Reproducing the nation: the new German population policy and the concept of demographization

Abstract

The article elaborates the concept of demographization in light of the current revival of population-oriented agendas and demography as an important field of policy consultancy with special emphasis on Germany. It does so by referring to the Foucauldian concepts of biopolitics and governmentality, but also by exploring the limits of these concepts and by integrating them into an intersectional approach, emphasizing racist and classist selectivities and the genealogy of a Malthusian matrix. Moreover, the analysis elaborates a specific approach to reproductive relations as a biopolitical ‘hinge’. The article begins by exposing two empirical phases of demographization in Germany and then introduces the concept of demographization, distinguishing between different levels of critical analysis. Further on, a specific combination of purely quantitative and qualitative/selective rationales is presented as a Malthusian matrix and as central to understanding the processes of demographization. The following section addresses reproductive relations by combining the analysis of an individualizing governmentality of the reproductive self with the analysis of strategies of national-racist and classist exclusions at the biopolitical pole of population. Finally, the author explores how to apply the concept of demographization to transnational programmes of ‘population dynamics’ and anti-natalist policies in the Global South, and introduces further questions for theory development.