As we have already argued, making people possible. made to writedown, is and the natureof the thingspeople are down, to think aboutand a kind of governmentof them, urging them to certain norms. itself certain aspects of their activitiesaccording the inscriptions, note flows to the centre or agent who determines Power form and them, contemplatesthem in their aggregated accumulates who are others of hencecan compare and evaluate the activities become ratherthanconsultants entrieson the chart.Managers merely the from flows and power thepowerful actors in this new network, calculative of office to the operatingtheatre via a multitude cabinet This is not locales,ratherthan in the other direction. managerial and but to existed, none anattemptto impose a power where previously and financial, to the terms of calculationfrom medicalFar from autonotransform network. henceto shift the fulcrumof the health of actionat a distance modes new these mizingthe healthapparatus, relocatingaspects of governingit. Similarly, the possibilities increase not necessarily does sector of welfare in the 'private'or 'voluntary' different proceduresof render them less governable.To be sure, 'political'institutionsare and allianceare entailed when translation between state in networksof power. But the opposition 'de-centred' transformations. these and non-stateis inadequateto characterise of programmesfor the also entailsa reorganization Neo-liberalism life. The language of the entrepreneurial personal of government and autonomy, has come to individual, endowed with freedom evaluations of the ethicalclaims over almostany other in predominate government. A sphere of of political power and programmesof autonomous agents make where freedom is to be (re-)established, and seek to maximisethe preferences their decisions, pursue their
theState Politicalpowerbeyond
201
the politicalsubjectis less a qualityof their lives. For neo-liberalism socialcitizenwith powersand obligationsderivingfrom membership is active.This whosecitizenship of a collectivebody,thanan individual citizenshipis to be manifestednot in the receiptof publiclargesse,but in the energetic pursuit of personal fulfilment and the incessant thatare to enablethis to be achieved.57 calculations forges a kind of alignmentbetweenpoliticalrationNeo-liberalism alities and the technologies for the regulationof the self that took shapein Britainduringthe decadesof the 1960sand 1970s.No doubt this alignment is not the only one possible,nor the most desirable. for the reformof welfaredrew Nonetheless,neo-liberalprogrammes supportfrom theirconsonancewitha rangeof otherchallengesto the mechanismsof social governmentthat emerged during these same feminists,radicals,socialists,sociolodecades from civil libertarians, gists and others. These reorganized programmesof government the multitudeof experts of management, utiliseand instrumentalise of family life, of lifestyle who have proliferated at the points of intersection of socio-politicalaspirations and private desires for Through this loose assemblageof agents, calcuself-advancement. lations, techniques, images and commodities, individuals can be governedthroughtheir freedom to choose.
CONCLUSION
Much of the analysisabove is preliminary,but its central point is a simple one. The language of political philosophy: state and civil sovereigntyand democracy,public society, freedom and constrairlt, and privateplays a key role in the organizationof modern political tools for analyzing power.However,it cannotprovidethe intellectual Unless we adopt the present. the problematicsof government in power,we will of political differentwaysof thinkingaboutthe exercise find contemporaryforms of rule hard to understand.It will thus be on offer. difficultto makeproperjudgment of the alternatives (Dateaccepted:April 199 1) Rose Nikolas College Goldsmiths' and Miller Peter ofEconomics School London
NO I ES
Zara- on an earlier and much longer draft 1. F. W. Nietzsche,ThusSpoke thustra,London, Penguin, 1969, p. 75. which have helped us in preparingthis to Manypeople gave us detailedcomments version. We would like particularly
202
