Strategies for socialists? Foucault's conception of power

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Abstract The article draws out the relevance of Michel Foucault's work on forms of ‘social’ regulation and training to a socialist audience. In an introduction to his conception of power, Marxist theory is implicated in Foucault's criticisms of classical conceptions of power‐as‐sovereignty. Some untenable ‘Nietzschean’ ingredients of his position, particularly his preoccupation with ‘power’ and ‘subjectification’ are distinguished from a more rewarding emphasis on the construction of specific categories of social agent and their attributes; and on the formation of the politically ambiguous domain of ‘social’ policies and programmes. These emphases render problematic current socialist conceptions of ‘socialization’ and ‘social’ revolution.