Biopolitics: what is it and how did Michel Foucault explain it?

Foucault believed that new forms of power impose norms on us without our being aware of it.

In the 1970s, the French philosopher Michel Foucault analyzed how the ways of managing individual and social life in the West had been transformed, thereby developing three concepts that have been especially popular and influential in the social sciences in recent decades: Biopolitics, Biopower and Governmentality.

In general terms, Biopolitics is the set of calculations and tactics that intervene on a population through the management of life. 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 has been generated to promote certain 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, 'statecraft' was centered on the figure of the sovereign; and his authority was exercised primarily through the management of a territory.

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

However, it was not until the 18th century, with the advent of liberal technologies of government, among other things, that life ceased to be subject to the decisions of the sovereign figure and became the center of the political management of a new authority: the State. In this new management, the intention is no longer to subtract life, but to produce it, regulate it, and make it efficient..

Thus, the power of the liberal technologies of government, Foucault tells us, occurs through the inverse operation to that of the regime of sovereignty: "make live, let die"; a matter that manifests itself through the management of life as a way of governing and organizing populations. Foucault called this the Biopower, even baptized this era as "the era of biopower".

It was then that the philosopher stopped opposing 'sovereignty' to 'biopolitics', and shifted 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, by the analysis of the norms of health, hygiene, natality or race..

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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 (e.g., towards maximizing their forces in order to integrate them into the capitalist production system); and 2. the regulation of the body in rather global terms, for example through birth control, mortality, health, sexuality, etc..

In contrast to the "territory", which was the object of intervention of the sovereign regime, in the new regime it is a matter of regulating 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, which means that the 'art of governing' consists of generating techniques that make it possible to conduct this process. On the one hand, by means of political economy, statistics, social measurement, etc.; and on the other, towards shaping individual actionsThe 'biopower' consists in generating techniques to conduct this process, on the one hand, through political economy, statistics, social measurement, etc., and, on the other, towards shaping individual actions, since it is people (through their habits, customs and interests) who use the territory under management.

Biopower then, consists in deploying government techniques that allow these people to conduct their actions by themselves, towards the increase of wealth and the preservation of the State's logics.

To make 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 people themselves who "freely" orient their decisions and ways of life towards the political interests of the new regime. to orient their decisions and their ways of life towards the political interests of the new regime.. Regime that, in addition, deploys a series of mandates to promote some forms of life and discard others.

In other words, it is a matter of creating the necessary conditions for the population to be able to manage itself, and for this, it is necessary to ensure the free circulation of desire. In other words, it is no longer a matter of prohibiting or finding a way to say "no" to desire (as it was in the sovereign regime); it is a matter of finding a way to say "yes".

In this way, the technique of government translates into the self-production of the subject, who becomes an 'entrepreneur of himself', incorporates the logics of consumption in a dynamic of personal demand disguised as 'freedom'.. It is the subject himself who is in charge 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 three elements:

1. discourses of truth

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

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

2. Norms on life and health

It is a question of creating and deploying a series of intervention strategies towards forms of collective existence in the name of life and health in the name of life and health, initially aimed at populations that may or may not be territorialized on the nation or on predetermined communities, but can also be specified in terms of biosocial emergencies; emergencies often marked by categories such as race, ethnicity, gender or religion.

3. Self-governance

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

From Biopolitics to Governmentality

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 the context in which the governance of life was occurring had to be clarified. With this, he moved towards the study of 'Governmentality'.understood as the way in which behavior is conducted in different devices (e.g. the hospital, the prison, the school or also the state).

In other words, Foucault began to prioritize the concept of Governmentality over that of Biopolitics. He even declares the "era of governmentality", as opposed to the "era of biopower".

Broadly speaking, for Michel Foucault, governmentality is the set of institutions, procedures, analyses, reflections, calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of a form of power 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..

Bibliographical references

• Castro-Gómez, S. (2010). Historia de la gubernamentalidad. Reason of State, liberalism and neoliberalism in Michel Foucault. Siglo del Hombre Editores: Bogotá.
• Foucault, M. (2006). Security, territory and population (1977-1978). Fondo de cultura económica: Buenos Aires.
• Vargas-Monrroy, L. & Pujal i Llombart, M. (2013). Governmentality, gender devices, race and work: the conduct of working women's behavior. 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.