Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:32:16.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Governmentality at the limits of the international: African politics and Foucauldian theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2012

CARL DEATH
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The ability of International Relations theory to ‘travel well’ to other parts of the world has become one of the central questions within the discipline. This article argues that a Foucauldian-derived ‘analytics of government’ framework has particular advantages in overcoming some of the difficulties IR theory has faced abroad. These advantages include a methodological focus on specific practices of power at their point of application; attention to similarities between practices of power that cut across perceived binaries such as the domestic and international, and public and private; and an illumination of the ways in which practices of freedom are combined and interrelate with forms of coercion and violence. This argument is illustrated in the context of debates about the applicability of Foucauldian theory to African politics, through examples drawn from Bayart's work on globalisation, the power of development partnerships, and violence and civil war. It argues that deploying governmentality as an analytical framework, rather than seeing it as a specifically neoliberal form of power relation, can not only facilitate the application of IR theory outside Europe and North America but can also help develop a broader perspective on genuinely world politics.

Type
Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 763 - 787
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Inayatullah, Naeem and Blaney, David L., International Relations and the Problem of Difference (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 14Google Scholar.

2 Bilgin, Pinar, ‘Thinking past “Western” IR?’, Third World Quarterly, 29:1 (2007), pp. 5–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John L., Theory from the South; Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2012)Google Scholar; Cornelissen, Scarlett, Cheru, Fantu, and Shaw, Timothy M. (eds), Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Darby, Phillip, ‘Pursuing the political: A postcolonial rethinking of relations international’, Millennium, 33:1 (2004), pp. 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gruffydd Jones, Branwen, ‘Africa and the Poverty of International Relations’, Third World Quarterly, 26:6 (2005), pp. 987–1003CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tickner, Arlene B. and Wæver, Ole (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World: Worlding beyond the West (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar.

3 See also Holmer Nadesan, Majia, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), p. 1Google Scholar.

4 Joseph, Jonathan, ‘The limits of governmentality: Social theory and the international’, European Journal of International Relations, 16:2 (2010), p. 239CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Bilgin, ‘Thinking past “Western” IR?’, p. 5; Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South, p. 1; Inayatullah and Blaney, International Relations and the Problem of Difference, p. 1; Ole Wæver and Arlene B. Tickner, ‘Introduction: Geocultural epistemologies’, in Tickner and Wæver, International Relations Scholarship around the World, p. 1.

6 Scarlett Cornelissen, Fantu Cheru, and Timothy M. Shaw, ‘Introduction: Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century: Still Challenging Theory?’, in Cornelissen et al., Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century, p. 2.

7 Chatterjee, Partha, The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004)Google Scholar.

8 Bilgin, ‘Thinking past “Western” IR?’, p. 10.

9 Brown, William, ‘Africa and International Relations: a comment on IR theory, anarchy and statehood’, Review of International Studies, 32:1 (2006), pp. 119–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dunn, Kevin C., ‘Introduction: Africa and International Relations Theory’, in Dunn, Kevin C. and Shaw, Timothy M. (eds), Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 1–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ulf Engel and Gorm Rye Olsen, ‘Authority, sovereignty and Africa's changing regimes of territorialization’, in Cornelissen et al., Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century; Tickner, Arlene B. and Wæver, Ole, ‘Worlding where the West once was’, in Tickner, and Wæver, (eds), International Relations Scholarship around the World, pp. 334–5Google Scholar.

10 Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (London: McGraw Hill, 1979), p. 93Google Scholar.

11 Jackson, Stephen, ‘“The State Didn't Even Exist”: Non-governmentality in Kivu, Eastern DR Congo’, in Igoe, Jim and Kelsall, Tim (eds), Between a Rock and a Hard Place: African NGOs, Donors and the State (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

12 Abrahamsen, Rita and Williams, Michael C., Security beyond the state: Private security in international politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 93Google Scholar; Bayart, Jean-François, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (Cambridge: Polity, 2009)Google Scholar; Chandler, David, Empire in denial: The politics of state-building (London: Pluto Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Clapham, Christopher, Africa and the International System: The politics of state survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grovogui, Siba N., ‘Sovereignty in Africa: Quasi-Statehood and Other Myths in International Theory’, in Dunn and Shaw, Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory, pp. 29–45Google Scholar; Jackson, Robert H., Quasi-states: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Lemke, Douglas, ‘Intra-national IR in Africa’, Review of International Studies, 37:1 (2011), pp. 49–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nkiwane, Tandeka C., ‘Africa and International Relations: Regional Lessons for a Global Discourse’, International Political Science Review, 22:3 (2001), pp. 279–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zartman, I. William (ed.), Collapsed States: The disintegration and restoration of legitimate authority (London: Lynne Rienner, 1995)Google Scholar.

