Governmentality, calculation, territoryÀ

In this paper I discuss Foucault's two recently published courses, Sëcuritë, Territoire, Population and Naissance de la Biopolitique. Foucault notes that he has undertaken a genealogy of the modern state and its different apparatuses from the perspective of a history of governmental reason, taking into account society, economy, population, security, and liberty. In the ``Governmentality'' lectureöthe fourth of the first courseöFoucault says that the series of the titleöthat is, security, territory, populationöbecomes ``security, population, government''. In other words, territory is removed and government appended. And, yet, the issue of territory continually emerges only to be repeatedly marginalised, eclipsed, and underplayed. A key concern of the course is the politics of calculation which Foucault discusses through the development of political arithmetic, population statistics, and political economy. Explicitly challenging Foucault's readings of Machiavelli and the Peace of Westphalia, I argue that territorial strategies should themselves be read as calculative, with the same kinds of mechanisms brought to bear on populations applied here too. I therefore discuss how Foucault's discussions of political economy, the police, and calculation are useful in thinking the history of the concept of territory. DOI:10.1068/d428t À This paper was delivered at the `̀ Rethinking Governmentality'' Workshop at the University of Durham, 12 January 2005, and in somewhat different form at the `Rethinking Foucault, Rethinking Political Economy' Conference at the University of Leicester on 17 March 2005. (1) Although I reference the English translation of this lecture, I have modified it to accord with the French, which is based on the tapes. The English translation is of an Italian version published in 1979. Barry et al, 1996; Burchell et al, 1991); that these two courses have been so eagerly anticipated; and that the German translation explicitly promotes them as two volumes of Geschichte der Gouvernementalita« t (2004c; 2004d).(2) These courses now provide a great deal of context to the single lecture that has proved so influential, and, although the reading proposed here does present some of that information, the key aim of this piece is to ask `what happens to territory'? Why does `territory' remain only in the course title, and why does `government' get inserted? Why is the object of government explicitly population? As Foucault asks in the course summary, does this mean that there is ``a transition from a `territorial state' to a `population state'?'' `̀ Certainly not'', he counters, `̀ what occurred was not a substitution but, rather, a shift of accent and the appearance of new objectives, and hence of new problems and new techniques.'' To follow this, Foucault takes up the `̀ notion of government'' as his `̀ leading thread'' (2004a, page 373; 1997a, page 67). It is this shift of accentörather than a substitutionöthat I want to look at here. Why is there a shift from a state of territory to one of population, or one perhaps from a state primarily concerned with territory to one concerned with population? Is this shift useful in terms of a historical narrative, or is it, rather, a shift in Foucault's preoccupations (see Senellart, 2004, pages 394 ^ 395)? This question of Foucault's preoccupations is important, for, despite the summary and its `sans doute pas ', it seems evident that Foucault's attention does move. The later lectures of Sëcuritë, Territoire, Population and almost all those of Naissance de la Biopolitique are without this emphasis on territory, which suggests not a shift of accent, but, rather, a substitution. We can find an anticipation of this in a 1977 interview on `La Sëcuritë et l'Eè tat', which is largely a discussion of terrorism in the wake of Klaus Croissant's extradition. Foucault suggests that the role of the state in its contract or pact of security with the people has shifted. It has moved from a territorial pact where it is the guarantor of frontiersö`̀ you will be able to live in peace in your frontiers''ö to a pact of population: `̀ you will be guaranteed'' (1994, volume 3, page 385). This guarantee is from uncertainty, accident, damage, risk, illness, lack of work, tidal wave, and antisocial behaviour (page 385). While, of course, the second list has a number of key resonances todayöfrom the issue of insurance and the welfare state or the social model of Europe, to the wake of the Asian Tsunami and the antisocial behaviour orders of the Blair governmentösuch a shift is highly dependent on the status of a state: some states definitely do still have to secure their territory, and some manifestly take little account of their population (see Luke, 1996). Rather than pursue the contemporary issues, my reading here suggests that it is profitable to think about what mechanisms mark the development of the notion of population as the object of political rule. These mechanisms, these modes of governance, these `new techniques' which go under the rubric of an art of government or the notion of governmentality, are forms of knowledge tied to particular practices, exercises of power. They are related to the development of the modern state and its practices, but also to knowledge of the stateöstatistics. How, then, do these ways of thinking, these forms of knowledge and their attendant practices affect territory? (2) As is demonstrated by their simultaneous publication in France, and by this German translation, Sëcuritë, Territoire, Population and Naissance de la Biopolitique are really two halves of an inquiry. These are unlike any other lecture courses published so far, in that they are not merely related, but a continuation. Les Anormaux (The abnormals) (1999) and ûIl faut dëfendre la sociëtëý (Society Must Be defended) (1997b) look at similar relations in the treatment of the sexually anomalous and of races, and are both workings through of parts of the original plan of the History of Sexuality, but they are not so clearly intertwined as these. While this is equally the case with the 1982 ^ 83 and 1983 ^ 84 courses on the government of the self and others, and there is a definite progression to Foucault's work throughout his lectures, we have here something different. 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