Description
Book SynopsisRisk, Power and the State addresses how power is exercised in and by contemporary state organisations. Through a detailed analysis of programmatic attempts to shape behaviour linked to considerations of risk, this book pursues the argument that, whilst Foucault is useful for understanding power, the Foucauldian tradition with its strands of discourse analysis, of governmentality studies, or of radical Deleuzian critique suffers from a lack of clarification on key conceptual issues. Oriented around four case studies, the architecture of the book devolves upon the distinction between productive and repressive power. The first two studies focus on productive power: the management of long-term unemployment in the public employment service and cognitive-behavioural interventions in the prison service. Two further studies concern repressive interventions: the conditions of incarceration in the prison service and the activity of the customs service. These studies revea
Table of Contents
Introduction. Activation Quaranteed: Individualizing the Pressure to Perform. Subjected Freedom: The Productivity of Power. Institutional Order: Guiding Repression through Risk. Generalized Control: Negotiating Contradictory Expectations through Risk. Conclusions