13 Cornelissen et al., Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century; Dunn and Shaw, Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory; Jones, ‘Africa and the Poverty of International Relations’; Tickner and Wæver, International Relations Scholarship around the World.

14 Darby, ‘Pursuing the political’, p. 2.

15 Timothy M. Shaw, Fantu Cheru, and Scarlett Cornelissen, ‘Conclusion: What Futures for African International Relations?’, in Cornelissen et al., Africa and International Relations in the 21st Century, p. 208.

16 Kaplan, Robert, The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the dreams of the post-Cold War world (New York: Random House, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Quoted in Dunn, ‘Introduction’, p. 2; see Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics among Nations: The struggle for power and peace (New York: Albert A. Knopf, 1964), p. 356Google Scholar.

18 Wæver and Tickner, ‘Introduction’, p. 22; Cirino Hiteng Ofuho, ‘Africa: Teaching IR where it's not supposed to be’, in Tickner and Wæver, International Relations Scholarship around the World, pp. 71–85; Tickner and Wæver, ‘Worlding where the West once was’, pp. 335–6. For a slightly different view see Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South, p. 48.

19 Bilgin, ‘Thinking past “Western” IR?’, p. 12; Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South, p. 1.

20 Cornelissen et al., ‘Introduction’, p. 12.

21 For Foucault's classic essay on governmentality, see Foucault, Michel, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978, ed. Senellart, M., trans. Burchell, G. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 87–114Google Scholar. See also Dean, Mitchell, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (London: Sage 1999)Google Scholar; Gordon, Colin, ‘Governmental Rationality: An Introduction’, in Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991)Google Scholar; Larner, Wendy and Walters, William (eds), Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces (London: Routledge, 2004)Google Scholar; Neumann, Iver B. and Sending, Ole Jacob, Governing the Global Polity: Practice, Mentality, Rationality (Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rose, Nikolas, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Rose, Powers of Freedom, p. 4.

23 Miller, Peter and Rose, Nikolas, Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life (Cambridge: Polity, 2008), p. 53Google Scholar.

24 Dean, Mitchell, Governing Societies: Political perspectives on domestic and international rule (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Hindess, Barry, ‘Politics as Government: Michel Foucault's Analysis of Political Reason’, Alternatives, 30:4 (2005), pp. 389–413CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life; Tosa, Hiroyuki, ‘Anarchical governance: Neoliberal governmentality in resonance with the state of exception’, International Political Sociology, 3:4 (2009), pp. 414–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Foucault, Michel, ‘The Subject and Power’, in Foucault, Michel, Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Vol. 3, ed. Faubian, J. D., trans. Hurley, R. (New York: The New Press, 2000), pp. 326–48Google Scholar.

26 Berlin, Isaiah, Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life, p. 191.

28 Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’, p. 341.

