Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was equally a philosopher, a psychologist and a historian. The power problem is central to his thinking regarding the relations between society, individuals, groups and institutions. The fundamental idea emerging from all these works is that the privileged place to observe the power in action is the relations between the individual and the society, especially its institutions. Consequently, Foucault studies – in what he calls “the analysis of power” – how various institutions exert their power on groups and individuals, and how the latter affirm their own identity and resistance to the effects of power.
Foucault thinks that it is wrong to consider power as something that the institutions possess and use oppressively …show more content…
This view directly contradicts the marxist one, which regards power as a form of repression or oppression Foucault thinks that power must be understood differently than repression, which simply forces individuals to obey: “if power was never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but say no, do you really believe that we should manage to obey it?”. Therefore, says Foucault, power is “coextensive with resistance; productive, producing positive effects; ubiquitous, being found in every kind of relationship, as a condition of the possibility of any kind of …show more content…
This means that the power relations between individuals cannot be reduced to master-slave or oppressor-victim relations, but they are productive relations, because they imply resistance – without which no power relation can be conceived: where is power, there is always someone who resists it.
For Foucsault, the state is not mainly something that owns power, but rather something which builds a system of relations between individuals so that the political system works. In Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, he reviews the ways in which power was exerted in various stages of European history and shows how the monarchic power system was replaced by the democratic one. He uses in an expressive way the punishment imagery: while the symbol of monarchic power was the public execution, that of democratic power is discipline, imprisonment away from public eyes.
If power is relational rather than emanating from a particular site such as the government or the police; if it is diffused throughout all social relations rather than being imposed from above; if it is unstable and in need of constant repetition to maintain; if it is productive as well as being repressive, then it is difficult to see power relations as simply negative and as
Foucault thinks that it is wrong to consider power as something that the institutions possess and use oppressively …show more content…
This view directly contradicts the marxist one, which regards power as a form of repression or oppression Foucault thinks that power must be understood differently than repression, which simply forces individuals to obey: “if power was never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but say no, do you really believe that we should manage to obey it?”. Therefore, says Foucault, power is “coextensive with resistance; productive, producing positive effects; ubiquitous, being found in every kind of relationship, as a condition of the possibility of any kind of …show more content…
This means that the power relations between individuals cannot be reduced to master-slave or oppressor-victim relations, but they are productive relations, because they imply resistance – without which no power relation can be conceived: where is power, there is always someone who resists it.
For Foucsault, the state is not mainly something that owns power, but rather something which builds a system of relations between individuals so that the political system works. In Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, he reviews the ways in which power was exerted in various stages of European history and shows how the monarchic power system was replaced by the democratic one. He uses in an expressive way the punishment imagery: while the symbol of monarchic power was the public execution, that of democratic power is discipline, imprisonment away from public eyes.
If power is relational rather than emanating from a particular site such as the government or the police; if it is diffused throughout all social relations rather than being imposed from above; if it is unstable and in need of constant repetition to maintain; if it is productive as well as being repressive, then it is difficult to see power relations as simply negative and as