Power, Knowledge, and the “Self” in Everyday Normalization of the Political Truth

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to conceptualize the way political power discourse is legitimized through everyday life and normalizing processes of accepting the truth about political regimes and the “way things ought to be” within the given political discourse. The article analyzes power from two positions—from the discursive approach of the political statements and images of the most authoritative political figures (presidents, local governors) in the community and from the individual approach of accepting these statements and authorities as truth. To paraphrase Michel Foucault’s famous statement, the article questions “what governs” the individual to accept a certain political statement, and how this normalization in turn “governs” the political statement. In doing so the article utilizes an ethnographic and discursive approach to the study of power and authority in non-democratic political regimes. The ultimate question is, What normalizes these discourses, which may be considered “illegitimate” or “authoritarian” from the outside but completely “acceptable” and “authoritative” from within the given political community? How does a specific community form the idea of the collective “normalization” of these diverse political discourses?