29 See Foucault, Security, p. 108.

30 Dillon, Michael, ‘Sovereignty and governmentality: From the problematic of the “New World Order” to the ethical problematic of the world order’, Alternatives, 20:3 (1995), pp. 323–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fougner, Tore, ‘Neoliberal governance of states: The role of competitive indexing and country benchmarking’, Millennium, 37:2 (2008), pp. 303–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jaeger, Hans-Martin, ‘UN reform, biopolitics, and global governmentality’, International Theory, 2:1 (2010), pp. 50–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Larner and Walters, Global Governmentality; Lipschutz, Ronnie D. with Rowe, James K., Globalisation, Governmentality and Global Politics: Regulation for the rest of us? (London: Routledge 2005)Google Scholar; Löwenheim, Oded, ‘Examining the state: A Foucauldian perspective on international “governance indicators”’, Third World Quarterly, 29:2 (2008), pp. 255–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neumann and Sending, Governing the Global Polity; Walters, William and Haahr, Jens Henrik, ‘Governmentality and Political Studies’, European Political Science, 4 (2005), pp. 288–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zanotti, Laura, ‘Governmentalizing the post-Cold War International Regime: The UN Debate on Democratization and Good Governance’, Alternatives, 30 (2005), pp. 461–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Williams, Adebayo, ‘The Postcolonial Flaneur and Other Fellow-Travellers: Conceits for a Narrative of Redemption’, Third World Quarterly, 18:5 (1997), pp. 821–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For responses to the charge of Eurocentrism against Foucault, including an emphasis on the importance of his time in Tunisia on his thought and politics, see Abrahamsen, Rita, ‘African Studies and the Postcolonial Challenge’, African Affairs, 102:407 (2003), pp. 189–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ahluwalia, Pal, Out of Africa: Post-structuralism's colonial roots (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar; Ahluwalia, Pal, ‘Post-structuralism's colonial roots: Michel Foucault’, Social Identities, 16:5 (2010), pp. 597–606CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Michel Foucault, ‘Interview with Michel Foucault’, in Foucault, Power, pp. 279–80; Macey, David, The Lives of Michel Foucault (London: Hutchinson, 1993), pp. 204–6Google Scholar.

32 Chandler, Empire in denial, pp. 15–18; Darby, ‘Pursuing the political’, p. 18; Joseph, Jonathan, ‘Governmentality of what? Populations, states and international organisations’, Global Society, 23:4 (2009), pp. 413–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’; Joseph, Jonathan, ‘What can governmentality do for IR?’, International Political Sociology, 2:4 (2010), pp. 202–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Joseph, Jonathan, ‘Poverty reduction and the new global governmentality’, Alternatives, 35 (2010), pp. 29–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life, pp. 35–8; Selby, Jan, ‘Engaging Foucault: Discourse, Liberal Governance, and the Limits of Foucauldian IR’, International Relations, 21:3 (2007), pp. 324–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For some rebuttals see the Special Issues of Global Society, 23:4 (2009); and International Political Sociology, 4:2 (2010).

33 Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 239.

34 Foucault, Security; Foucault, Michel, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–1979, trans. Burchell, Graham (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)Google Scholar; Gordon, ‘Governmental rationality’; Lemke, Thomas, ‘“The birth of bio-politics”: Michel Foucault's lecture at the Collège de France on neo-liberal governmentality’, Economy and Society, 30:2 (2001), pp. 190–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neumann and Sending, Governing the Global Polity.

35 Collier, Stephen J., ‘Topologies of Power: Foucault's analysis of political government beyond governmentality’, Theory, Culture, Society, 26:6 (2009), pp. 97–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dean, Governing Societies, chap. 4; Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 242; Selby, ‘Engaging Foucault’, p. 334.

36 Dean, Governmentality, p. 20.

37 Dean, Mitchell, ‘Liberal Government and Authoritarianism’, Economy and Society, 31:1 (2002), pp. 37–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Foucault, Security, p. 388.

39 Ibid.

40 Dean, Governmentality, p. 20.

41 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, p. 186.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., pp. 189–90.

46 Ibid, p. 191.

47 Ibid.

48 Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life.

49 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

50 Rosenow, Doerthe, ‘The merits of a Foucauldian approach to International Relations’, Global Society, 23:4 (2009), pp. 497–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Foucault, Security, pp. 107–8.

52 Barnett, Michael and Duvall, Raymond, ‘Power in International Politics’, International Organization, 59:1 (2005), pp. 39–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Ibid., p. 43.

54 Dean, Governmentality, p. 198.

55 This differs from Dean's attempt to keep governmentality separate from ‘the exercise of sovereign and biopolitical powers of life and death’ (p. 91). He later notes the difficulty of this, recognising that ‘there are also key thresholds in which sovereignty, governmentality and biopolitics cease to exist as distinguishable categories’ (p. 94). Dean, Governing Societies.

56 Dean, Governmentality, p. 23.

57 Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life, p. 6.