thankGrahamBurchell,StewartClegg, Mitchell Dean, Mick Dillon, Michael TonyGiddens, DavidGarland, Donnelly, Gordon,AnthonyHopwood,Alan (Jolin Hunt, Ian Hunter, Thomas Osborne, Alessandro Pizzorno, Michael Power, Thompson, (^rahame Scheingold, Stuart Tomlinsonand RobertvanKrieken. Jim 2. We have in mind recent non- or of writingson the sproblem post-marxist the State', represented best by GianTilly,Theda SkocfrancoPoggi,Charles pol, Anthony Giddens, Michael Mann andJohn A. Hall.Fora cogentdiscussion see B. Jessop, State Theory,(Jambridge, Polity,1990. 3. M. Foucault,The Historyof Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction,London, Allen Lane, 1978, pp. 8v9. For an extendedtreatmentof differentwaysof conceptualisingpolitical power see S. Frameworis of Power, London, Sage,1989. 4. M. Foucault, 'On governmen6, pp. 5-21. Reprinted I&iC,1979, tality', in Burchell,(,. (Jordonand P. Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studie.s in Rationality, Hemel HempGovernmental 1991. See stead, Harvester-Wheatsheaf, to thisvolumefor theothercontributions relatedanalyses. 5. M. Foucault, 'On governmenp. 20. I&iC,1979, tality', 6. Cf. S. (Johen, 'Thinking About atWorkpaperpresented (Jontrol', Social shop on ControllingSocial Life, EuroInstitute,Florence,May pean University 3>June 2,1989. of 7. See, for example,the discussion thought of constitutional the limitations in I. Hardenand N. Lewis,TheNobleLie:
(Jleggs
RosearulPeterMiller Nikolus
M.Foucault, sThe Politicsof Health in the Eighteenth Century', in C. Gordon (ed.), Selected Foucault.PowerlKnowledge: Michel 1972-1977, and OtherWriting.s Interuiew.s Brighton, The Harvester Press,1980. 9. A. Giddens, The Nation State and Cambridge, Polity 1985. Violence, 10. See, for example, M. Mann, The of SocialPowerVol.1., Cambridge, Sources Cambridge University Press, 1986; M. Oxford, Warand Capitali.sm, Mann, State.s, Blackwell,1988; See alsoJ. A. Hall and (J. J. Ikenberry, The State, Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1989; J. A. Hall Oxford, Blackwell, in Hi.story, (ed.), State.s 1986:J. Baechler,J. A. Hall and M. Mann (eds), Europe and the Ri.seof Capitali.sm, Oxford, Blackwell,1988. 11. I. Wallerstein, The Politic.sof the The Movements The State.s, WorldEconomy: and the Civilizatiorts,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984; Giddens, 1985, op. cit.; Mann,1988, op. cit. 12. See M. Dillon, 'Modernity, Discourse and Deterrence', in CurrentResearchon Peace and Violence,vol. 2, 1989, pp.9s104. 13. The current analysis builds upon our previous studies of such issues, see N. Complex:P.sycholRose, The P.sychological and Society1869-1939, Lonogy, Politic.s don, Routledge and Kegan Paul,1985; N. theSoul: TheShapingof the Rose, Governing PrivateSelf, London, Routledge, 1990; P. Miller and N. Rose (eds), The Power of (Jambridge, Polity, 1986; P. P.sychiatry, Miller, 'Accounting for Progress National Accounting and Planning in Organizatiotsand SoFrance', Accounting, ciety, 1986, pp.83-104; P. Miller and T. O'Leary, 'Accounting and the (Jonstruction of the (Jovernable Person', Accounting, Organizations and -Society, 1987, 23545; P. Miller, and T. O'Leary, 'Hierarchies and American Ideals,190> 1940', Academyof Management Review, 1989, pp. 25045; P. Miller and N. Rose, 'The Tavistock Programme: The (Jovernment of Subjectivity and Social Life', Sociology, 1988, pp. 171-92. P. Millerand N. Rose, '(Joverning Economic Life', Economy and Society, 1990, 19, pp. l-31; cf. (j. (Jordon, 'Afterword', in (Jordon (ed.), MichelFoucault:Powerl Brighton, Harvester,1980; Knowledge,
(J. (J.
(J.
cotstitutionand the rule of law, The Briti.sh
London, Hutchinson, 1986, and the developedin theoriesof neo-corporatism see P. by PhillipeSchmitter, particular of (Jorpora'Stillthe (Jentury Schmitter, tism',Reviewof Politic.s,1974, 36, 85-131 and Lehmbruch, and P. C. Schmitter IntermeC'orporati.st Towardbs (eds), Trend.s diation,London,Sage,1979. Poggi, The Developmentof the 1978; State,London,Hutchinson, Modern (j. Tilly (ed.), The Formationof National States in WesternEurope, Princeton NJ, Press,1975.Seealso University Princeton
(J.
(J.
8.
(J.
Politzcal powerbeyond theState

