Neo Liberal Governments

Neo-liberal government is a new regime in which “individuals are to fulfill their national obligations not through relations of dependency and obligation to one another, but through seeking to fulfill themselves within a variety of micro-moral domains or communities.” (Rose 1996, quoted in Hawkins)

Choosing LIFESTYLE as an example of a contemporary regime of self-cultivation, discuss whether or not this proposition of Rose’s is true, using the exploration of your example as a way of testing the usefulness of the “governmentality” view of the world.

In recent years there has been a dramatic influx in the popularity of lifestyle based self-cultivation based on a system of choice. Through “Do It Yourself” programs, self help books, and magazines dedicated to every aspect of lifestyle from fashion to food; people are beginning to take control of their lives in a self fulfilling and materialistic way. However, it is how this program of choice based on self satisfaction benefits the government that is the focus of my study.

To begin to understand how an individual taking advantage of the choices present in their everyday life can result in them fulfilling “their national obligations”, as suggested by Rose; one must firstly have a strong understanding of the ideas of governmentality presented by Foucault in his analysis of Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” and Rose’s aims in pursuing them as described by Hawkins in “The ABC and Rhetorics of Choice.”

The word governmentality as used by Foucault comes from a union of the two words Government and Rationality. This notion is based upon the idea that power comes from a variety of sources, not a singular crushing force. Governmentality is “the analysis of who can govern and who is governed, but also the means by which that shaping of someone else’s activities is achieved.” (Mills, 2003 p. 47) It is this shaping of “someone else’s activities” that will be examined in this essay in an attempt to understand how self-cultivation fulfills national obligations. Such an approach in analysing power relations is called a governmental approach.

“A governmental approach is concerned with understanding the forms of action and relations of power that aim to guide and shape (rather than force, control or dominate) the actions of others or oneself. Governing, then, is about the myriad of processes, techniques and strategies that seek to regulate and administer populations…They occur across an enormous range of sites from the shopping mall to the doctor’s surgery to the bedroom and they often involve internal and voluntary relations of rule: ways we act on ourselves.” (Hawkins, 2001 p. 176)

The key point in Foucault’s discussion of The Prince in relation to neo-liberal systems of government is the belief that an art of government exists. This notion implies that there is in fact an art to governing which must be mastered by the governor in order for a happy and prosperous society to exist. This involves upwards and downwards continuity.

“Upwards continuity means that a person who wishes to govern the state well must firstly learn how to govern himself, his goods and his patrimony, after which he will be successful in governing the state….On the other hand, we also have a downwards continuity in the sense that, when a state is well run, the head of the family will know how to look after his family which means that individuals will, in turn, behave as they should…The art of government is essentially concerned with…the correct manner of managing individuals, goods and wealth within the family…and of making the family fortunes prosper.” (Foucault, 1991 p. 92)

However, some have criticised Foucault’s accounts of governmentality as “brief and underdeveloped” (Hawkins, 2001 p. 180). Rose has pursued Foucault’s ideas in an attempt to develop them further and produce an analysis of “government that foregrounds the multitude of practices aimed at shaping the conduct of populations, groups and individuals.” (Hawkins, 2001 p. 180) Nikolas “Rose’s project has been to reframe political thought; to develop alternative accounts of rule, authority and techniques of governing appropriate to deep transformations in contemporary politics and social life.” (Hawkins, 2001 p. 180) It is this idea of power being projected through all aspects of political and social life and thus being able to influence a variety of people that leads us into the discussion of lifestyle and how by fulfilling our own needs as individuals we are in fact fulfilling our obligations to the state.

As mentioned previously, the art of government is extremely concerned with the management of finances, thus the economy is a crucial aspect to the discussion of governmentality.