Risk And Governmentality By Michel Foucault

Although there are somewhat of similarities between Weber’s and Foucault’s relations of power and dominance, how they evaluate the concepts separately and the ways these concepts are practiced in society, can be distinguished differently. Webber appears to occupy the polar opposite with the respect to his claims of how power becomes existent with bureaucratic instruments and bureaucracy itself, Foucault argues that the power relations are everywhere in society and with expansive elements; society has no option but to internalize (Shaw 2011). His explanation of power is much broader than Weber’s. Focault rejects the hierarchical models of power, and believed that relations of dominance are formations of unequal power (McClaren 2002), and over time domination may seem fixed in society’s social structure (Shaw 2011). Additionally, Foucault looks at the concept of power from a functional strategy, with the functional practices administered by authority, and emphasises that authority commonly uses discursive power and the operation of discourse to maintain the dominance (Smart 2010; Shaw 2011). What is compelling about Foucault’s concept of power are his discursive claims. Unlike Webber, he suggests that power relations are not necessarily derived from state practices, but are all under state control, and highlights that “state and hegemony is in the every area of life” (Shaw 2011). Further, to understand some of Foucault’s functional examples, he focuses on the everyday lives of

For example in the setting of a workplace the power does not pass from the top down; instead it circulates through their organizational practices. Such practices act like a grid, provoking and inciting certain courses of action and denying others. Foucault considers this as no straightforward matter and believes that it rests on how far individuals interpret what is being laid down as "obvious" or "self evident", institutional power works best when all parties accept it willingly. Foucault's notion of power is a difficult notion to grasp principally because it is never entirely clear on who has the power in the first place, once the idea is removed that power must be vested in someone at the top of the ladder, it becomes much more difficult to identify what power is or where and whom it lies with. Foucault believes that we are used to thinking about power as an identifiable and overt force and that this view is simply not the case, because it is taken for granted that the above statement is true then it is much more complicated to comprehend power as a guiding force that does not show itself in an obvious manner.

Foucault goes through the way governments have attempted to control populations throughout history, and how power has exercised

Foucault began to compare this new idea of surveillance, power and punishment of the Panopticon to the power during the Middle Ages by the King which was more public in contrast to the Panopticon. The Panopticon was more discrete. It was not a show or form of entertainment when someone was punished unlike when someone is punished with the King. By exploring this, Foucault demonstrated how surveillance has changed overtime.

(Adam et al, 2000:168) However, because we have made this risk with the devolvement of technology then we are able to understand it better and assume we can measure them. They apply the concept of Actualarism that categorise populations according to risk, with this concept we can measure the risk and the likelihood of them happening and by doing this we can take steps in reducing and avoiding these risks. A fundamental concept in the risk society is that to avoid risk we can distribute the risk which is part of neo-liberalism. This can be seen to be used in everyday life with car insurance companies who charge an individual more money in according to the risk they pose whilst driving .Risk has become a fundamentally commodity in a capitalist society. Risk society means that risk thinking has become normalised for individuals in everyday life, every decision we make we think about the risk connected to it. The rise of individualism has seen that individuals will purchase the best risk protection they can without thinking about the weaker person in society. Hudson states that we now fear crime from one another and because of this we want people who threaten us to be removed from our environment to eliminate the risk, this has been a contributing factor to why society has become more punitive. (Hudson, 2003:45) In the risk society governance is directed at the provision of security and experience of security usually

Foucault wanted to look for alternative ways to learn how society dealt with power. He didn’t want to turn to the state for answers so decided that finding alternative ways would get him the answers he needed in more detail. Foucault stated, “…first of all because the State, for all the omnipotence of its apparatuses, is far from being able to occupy the whole field of actual power relations, and further because the State can only operate on the basis of other,

* There are three (3) schools of thought regarding risk. The first considers the positive and negative aspects of risk, but sees them as separate. The second group believes that there are benefits from treating threats and opportunities together, while the third school does not label uncertainties, but addresses uncertainty as part of “doing the job.” Argue the value of having a risk strategy despite the cost associated with it. Include an example to support

We are all familiar with risk. In fact, it is a key component in our everyday material life and we often manage it automatically either when dealing with mundane tasks or major hazards.