Gordon,'The Soul of the Citizen:Max Weberand MichelFoucaulton Rationalityand Government', in S. Lashand S. Whimster, Max Weber, Rationality and Modctnity, London,Allen& Unwin,1987. 14. P. Veyne, cited in Burchell, 'Peculiar Interests:Governing"TheSystem of Natural Liberty"',in Burchell, Gordonand Miller,op. cit. 15. P. Miller and N. Rose, 'Political Rationalities and Technologies of Government',in S. Hanninen and K. Palonen,Texts,Contexts,Concepts: Studies on Politicsand Powerin Language,Helsinki, FinishPolitical ScienceAssociation,1990. See also M. Shapiro(ed.), Languageand Politics,Oxford,BasilBlackwell,1984; Taylor,'Language and Human Nature', in M.T. Gibbons (ed.),InterpretingPolitics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell,1987; W. Connelly, 'Appearanceand Realityin Politics',in M.T. Gibbons (ed.),op. cit.; D. N. McCloskey,The Rhetoric of Economics, Madison,Wisconsin,Universityof WisconsinPress,1985; J. S. Nelson,A. Megill and D. N. McCloskey, The Rhetoricof the
(J.
(J.
1981; M. Callon, J. Law and A. Rip,

Mappingthe Dwnamic.s of Scienceand Technology,London,Macmillan, 1986.This is
203
HumanSctnces: LanguageandArgument in Scholarshipand Public Affairs, Madison,
Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1987. 16. J. Keane, Despotismand Democracy,inJ. Keane(ed.),Civil Society and the State, London, Verso, 1988. For an Accounting, Organization.s and Societ, attempt to revive the principleof civil vol. 12, pp.207-34; G. Thompson,sThe society for modern times see J. Keane, Firmas 44Dispersed" SocialAgency',in G. PublicLifeandLateCapitalism, Cambridge, Thompson, Economic Calculation and Cambridge University Press, 1984; J. Policy Formation,London, Routledge & Keane,Democracy and C'ivilSociety,Lon- KeganPaul,1986; J. Tomlinson, Problems don, Verso,1988; of British Economic Policy 1870-1945, 17. M. Foucault, sSpace,Knowledge London, Methuen, 1981;J. Tomlinson, and Power', in P. Rabinow (ed.), The sWheredo EconomicPolicy Objectives Foucault Reader, Harmondsworth, Come From?The Case of Full EmployPenguin,1986.In theseremarks we draw ment', Economy and Society, vol. 12, upon Burchell,1990,op. cit. pp.48-65. 18. We borrow and adapt this term 26. Miller and Rose,1989,op. cit. from the writingsof Bruno Latourand 27. B. Latour,sThePowersof AssociMichel Callon. See M. Callon, sSome ation', in J. Law, (ed.), Power, Action, Elementsof a Sociologyof Translation', Belief, SociologicalReview Monograph; in J. Law (ed.), Power Action and Belief, B. Latour, Science in Action, Milton London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, Keynes: Open University Press,1987;cf. 1986;M.Callonand B. Latour, sUnscrew- Callon,1986,op. cit.; Foucault,197S,op. ing the Big Leviathan: howactorsmacro- cit. structure reality and how sociologists 28. We adapt this usage from Callon help them to do so', in K. Knorr-Cetina and Latour,but free it from the swillto and A. Cicourel, Advance.s in SocialTheorzy, power'that motivates acts of translation
discussed in more detail in Miller and Rose,1990,op. cit. 19. M. Foucault, Disciplineand Punish, London, Allen Lane, 1977; R. Castel, L'OrdreP.sychuxtnque, Paris, Editions de Minuit,1976. 20. Cf. M. Foucault,'The Politicsof Healthin the EighteenthCentury', in C. Gordon(ed.),PowerlKnowledge, Brighton, Harvester,1980. 21. Rose, 1985,op. cit.; also Millerand O'Leary,1987 op. cit. 22. Millerand O'Leary,1989, op. cit.; also P. Millerand T. O'Leary,sMaking Accountancy Practical', Accounting, OrganizatiorLs and Societ, vol. 15, 1990, pp.479-98. For a more general statement of these issues, see P. Miller, sAccountingand Objectivity:The Invention of CalculatingSelves and Calculable Spaces', forthcomingAnnats of Scholar.ship, 8, 1991, nos. 3/4. 23. See also Millerand Rose, 1988,op. cit.; Rose,1989,op. cit. 24. Gordon, 1980, op. cit.; see also Miller and Rose,1989,op. cit. 25. See Millerand O'Leary,1989, op. cit. See also: A. G. Hopwood, sThe Archaeology of Accounting Systems',
204