58 Dean, Governmentality, p. 28.

59 For a book-length exposition of this framework in action, which seeks to answer some of these questions in the problem-area of sustainable development, see Death, Carl, Governing Sustainable Development: Partnerships, protests and power (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar.

60 Rose, Powers of Freedom, p. 27.

61 Barnett and Duvall, ‘Power’, pp. 55–7.

62 For example, Foucault describes civil society as ‘the correlate of a political technology of government’, in Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, p. 296. See also Agrawal, Arun, Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Bartelson, Jens, ‘Making sense of global civil society’, European Journal of International Relations, 12:3 (2006), pp. 371–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Miller and Rose, Governing the present, p. 6.

64 Dean, Governing Societies; Hindess, ‘Politics as Government’; Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life.

65 Rose, Powers of freedom, p. 36.

66 Ibid., p. 277.

67 Harrison, Graham, Neoliberal Africa: The impact of global social engineering (London: Zed Books, 2010), p. 3Google Scholar; see also Nkiwane, ‘Africa and International Relations’, p. 284.

68 An example of this is provided by Jonathan Joseph, who approvingly quotes Larner and Walters' assertion that ‘areas like sub-Saharan Africa are relatively bare spots on the map. The networks of capital and information associated with postindustrial progress are sparse and stretched in these zones.’ Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 236, citing Larner, Wendy and Walters, William, ‘The political rationality of “new regionalism”: Toward a genealogy of the region’, Theory and Society, 31 (2002), p. 421CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Bayart, The State in Africa, p. xl.

70 Ibid., pp. xxxviii–xl; in contrast, see p. 21, pp. 100–1. See also Cornelissen et al., ‘Introduction’.

71 Bayart, The State in Africa, p. xii.

72 Ibid., pp. xiii, xxiii, p. 208, pp. 250–3. On Bayart's differences with Foucault, see Ibid., pp. li and lxxxvii. Bayart's analysis could not be described as purely Foucauldian (whatever that might mean), and he does not spend much time discussing the literature on governmentality. Many of the categories he employs throughout his analysis are borrowed from Gramsci (chap. 7) and Deleuze and Guattari (pp. 220–1). Yet he concludes that that the concept of governmentality – in contrast to other concepts such as hegemony, historical bloc, and culture – ‘is more likely to avoid the trap of unwarranted totalisation’ (p. 271).

73 Bayart, Jean-François, Global Subjects: A Political Critique of Globalisation, trans. Brown, Andrew (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), p. xiGoogle Scholar; Bayart, The State in Africa, pp. xiii and 267–8.

74 Bayart, The State in Africa, pp. 271–2.

75 See also Bayart, Jean-François, Ellis, S. D. K., and Hibou, Béatrice, The Criminalisation of the State in Africa (Oxford: James Currey, 1999)Google Scholar; de Sardan, J. P. Olivier, ‘A Moral Economy of Corruption in Africa?’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 37:1 (1999), pp. 25–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 Abrahamsen, Rita, Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 63Google Scholar; Harrison, Neoliberal Africa, p. 139.

77 Bayart, The State in Africa, p. xxii; see also Mbembe, Achille, On the Postcolony (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

78 Bayart, The State in Africa, chap. 6.

79 Mbembe, On the Postcolony, pp. 102–3.

80 Ferguson, James, Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order (London: Duke University Press 2007), pp. 15–17Google Scholar; Nordstrom, Carolyn, ‘Out of the shadows’, in Callaghy, Thomas M., Kassimir, Ronald, and Latham, Robert (eds), Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa: Global-Local Networks of Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

81 Ahluwalia, Pal, Politics and Post-Colonial Theory: African Inflections (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 127Google Scholar.

82 Joseph, ‘Governmentality of what?’; Joseph, ‘Poverty reduction’; Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’; Joseph, ‘What can governmentality do for IR?’; Selby, ‘Engaging Foucault’.

83 Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 224; see also Selby, ‘Engaging Foucault’, p. 326.

84 Selby, ‘Engaging Foucault’, p. 337.

85 Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 242.

