In the 1970s, the French philosopher Michel Foucault analysed how the ways of managing individual and social life had been transformed in the West, developing three concepts that have been particularly popular and influential in the social sciences over the last few decades: Biopolitics, Biopower and Governance.

In general terms, Biopolitics is the set of calculations and tactics that intervene on a population through the management of life. It is a concept that has provided us with a way of understanding how the organization and government of our societies have been generated towards promoting some ways of life, and not others; especially since the end of the regime of sovereignty.

Biopolitics: management and power over life

Michel Foucault explained that during the Middle Ages, and until approximately the beginning of the 18th century, the management of societies was dominated by the paradigm of sovereignty. In this paradigm, ‘the art of governing’ was centred on the figure of the sovereign; and his authority was exercised mainly through the management of a territory.

Therefore, the sovereign also had the authority to impose laws or punishments, as well as to kill the inhabitants of that territory who did not abide by its rules. Hence, according to Foucault, the power of the regime of sovereignty operated through the following formula: “make die, let live” .

However, it is from the 18th century onwards, with the entry of liberal government technologies, among other things, that life ceased to be subject to the decisions of the figure of the sovereign and became the centre of political management of a new authority: the State. In this new management, the intention is no longer to subtract life, but to produce it, to regulate it, to make it efficient .

Thus, the power of liberal technologies of government, says Foucault, occurs through the inverse operation of the regime of sovereignty: “make live, let die”; an issue that manifests itself through the management of life as a way of governing and organizing populations. Foucault called this Biopower, he even baptized this era as “the era of biopower”.

It was then that the philosopher stopped opposing ‘sovereignty’ to ‘biopolitics’, and moved his studies towards the conversion of ‘sovereignty’ to ‘government’. Here, he pays special attention to how this ‘government’ occurs and what place ‘life’ (bios) occupies in it. For example, through the analysis of the norms on health, hygiene, birth rate or race .

The population: a new object of government

Biopower, according to Foucault, operates in two main ways: 1. towards the management and training of bodies at the individual level (i.e., towards maximizing their forces to integrate them into the capitalist production system); and 2. towards the regulation of the body in rather global terms, for example through birth control, mortality, health, sexuality, etc.

In contrast to “territory”, which was the object of intervention by the sovereign regime, the new regime seeks to regulate the relationship between the territory and the people who inhabit it. Thus, a new object of government, study and intervention emerges: the population.

This population is not only a group of people, but also a process, so the ‘art of governing’ consists of generating techniques that allow this process to be conducted. On the one hand, through political economy, statistics, social measurement, etc.; and on the other, towards shaping individual actions , since it is the people (through their habits, customs and interests) who make use of the territory under management.

Biopower, then, consists of deploying government techniques that allow these people to lead their actions by themselves, towards the increase of wealth and the conservation of the State’s logics.

Making desire circulate freely

Unlike the regime of the sovereign (where it was a matter of imposing laws); in the liberal technology of government, it is the same people who “freely” orient their decisions and their ways of life towards the political interests of the new regime . A regime that, in addition, deploys a series of mandates to promote some forms of life and discard others.

In other words, it is a question of creating the conditions necessary for the population to be able to manage itself, and for this, the free movement of desire must be ensured. In other words, it is no longer a question of prohibiting or finding a way to say “no” to desire (as it was under the sovereign regime); it is a question of finding a way to say “yes”.

In this way, the technique of government is translated into the self-production of the subject, who becomes an ‘entrepreneur of himself’, incorporates the logics of consumption in a dynamic of personal demand that is disguised as ‘freedom’ . It is the subject himself who has the task of satisfying his needs and desires individually for the benefit of the reason of State, which breaks definitively with the old technologies of sovereign power.

Three keys to Biopower

The concept of Biopower has been taken up by several contemporary philosophers who have given it uses and applications with different nuances. Among them are Rabinow and Rose (2000), who suggest that the exercise of Biopower includes at least these three elements:

1. Speeches of truth

The existence of one or more discourses of truth about the vital character of human beings , and a set of authorities that are considered competent to speak about those truths.

These discourses of truth can be biological, but also demographic or even sociological, for example when notions of genetics and risk are articulated.

2. Life and health standards

The aim is to create and deploy a series of intervention strategies towards forms of collective existence in the name of life and health, initially aimed at populations that may or may not be territorialized over the nation or over predetermined communities, but can also be specified in terms of biosocial emergency; emergencies often marked by categories such as race, ethnicity, gender or religion

3. Self-government

It refers to the deployment of modes of subjectivation, through which individuals govern themselves under certain forms of authority , in relation to discourses of truth and in the name of their own health or the health of the population. Self-government is the essential component of biopower and contemporary forms of government.

From Biopolitics to Government

As we have seen, while Foucault was trying to answer how life had become a political object (a central object in the government and management of human societies), he began to outline the concept of Biopolitics and Biopower.

But, he realizes that first it was necessary to clarify the context in which the government of life was taking place. With this, he moved towards the study of ‘Governmentality’ , understood as the way in which behaviour is conducted in different devices (e.g. hospital, prison, school or also the State).

In other words, Foucault began to prioritize the concept of governmentality over that of biopolitics. He even declared the “era of governmentality”, as opposed to the “era of biopower”.

In broad terms, for Michel Foucault, governance is the set of institutions, procedures, analyses, reflections, calculations and tactics that allow a form of power to be exercised over a specific population. In other words, governmentality is the tendency that led the West to exercise power through government over “the population”, which includes sovereignty, discipline and the apparatus of knowledge .

Bibliographic references

  • Castro-Gómez, S. (2010). History of government. Razón de Estado, liberalismo y neoliberalismo in Michel Foucault. Century of Man Editors: Bogotá.
  • Foucault, M. (2006). Security, territory and population (1977-1978). Economic culture fund: Buenos Aires.
  • Vargas-Monrroy, L. & Pujal i Llombart, M. (2013). Government, gender, race and work arrangements: the conduct of women workers. Universitas psychologica, vol. 12 (4), pp. 1255-1267.
  • Rainbow, P. & Rose, N. (2006). Biopower today. BioSocieties, London School of Economics and Political Science. vol. 1, pp. 195-217.