Governmentality and the analysis of risk

Abstract

Governmentality begins with, but seeks to move beyond, a simple binary between risk and uncertainty. Certainly it accepts important distinctions between government that invests heavily in statistical probability and government that does not. But the differences between different ‘risk’ regimes may be considerable and these differences may be far more important for how we are governed than distinctions between risk and uncertainty. Thus for governmentality, the idea of a ‘risk society’ is rather suspect. On the one hand, it is associated with a revealed grand theory of the revolutionised social world, and an associated claim to shape government in light of this truth. On the other hand, even if society is more shaped by regimes of risk than it was once (which is challenged), how useful is it to consider regimes governing pregnancy through genetic risk factors as pretty much the same as regimes governing terrorism through the use of risk profiles, or the governance of traffic where speed is a central risk factor? In each case, the nature of the problem is constructed in very different ways, the subjects at the centre of governance are constituted and regarded quite differently and the desired end results bear little relationship to each other. Consequently, the specific techniques and apparatuses used differ. Thinking about risk ‘in general’ will take us only so far. In the framework of governmentality a regime of risk government is simply a set of statistical probabilities and/or predictions, and very little follows directly from this characteristic. The ‘core’ technology of risk is rather abstract, and only comes into political existence through a vision of the world, or some aspect of it – some problem – that is identified by a governing regime as amenable to government through risk. How the problem is envisaged will determine what are considered to be ‘risks’ – what government will work to change. The same vision will largely determine what will be necessary in order to reshape or reduce the risks. This will generate or assemble all manner of techniques, agencies and routines that will be brought to bear in order to make the risk governable . Show more