Foucault's abandonment of the strategic model of power

What is it about?

Amy Allen criticizes Foucault for having a ‘narrow and impoverished conception of social interaction, according to which all such interaction is strategic.’ I challenge this claim by pointing to significant changes in Foucault’s concept of power elaborated in lectures from 1978 onwards and in ‘The Subject and Power.’ His 1975-1976 lectures embarked upon a critical re-examination of the ‘strategic’ concept of power that he had relied upon up to this point. However, it was not until 1978 and after that he outlined an alternative concept of power as government, or more broadly as ‘action upon the actions of others.’ After retracing this shift in Foucault’s understanding of power, I argue that the concept of power as action upon the actions of others does not commit him to a narrow conception of social interaction as always strategic. At the same time, Foucault’s concept does not answer normative questions about acceptable versus unacceptable ways of governing the actions of others.

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Why is it important?

Foucault tends to be read through the approach to power outlined in his work from the early 1970s. The publication of his lectures makes it possible to track significant changes in the way he thought about power after 1976.