Government, rights and legitimacy: Foucault and liberal political normativity

What is it about?

This article argues that even though Foucault’s genealogy of liberal and neoliberal governmentality and Rawls’s political liberalism involve different articulations of normative and descriptive concerns, they are complementary rather than antithetical to one another. The argument is developed in three stages: first, by suggesting that Foucault offers a way to conceive of public reason as a historical phenomenon. Second, it is suggested that both Rawls and Foucault allow us to consider rights as historical and particular rather than a-historical and universal. Third, it is argued that Foucault’s genealogy of modern liberal government illuminates some of the tensions and some of the alternatives within the liberal tradition in relation to the concept of political legitimacy.

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Why is it important?

This article seeks to demonstrate the possibility of productive engagement between Foucault's genealogical approach to political thought and normative political philosophy.