in their account. Cf. Callon and Latour, 1981, op. cit., p. 279. 29. I. Hacking, 'Biopower and the Avalanche of Printed Numbers', Hurnanities in Society, 1982, 5, pp. 27W95; N. Rose, 'Governing by Numbers: Figuring out Democracy', Accounting, Organizatiots and Societ, forthcoming. See also (J. Gigerenzer et al., The Empireof Chance: How Probability C'hanged ScienceanzlEveryd:ay Life, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989; I. Hacking, ThcTamingof Chance,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990; and T. Porter, TheRiseof Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986. 30. Latour, 1987, op. cit. See also N. Rose, Calculable minds and manageable individuals, Historyof the HurnanScience.s, 1988, 1, pp. 179-200; and L. Thevenot, 'Rules and Implements: Investment in Forms', Social ScienceInformation, vo1.23, pp. 145. 31. Latour, op. cit. 32. See P. Miller, 'On the Interrelations Between Accounting and the State',Accounting, organizatiorLs and Society, 1990,vol. 15, pp. 31tS38. 33. See P. Miller, 'Accounting Innovation Beyond the Enterprise: Problematizing Investment Decisions and Programming Economic Growth in the UK in the 1960s' Accounting, OrganizatiorLs and Society, 1991, vol. 16, pp. 73342. For related analyses see S. Burchell, (j. (lubb and A. (J. Hopwood, 'Accounting in its Social (ontext: Towards a History of Value Added in the United Kingdom', Accounting, OrganizatiorLs and Society,1985, pp. 381413; A. (J. Hopwood, 'The Archaeology of Accounting Systems', op. cit.; K. W. Hoskin and R. H. Macve, 'The Genesis of Accountability: The West Point Connections', Accounting,Organizations and Society, 1988, pp. 37-73; A. Loft, 'Towards a Critical Understanding of Accounting: The Case of Cost Accountingin the UK, 191X1925',Accounting, OrganizatiorLs and Society, 1986, pp. 13749; R. Whitley, 'The Transformation of Business Finance into Financial Economics: The Roles of Academic Expansion and Changes in U.S. (apital Markets', Accounting, OrganizatiorLs and Society,1986, pp. 171-92.
34. P. Millerand N. Rose,'Governing economiclife',Economy and Society, op. cit. 35. E.g. H. Perkin, The Rise of Profe.ssional Societg: EnglandSince 1880, London, Routledge, 1989; A. MacIntyre, After Virtue:A Studyin Moral Theory,2nd edition,London,Duckworth,1985. 36. Cf. Giddens notion of 'power containers',circumscribed areas within whichadministrative powercanbe generated:Giddens,1985,op. cit., p. 13. 37. Rose,1990,op. cit. 38. See D. Ashford,Policyand Politic.s in Bntain, Oxford, Blackwell, 1981, p. 57ff.;and I. Hardenand N. Lewis,The
Noble Lie: The BritishC'ortstitution and the Rule of Law, London,Hutchinson,1986,
p. 155ff. 39. Millerand Rose, 1990, op. cit. See alsoP. Miller and N. Rose,'Programming the Poor: Poverty,(alculation and Expertise'paperpresentedat International Meetingon Deprivation, SocialWelfare and Expertise, Helsinki, August1990. 40. J. Donzelot, Policing the Family, London,Hutchinson,1979.The division of social and economic is purely expositional, for 'economic' problems were to be solvedby 'social' means- as in the keyroleof the familyandthe familywage in engenderingthe requirement of regular labour- and 'social' problems wereto be solved 'economically' - as in the repeatedattemptsto resolvecrime and urban unrest through decreasinglevels of unemployment. 41. W. Beveridge,SocialItsuranceand AlliedServices, London:HMSO,1942. 42. K. O. Morgan,Labour in Power, Oxford, Oxford UniversityPress, 1984; F. W. S. (raig, Briti.shGeneral Election Manife.sto.s1900-1974, London, Macmillan,1975. 43. J. Bulpitt, 'The disciplineof the New Democracy: Mrs Thatcher'sDomesticStatecraft', PoliticalStudie.s, 1986,34, pp. l9-39, p. 24. 44. We draw heavily on Rudolph Klein'sinstructiveaccount in what follows. See R. Klein, The Politic.sof the National Health Service, London, Longman, 1983.Cf. (j. Pollitt,'The Stateand HealthCare',in G. McLennan, D. Held and S. Hall (eds), State and Societ in C'ontemporary Britain, Cambridge,Polity,
beyond theStute Politicalpower

