Kaspar Villadsen: Michel Foucault and critical perspectives on liberalism. Governmentality or genealogy as a strategy of analysis
Although the literature on governmentality has produced a series of highly interesting studies focusing on questions of liberalism, government and the state, it is troubled by a number of problems. This paper suggests that some of these problems result from the unclear status of a core analytical concept within this literature: political rationality. The paper seeks to clarify the epistemological and analytical meaning of this concept and to give some suggestions as to which alternative concepts and analytical strategies we can draw from Foucault for future studies of government and its rationalities. It is proposed that we should avoid seeing politics as shot through by some kind of homogeneous, all-embracing rationality. Rather, we should explore, in its unique specificity, the interplay of discourses and counter-discourses and their complex relation to various institutions.
