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privileged (see Dean 1999, 79). It seems obvious where this is heading. Foucault claims that from the end of the 1700s, pastoral power has served as a point of departure for a new mode of power: governmentality. The pastoral power perspective is not territorial but focuses on the pastor and his group—on subjects. They are the focus of attention, not the ground on which they walk. This is particularly interesting because the power technology sovereignty in the European state system is directly and territorially framed (the idea being to de‹ne and defend in the clearest and most spectacular manner). The state system’s sovereignty and pastoral power thus complement one another, in the sense that one focuses on the territory and the other on the citizens. Pastoral power is also central because it demonstrates the close connections between governance of the self and the governance of the emergent society. The technologies for taking care of the self and for governing society have shared origins in the JudeoChristian tradition, especially in the concept of the shepherd who cares for his ›ock. The sheep’s salvation must be guaranteed—for instance, through practices such as confession.Here,the line goes further to the welfare state’s ideal of responsibility for subjects from cradle to grave, institutionalizing care as a state responsibility. It should be noted that, whereas Foucault castigates the con›uence of public spirit and pastoral power as lending a demonlike aspect to the state, he also explicitly (1994a, 728) celebrates a shift of emphasis from dominance to governmentality, complete with statutory provisions (règles de droit), as a desirable instrument. Liberalism’s program for indirect governance lies in the extension of a republican tradition. When it takes over, a power vacuum emerges, which is in turn ‹lled when the Christian tradition of persistent and detailed control is introduced by way of the disaggregated state. Foucault’s statement that political theory needs “to cut off the King’s head” is frequently quoted—in other words: the main tradition has been blinded by the direct exercise of power that the sovereign or the sovereign state possesses, and it has ignored the type of phenomena that Foucault seeks to capture with his concept of pastoral power. Taking this into consideration, the government’s main responsibility was, from the beginning, its citizens and the very preconditions for their existence and being. It is in fact when such a need was revealed that the concept of “population” emerged. While sovereignty was characterized by being based on the king’s entitlement to take lives, governmentality is characterized by its seeking to, if not give life, then at least to regulate it by means of what Foucault calls “biopolitics.” This population, understood as a living and productive unity, is intended to bring about things that in Foucault’s Concept of Governmentality | 41 turn could serve as resources for the state. Foucault employs standard concepts when he refers to this as economic policy. He emphasizes that the productive unity is the entire community, not only speci‹c families or households (Gr. oeikos) as before. A central concern in this context is then to ensure that this society may function. Conclusion Liberalism’s demand that one must always govern less should thus be seen historically in relation to the increasing demands for governance of the self. One is expected to take responsibility for one’s own life, and the lives of others, by taking out insurance, practicing safe sex, looking after one’s health by eating a balanced diet and exercising, taking responsibility for one’s own working situation by submitting to appraisal interviews, being an active job applicant, and so on—these demands are constantly rising. However, there will, at all times, be some people who are not capable of ful‹lling all these demands. As Barry Hindess (2000) has pointed out, it is a historical fact that most people who have lived under liberal regimes have not been de‹ned as fully capable of taking the responsibility for their own lives in the way called for by liberalism. Consequently, they have been put under various forms of administration. The independence of the individual is a historically created phenomenon. Based on Foucault’s point that liberalism operates with an ambiguous concept of the subject, Barry Hindess (1996) has also put forward an interesting historical thesis. On the one hand, liberalism claims that the individual is already independent, that people can take on responsibility for their own...

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