The Government of Things

Abstract

The conceptual proposal of a “government of things” takes up important insights and theoretical achievements of new materialist scholarship. It shares the interest in reconceptualizing matter and the focus on the interplay of epistemological, ontological, and ethical issues, and insists on the limits of anthropocentric modes of thought. However, in synthesizing Foucault’s analytics of government with STS-inspired work, the concept of a “government of things” also goes beyond new materialist scholarship. It puts forward a relational and performative account of materialities that more closely attends to the historical and political dimensions of ontologies. The study proposes that the notion of the dispositive, a comprehensive understanding of technology, and a complex reading of the milieu provide elements for a thoroughly relational account of materialism. The first part of the book (“Varieties of Materialism”) engages with three main streams of new materialist scholarship (object-oriented ontology, vital materialism, and agential realism). The second part (“Elements of a More-than-Human Analytics of Government”) turns to Foucault’s work. It seeks to spell out important conceptual and analytical tools for a non-anthropocentric and relational-materialist analytics of government. The third part of the book (“Toward a Relational Materialism”) argues for an alignment of Foucault’s analytics of government with work in STS to better account for contemporary political trajectories and topologies.