State Phobia and Civil Society

"This important book will stand as a milestone in Foucault studies and social and political theory more generally."Sanford Schram, Hunter College "This strong and timely work is a valuable corrective to many of the excesses of Foucault scholarship that have emerged and taken root in recent decades."Jeffrey Bussolini, City University of New York "Dean and Villadsen cleverly interrogate the ambiguities of Michel Foucault's writing on the devolved power of the state to the local sites of surveillance and control. Arguing against these academic fashions, they restore the centrality of the state to social and political theory. State Phobia is a timely investigation of the state in a period of austerity packages, welfare cuts, pension restrictions and admonitions to citizens for self-maintenance."Bryan S. Turner, The Graduate Center, CUNY "State Phobia addresses what I consider the most urgent issue of the contemporary Left: how to deal with state power? Traditional Social Democracy comfortably played the parliamentary game, Stalinist Communists imposed ruthless dictatorship, while the New Left demonized the State and imagined direct non-representative democracy. The recent experience of Syriza in Greece has made it clear how difficult it is for the "radical" anti-statist Left to exercise state power in a way that is different from Social Democracy or Stalinism. Dean and Villadsen convincingly demonstrate that the anti-statist attitude must be abandoned: instead of dreaming of 'overcoming' the state, we must learn to use it in a new way. I can only describe State Phobia in terms usually reserved for bestsellers: un-put-downable, a cause of sleepless nights."Slavoj iek, University of Ljubljana "Dean and Villadsen help us to understand that Foucault sees neoliberalism not as political program but rather as a framework, a useful 'governmentally' which might prove capable of limiting existing state techniques of subjugation."Daniel Zamora Vargas, Contemporary European History

Mitchell Dean is Professor of Public Governance at the Copenhagen Business School and Professor of Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Kaspar Villadsen is Professor of Management, Politics, and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School.

Contents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe Introduction argues for the importance of addressing the theme of state and civil society in the present situation. It describes this situation as one in which anti-statist or even state-phobic tendencies are evident in a wide spectrum of academic and political thought, and in literatures concerning the reorganization of public governance. It introduces the examination of Foucault's evolving stances on this theme and asserts the necessity of placing them in their historical and political contexts, particularly in regard to his diagnostics of the present. It also gives an overview of the chapters. 1State and Civil Society chapter abstractThis chapter examines the interpretation of Foucault as rejecting the language of state and civil society in his search for a new analysis and diagnosis of power. It locates his political thought in its own context, including the decline of Marxism as theoretical and practical framework, and sketches both the context of its reception in English-speaking countries at the end of the twentieth century and also of our present. It introduces the nature of his governmentality lectures and his analysis of liberalism and neoliberalism, discusses their comments on the fascist state, and reflects upon the meaning of his key term, state phobia. 2Empire without State chapter abstractThis chapter undertakes a critical examination of Michal Hardt and Antony Negri's influential work, partially inspired by Foucault. Focusing on their trilogy concerning Empire and the multitude, the chapter shows that this work contains acute observations on globalized capitalism in a time where modern assumptions are questioned. It also shows how Hardt and Negri, in their grand diagnosis, occlude the nation state completely and render the non-state and non-institutional forces of the multitude as a kind of hyper civil society. 3Politics of Life chapter abstractThis chapter examines the work of another influential inheritor of Foucault, Nikolas Rose, and his approach to contemporary politics. Although Rose's "humble" empiricism presents itself in opposition to the metanarratives of the like of Hardt and Negri, there are some striking similarities. There is a common fascination with the domain of the "bio" and a politics of life, a belief in relatively unorganized sources of political action from the grassroots and at the margins and interstices, and a shared anti-state and anti-institutional position. Rose has produced rich empirical work, yet the chapter argues that his "ethico-politics" (and later, "ethopolitics") of creative self-fashioning within "communities" is unable to address fundamental political questions and resembles a sociological life politics grounded in a form of vitalism. 4Saint Foucault chapter abstractThis chapter asks: was a Foucault a defender of community, differences and political movements in civil society? It examines Foucault's enthusiasm for grassroots, localized activism and bottom up politics. Particular attention is given to his engagement with political militancy in the early 1970s in the prisoners' support group, Group d'information sur les prisons (GIP). Some explanations are given for Foucault's activities and links are established between his political practices and his intellectual development. An excursus counterbalances Foucault's apparent pro-civil society stance with evidence of a much more skeptical view of the forces at the micro-level of society, including practices of denunciation and social exclusion among 'small people'. 5Blood-dried Codes chapter abstractThis chapter examines Foucault's approach to key conventional political questions such as constitutionalism, state universality and political identity. The context is Foucault's 1976 lecture series, "Society Must Be Defended", where he dissolves the