Is Power Ubiquitous?

This essay will address whether Foucault s conception of power as ubiquitous withstands the criticisms levelled at it predominantly by Jurgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser. The Foucault/Habermas is particularly complicated, not only by the fact that Foucault s side has largely been carried out on his behalf following his death, but also by the fact that the two sides appear to be speaking at crossed purposes. However, Habermas has addressed directly the shortcomings that he sees in Foucault s concept of power in Some Questions Concerning the Theory of Power (1994), which will be the primary source used to elucidate the claims he makes against Foucault. This is supplemented by Nancy Fraser s Foucault on Modern Power: Empirical Insights and Normative Confusions . This essay seeks to show that Foucault s conception of power can be defended against the two major allegations against it: those of normative confusions, and problems of truth in his work. Foucault s concept itself will firstly be outlined, before exploring these allegations and responses to them. It will conclude that Foucault provides an unorthodox, but extremely insightful approach to the conception of power and a suitable methodology in genealogy for unearthing the nature of power and its impact on subjects.

Central to Foucault s conception of power is the need to know the historical conditions that motivate such a conception (Foucault, 1982: p.778). Historical and social context is paramount in understanding how power regimes come to dominate through discourses of truth. Foucault employs and develops the Nietzschean methodology of genealogy which uses historical materials to document how we became what we are (Jenkins, 2011: p.164) to uncover the manifold relations of power which permeate, characterise and constitute the social body and how they are established, consolidated and implemented by discourses of truth (Foucault, 1980: p.93). Genealogy exposes the struggles against dominant power relations, by raising up through genealogy subjugated/disqualified knowledges (Habermas, 1994: p.92) and elicits further struggle (Jenkins, 2011: p.164).

Foucault is not concerned with the legitimacy of power, or making value statements he argues that analysis of power should look at its extremities and ultimate destinations, with those points where it becomes capillary (Foucault, 1980: p.96). It acts on the bodies of the subject, constraining and shaping their possible actions. To illustrate this, Foucault uses the example of Bentham s Panopticon , a prison design that not only renders prisoners pliable, but transforms them. The all pervasive, normalising influence of an omnipresent disciplinary power reaches, via training the body, into everyday behaviour and produces an altered moral stance (Habermas, 1994: p.84). This example of a move towards surveillance as a technique of power normalises self-surveillance and constraints on behaviour, to render exercise of other techniques of power obsolete.

The concept of power is constitutive of the subject for Foucault it fabricates subjects and fabricated subjects can themselves exercise power (Allen, 2009: p.154). Foucault identifies four struggles and how they aim, not to attack a group of power holders , rather, they attack a certain technique, a form of power (Foucault, 1982: pp.780-781). This form of power applies itself to everyday social life and categorizes the individual, making them subjects (1982: p.781). Discourses of truth, produced through power (Foucault, 1980: p.93) limit the way in which subjects conceive of themselves, and the potential for self-reflection on these regimes in order to see ways to limit the effects of power on a subject. Owen refers to this concept as aspectival captivity (Owen in Jenkins, 2011: p.164). Power can only be exercised over free subjects, as it must act upon their actions or future actions (Foucault, 1982: pp.789-790), limiting their possible behaviour. There must be alternatives available for power to be exercised. Honneth identifies that all forms of constitutive power are forms of domination simply because they cause certain things to appear and not others (Allen et al, 2010: p.155).Through genealogical methods, the subject becomes aware of power regimes and alternative possible actions, and is encouraged to cultivate a new way of making sense of oneself (Jenkins, 2011: p.165). Having outlined Foucault s conception of power and subjectivation, this essay will address the criticisms levelled at Foucault by Habermas and Fraser.

Habermas and Fraser attack Foucault from the position that his analysis of power avoids the question of whether some discourse and power formations could be more legitimate than others by seemingly bracketing normative validity claims as well as claims to propositional truth (Habermas, 1994: p.94). Fraser extends this criticism to argue that Foucault, paradoxically, assumes his account of modern power is both politically engaged and normatively neutral and suspends value judgements (Fraser, 1981: p.273-275) despite using normatively charged language like domination, subjugation, subjection (1981: p.283). Fraser and Habermas accuse Foucault s work of encouraging struggle, but that he gives no reason as to why struggle is preferable to subjugation or domination by power regimes. As has been shown previously, context is essential to Foucault s interpretation of power. Consequently, Foucault does not reject norms he accepts that they can be justified but only if they are understood to be local, provisional and contextual, rather than universal (Allen, 2009:pp.6-7). This, however, does not fully answer the accusations of Habermas and Fraser. To do this, a normative goal must be identified.

The entire purpose of the methodology of genealogy is to encourage reflection on the hows and whys of a power regime, the meaning and purpose of a practice and for the benefit of whose interests they are imposed (Jenkins, 2011: p.167). The normative goal in Foucault s work can be identified as the need to give one s self an ethos that might enable power relations to be performed with a minimum of domination (Jenkins, 2011: p.169). Genealogical analysis concerns exposing the myriad of practices and power regimes imposed on a subject by discourses of truth, in order to encourage the opening-up of new struggles. To do this, a subject must be made aware of those power regimes that act upon them. Foucault s aim is to promote and engender a reflective subject, to promote self-government and a respect of autonomy (Jenkins, 2011: p.164, 170). His use of loaded language, is not in itself a value judgment, but could be seen to provoke reflection in a subject. Furthermore, for Honneth domination is used as a term simply because constitutive power regimes cause certain things to appear and not others (Allen et al, 2010: p.155). From this perspective, domination is a less loaded term than Fraser would have her readers believe and there is a significantly less negative implication in the language Foucault uses. Flyvbjerg identifies that Foucault, via his proposition of the genealogical methodology, would see himself as providing the tools for self-reflection (Flyvbjerg, 1998: p225). Foucault only seeks to encourage the subject to make their own judgements as to the benefit or disservice to their autonomy particular regimes of power encourage. A genealogist s awareness and sensitivity to the potential for value judgements to become power regimes themselves, and thus dominate subjects, is the primary reason that he does not make them (Jenkins, 2011: p.170).