Foucault address the changing definition of crime and how power is exerted through the enforcement of punishment. During the monarchy, kings and queens showed their power and authority of the people by determining what punishment someone would receive for their actions. In the current political system, judges and juries are in the position to make these decisions. Judgement is the current system is based on motives and intent rather than on the severity of the crime alone. We care more about the psychological state of the individual and want to be able to change the person's soul to better respect society. The quote below addresses how punishment uses a variety of specializations and how the individual's mental state is molded to fit into standards we have created today.

We see risk taking being defined as exposure to the chance or injury of loss; a hazard of dangerous chance. But what if there was another way of redefining risk taking? What must one overcome to be able to define their own accomplishments and or failure as taking risks in their lives? In the collection of unit 5 of the Close Reader by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, we as a class clearly got to understand the importance of risk taking and how risks can affect one's life in the decisions they choose to make. The stories of Beowulf, Blackheart, and lastly Are Genetically Modified Foods Scary? a perfect example of what the cause and effects are for risk taking. The importance of

Beck (2000, 2006, 2007), Bauman (2000), and Standing (2011) constructed this recent concept to explain how old social classes have dissolved in importance to give way to new inequalities, inequalities in risk distribution. Beck even goes as far as calling contemporary societies ‘risk societies’ (Beck, 1992). According to Individualisation theorists, risk is becoming a part of everyday life: through work (i.e. employment flexibility, job flexibility, skill flexibility) (Standing, 2011), education (i.e. greater stress on education and training) (Mythen, 2005), consumption (i.e. risk of climate change, pollution, etc.) or even through the risk of catastrophes (i.e. incidents such as Chernobyl or 9/11) (Beck, 2001). However, through disparities in education, incomes etc., risk is also becoming unequally distributed while giving rise to new inequalities which do not fit into the old class schemas (Standing, 2011).

Michel Foucault’s work within philosophy has made important impacts when it comes to understanding how power affects a capitalist state. Believed that history of a country should how the past created a better future for society but in most cases through history, that was not the case. One of the examples that Foucault uses is how the mentally ill were treated in the Renaissance compared to the 18th century. During the Renaissance period, the mental ill people were allowed to seen within society and were seen as useful and gave wisdom into their society rather than in the 18th century. People with mental illness were put away and see as a burden to society and seen as needed to being cured by sinister people. Another example that Foucault discuss

dealing simply with subjects, or even with a “people,” but with a “population,” with its specific phenomena and its peculiar variables." (298/25) This is where we begin to see Foucault's concept of Biopower come into play. One of the central themes of Foucault's writing, he defines biopower as "[T]he forms of power, the channels it takes, and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous and individual modes of behavior, the paths that give it access to the rare or scarcely perceivable forms of desire, how it penetrates and controls everyday pleasure—all this entailing effects that may be those of refusal, blockage, and invalidation, but also incitement and intensification: in short, the 'polymorphous techniques of power.'” (292/11 For Foucault, Biopower relates to the government's concern with fostering the life of the population, but is also a form of complete control of that population through surveillance or perceived surveillance. Foucault believed that Biopower permeates through the

"Risk society" means that we live in a world out of control. There is nothing certain but uncertainty. But let's go into details. The term "risk" has two radically different meanings. It applies in the first place to a world governed entirely by the laws of probability, in which everything is measurable and calculable. But the word is also commonly used to refer to non-quantitative uncertainties, to "risks that cannot be known." When I speak about "risk society," it is in this latter sense of manufactured uncertainties. These "true" uncertainties, enforced by rapid technological innovations and accelerated societal responses, are creating a fundamentally new

One well accepted description of risk management is the following: risk management is a systematic approach to setting the best course of action under uncertainty by identifying, assessing, understanding, acting on and communicating risk issues. In order to apply risk management effectively, it is vital that a risk management culture be developed. The risk management culture supports the overall vision, mission and objectives of an organization. Limits and boundaries are established and communicated concerning what are acceptable risk practices and outcomes. Since risk management is directed at uncertainty related to future events and outcomes, it is