Open AccessThe Emotional Life of Governmental Power
Author(s) -
Elaine Campbell
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
foucault studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.124
H-Index - 23
ISSN - 1832-5203
DOI - 10.22439/fs.v0i9.3057
Subject(s) - governmentality , rationality , corporate governance , power (physics) , context (archaeology) , government (linguistics) , economic justice , core (optical fiber) , sociology , work (physics) , law and economics , political science , epistemology , public relations , law , economics , management , politics , computer science , philosophy , biology , engineering , mechanical engineering , paleontology , telecommunications , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics
This paper explores the emotional life of governmental power through the affective domains of confidence and respect in criminal justice, in the context of a climate of insecurities and uncertainties with existing modes of governance. The paper problematises some of the key tenets of the governmentality thesis and questions its core assumptions about forms of rationality, processes of subjectivation and the conditions of possibility for ethical conduct. It also prompts us to reconsider the tenets of contemporary neo-liberal governance, its “rationalities of rule,” technologies and apparatuses, how these work to capture hearts as well as minds, and how these may promote an “emotionalised” art of government such that we might properly speak of “emotionalities of rule.”