205
1984;P. Starrand E. Immergut,'Health in C. of Politics', Careandthe Boundaries of the Boundane.s S. Maier(ed.), (J')ulnging Univer(Cambridge Political,Cambridge, sityPress,1987. 45. See, Jones, 1950 quoted in Klein, op. cit., p. 4v9. 46. Klein,op. cit., p. 27. 47. (hancellor of the Exchequer, 1961,quotedin Klein,op. cit., p. 65. 48. Committee of the Civil Service Report, (mnd. 3638, London, HMSO, 1968. 49. Office of Health EconomicsEfJiciency in the Ho.spitalSenvice, London, Officeof HealthEconomics,1967. and T. 50. M. Ashmore,M.J. Mulkay J. Pinch,Healthand E#iciency:A Sociolog MiltonKeynes,Open of HealthEconomic.s, Press,1989. University 51. N. Rose, 'Socialism and Social Policy: The Problems of Inequality', Politic.sand Power, 1980, 2, pp. l l l-36. On the questionof insurancesee also D. Defert "'PopularLife" and Insurance
Technology', and F. Ewald, 'Insurance and Risk',both in (J. Burchell, C. Gordon Effect. and P. Miller (eds), TheFoucault 52. Starr and Immergut, op. cit., 1987. 53. T. H. Marshall, Social Policy, London, Hutchinson,1975, p.69. 54. J. Donzelot, 'The Poverty of Political (ulture', Ideologyand (J'orLsciousne.s.s, 1979,5, pp. 73 86, p.81. Reprinted in (J. Burchell, (j. (^ordon and P. Miller, The FoucaultEffect. 55. F. A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom,London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1944; F. A. von Hayek, The (J'onstitution of Libert, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960; M. Friedman, (:apitali.smand Freedom,(hicago, (hicago University Press,1962. 56. Cf. J. A. Schumpeter, (J'apitalism, Socialism and Democracy,3rd ed., New York, Harper and Row,1950. 57. (^ordon, 1986, op. cit.; J. Meyer, 'Social Environments and Organizational Accounting', Accounting, Organization.s and Society,1986, pp. 345-56.

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Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government Author(s): Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller Source: The

Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller

Politicalpowerbeyond the State:problematics of government

Politicalpower beyond theState

AND'I'HE ANALYSISOF LIBERALISM RA'I'IONALI'I'IES 2 POLI'I'ICAL

Politicalpower beyond theState

Nikolas RoseandPeter Miller

Nikolas RoseandPeter Miller

Politzcal power beyond theState

beyond theState Politicalpower

NikolasRose and PeterMiller

theState bewond Politicalpower

Roseand PeterMiller Nikolas

cotstitutionand the rule of law, The Briti.sh

Politzcal powerbeyond theState

1981; M. Callon, J. Law and A. Rip,

HumanSctnces: LanguageandArgument in Scholarshipand Public Affairs, Madison,

beyond theStute Politicalpower

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