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Law and Governmentality

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Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy

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We live in an era of governmentality discovered in the eighteenth century. Michel Foucault (2007, p. 109)

Introduction

“Governmentality” is an “ugly word” (Foucault 2007, p. 115). It is, nevertheless, an interesting and important word to understand the institutional processes of governing, and implicitly of law, in our modern neoliberal era. Governmentality is not a “theory”; it is, rather, a concept and a tool by which to better understand what governing is and how it can be thought. The neologism is commonly attributed to Michel Foucault, who has at different times been labeled a philosopher, social historian, and poststructuralist. When Foucault gave the “Governmentality lecture” in February of 1978 at the Collège de France his title was Professor of The History of Systems of Thought (Foucault 2007, pp. 87–110); perhaps it is this lack of allegiance to a particular discipline, and focus on how to think“things” (e.g., government), that has meant that governmentality has been...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Bal Sokhi-Bulley

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  1. Bal Sokhi-Bulley
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Correspondence to Bal Sokhi-Bulley .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for International & Comparative Law, University of Baltimore School of Law, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Mortimer Sellers

  2. Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, University of Salzburg, Austria, Salzburg, Austria

    Stephan Kirste

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Patricia Mindus

  2. Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Sebastian Andres Reyes Molina

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Sokhi-Bulley, B. (2020). Law and Governmentality. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_246-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_246-1

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