Governmentality and the population crisis: bio-political interpretations of American international population control

Abstract

The history of the United States Government’s international population policy is examined according to a theoretical framework invented by the philosopher-historian Michel Foucault. “The population crisis” of the 1960s and1970s is analyzed as a discourse involving the production of knowledge and the transmission of power in terms of Foucault’s original conceptions of powerknowledge and governmentality. Two major pieces of evidence are considered: United States Senate hearings from 1965 titled “Population Crisis,” and a 1974 National Security Council study memorandum titled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” Conclusions about the meaning and nature of the population crisis as a discourse are drawn from an analysis of the metaphors and narratives that these sources reflect, and the operation of this discourse upon individuals and populations in the developing world is interpreted in relation to Foucault’s bio-politics.