‘After Neoliberalism’ and on the ‘Dark Side’? Governmentality and Counter-Conduct in Times of Growing Autocratisation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The political world today in many ways seems vastly different from the context in which the concepts of governmentality and counter-conduct were initially elaborated by Foucault in the late 1970s. Especially the past decade has seen significant struggles over the principles and knowledges traditionally drawn on to enact (neo)liberal government both locally and (inter-)nationally. Strikingly, these ruptures have often perpetuated, revived or diversified rather than countered dark-liberal and authoritarian forces and articulations, also in formally liberal-democratic countries. Distinguishing different readings of governmentality, the introduction engages with the particular neoliberal drift in the literature and elucidates how the contributions to this special issue revisit, complicate, and illuminate tendencies, binaries, and gaps that may impair our vision or unintentionally set limits to how we can study and critically sound out present struggles and forms of (self-)conduction. It concludes by outlining directions for further conceptual and empirical scholarship on governmentality and counter-conduct.