Jenkins, Allen and Flyvbjerg show that Foucault s analysis of power is capable of withstanding the criticisms made against his concept of power being ubiquitous. From these defences, it can be seen how Habermas later criticism of Foucault s attempts to raise up subjugated and disqualified knowledges within a society to the level of erudite knowledge results only in new hierarchies of power and discourses of truth (Habermas, 1994: p.93) is unfounded. Foucault would likely accept this claim, but it does not damage his case as new hierarchies would simply engender further struggles and reflective subjects.

This essay will now address the accusations against Foucault s concept of power that pertain to his alleged suspension of the categories truth/falsity or truth/ideology (Fraser, 1981: p.275) and the inter-relation of power and knowledge, and legitimate/illegitimate power. Habermas accuses Foucault s attempt to explain discourse and power formations on their own terms as turning into it s opposite (Habermas, 1994: p.91). His criticism rests on the fact that, as power and knowledge for Foucault are so entangled and reliant on each other, any attempt at constructing an objective history thereby constructs truth through discourse. He adds that this results in:

a historiography that is narcissistically oriented towards the standpoint of the historian and instrumentalises the contemplation of the past for the needs of the present (Habermas, 1994: p.91).

In short, Fraser and Habermas accuse Foucault of claiming truth when his critique suspends such a concept. Habermas continues this attack by defining power as that by which the subject has an effect on objects in successful actions (1994: p.87). Habermas defines successful actions as dependent upon the truth of judgements (1994: p.87). If there is no truth, for Habermas, there can be no successful actions, and therefore no power.

Foucault identifies that the traditional question of political philosophy is how is the discourse of truth able to fix limits to the rights of power? (1980: p.93). Were Foucault addressing this question, Habermas and Fraser s protests would be valid, as an answer to this question necessarily results imposes constraints on legitimate/illegitimate power. However, Foucault instead poses a different question: what rules of right are implemented by the relations of power in the production of discourses of truth (1980: p.93). Foucault never suspends the idea of truth . Instead, he rejects transcendental and universalisable truths in favour of contingent, temporal truths that exist in the dominant discourses and power regimes of a society at a given point in history. He emphasises that every society has its regime of truth, its general politics of truth : that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true (Foucault, 1980: p.131). Habermas condition that power is dependent on successful actions is thereby accounted for in Foucault s work. Truth can exist, but it is not universal it is only true in a particular discourse.

Amy Allen identifies the contingency of truth claims as a fundamental weakness in Habermas own discourse ethics. Argumentation, for Habermas, is understood to be a search for the truth, and participants are motivated to agree or disagree solely on the basis of the unforced force of a better argument (Allen, 2009 :p.11). According to Habermas, discourse ethics dictates that a norm can be said to be true and universalisable if its consequences are accepted by all that engage in argumentation if these conditions are met, a norm is said to be true and is presented as U (Allen, 2009: p.10). Allen argues that, far from being universalisable, U is in fact a contingent truth as there are no transcendental standards of a reasonable argument (2009: pp.10-12). Conceptions of rationality and reason, as Foucault identifies, are historically contingent and rooted in human practices (Allen, 2009: p.21). Habermas own work, consequently suffers from the same pitfall of relativism as that of which he accuses Foucault. Conversely, Foucault avoids the problems of relativism by grounding his theory of power in historical and temporal context and his conception of power as ubiquitous stands.

Foucault s focus on the context of truth claims can also counter the accusation that his attempt at objective historiography descends into relativism and narcissism. Flyvbjerg argues that, by focusing on the socially and historically conditioned context, and not fictive universals Foucault is able to reject relativism and foundationalism and conclude that our sociality and history...is the only foundation we have (1998: p222). This focus on historical, social and discursive context is referred to as situational ethics (Flyvbjerg, 1998: p.221). When this awareness of context is combined with the normative goal of a reflective subject that has been discussed in this essay, it is unimportant whether Foucault s account is perceived to be relativistic, because his normative aim, as has been stated, is simply to engender reflection on the multiplicity of discourses and power regimes that act on a subject.

To conclude, Habermas and Fraser accuse Foucault of not making a value judgement on sources of power and being devoid of norms. This essay has shown, in contrast, that Foucault does accept that some norms exist, but these are historically and socially contingent truths constructed and disseminated by discourses. Regimes of power must be analysed in regards to their temporal, historical and social context. Foucault s work possesses a normative agenda but it is not prescri ptive, nor does it make value judgements. He aims simply to engender reflectivity in a subject and to release them from what Owen calls aspectival captivity (Jenkins, 2011: p.164) by encouraging struggles that release constraints on the subject, allowing them to reflect on the myriad of power regimes that act upon them. Foucault s conception of power as ubiquitous, alongside his development of Nietzsche s genealogical methodology, withstands these criticisms and provides both a useful, if broad, descri ption of power and how it is exercised, and ways in which analysts can unearth the power regimes that constitute the subject. Foucault s emphasis on the dynamics of power is where the value in his theory lies, as understanding how it works is the first prerequisite for action, because action is the exercise of power (Flyvbjerg, 1998: p.228) It is an unorthodox way to conceive of power, but the source of power does not necessarily lie in the obvious things (Haugaard & Malesevic, 2008: p.2).

Bibliography

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Jenkins, L. (2011). "The Difference Genealogy Makes: Strategies for Politicisation or How to Extend Capacities for Autonomy." Political Studies 59: 156-174.