86 Barnett, Clive, ‘The consolations of “neoliberalism”’, Geoforum, 36 (2005), pp. 7–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

87 Kurki, Milja, ‘Causes of a divided discipline: Rethinking the concept of cause in International Relations theory’, Review of International Studies, 32:2 (2006), pp. 189–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Suganami, Hidemi, ‘Causal explanation and moral judgement: Undividing a division’, Millennium, 39:3 (2011), pp. 718–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 Abrahamsen, Rita, ‘The Power of Partnerships in Global Governance’, Third World Quarterly, 25:8 (2004), pp. 1453–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Fougner, ‘Neoliberal’; Löwenheim, ‘Examining the state’.

89 Abrahamsen, ‘The power of partnerships’, p. 1454.

90 Fraser, Alastair and Whitfield, Lindsay, ‘Understanding Contemporary Aid Relationships’, in Whitfield, Lindsay (ed.), The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 78–80Google Scholar.

91 Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy; Fougner, ‘Neoliberal’; Harrison, Graham, The World Bank and Africa: The construction of governance states (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004)Google Scholar; Löwenheim, ‘Examining the state’; Neumann and Sending, Governing the Global Polity, pp. 141–5.

92 Assey, Paschal, Bass, Stephen, Cheche, Blandina, Howlett, David, Jambiya, George, Kikula, Idris, Likwelile, Servacius, Manyama, Amon, Mugurusi, Eric, Muheto, Ruzika, and Rutasitara, Longinus, Environment at the heart of Tanzania's Development: Lessons from Tanzania National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (MKUKUTA) (London: International Institute for Environment and Development, 2007), p. ivGoogle Scholar.

93 Dalal-Clayton, Barry and Bass, Steve, The Challenges of Environmental Mainstreaming: Experience of integrating environment into development institutions and decisions (London: IIED, 2009)Google Scholar; Geoghegan, Tighe, Making aid work better for recipients, and improving national planning processes for sustainable development in the bargain (London: IIED, 2007)Google Scholar.

94 Fraser and Whitfield, ‘Understanding Contemporary Aid Relationships’, pp. 80–1.

95 Abrahamsen, ‘The power of partnerships’, p. 1454.

96 Joseph, ‘Governmentality of what?’ pp. 425–7.

97 See Whitfield, The Politics of Aid.

98 Abrahamsen, ‘The power of partnerships’, p. 1454.

99 Harrison, The World Bank and Africa. See also Engel and Olsen, ‘Authority, sovereignty and Africa’.

100 Abrahamsen, ‘The power of partnerships’, p. 1459; Harrison, The World Bank and Africa, chaps 4 and 5; Löwenheim, ‘Examining the state’; Tosa, ‘Anarchical governance’, pp. 418–20.

101 For example, see Assey et al., Environment at the heart of Tanzania's Development; Dalal-Clayton and Bass, The Challenges of Environmental Mainstreaming.

102 Harrison, The World Bank and Africa, p. 90.

103 For example, see Nord, Roger, Sobolev, Yuri, Dunn, David, Hajdenberg, Alejandro, Hobdari, Niko, Maziad, Samar, and Roudet, Stéphane, Tanzania: The Story of an African Transition (Washington DC: IMF, 2009)Google Scholar.

104 Harrison, The World Bank and Africa, p. 94.

105 Harrison, Neoliberal Africa, p. 99.

106 Miller and Rose, Governing the Present, p. 218.

107 Selby, ‘Engaging Foucault’, p. 336.

108 Neumann and Sending, Governing the Global Polity.

109 Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, pp. 238–9.

110 Joseph, ‘Governmentality of what?’ p. 427.

111 Ferguson, James, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: Minnesota Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Joseph, ‘Poverty reduction’; Neumann and Sending, Governing the Global Polity, pp. 141–5.

112 Fougner, ‘Neoliberal’.

113 Jaeger, ‘UN reform’; Zanotti, ‘Governmentalizing’.

114 Abrahamsen, ‘The power of partnerships’.

115 Duffield, Mark, ‘Governing the Borderlands: Decoding the Power of Aid’, Disasters, 25:4 (2001), pp. 308–20CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Sending, Ole Jacob and Neumann, Iver B., ‘Governance to Governmentality: Analysing NGOs, States and Power’, International Studies Quarterly, 50:3 (2006), pp. 651–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

116 Dean, Governing Societies, p. 83.

117 Miller and Rose, Governing the Present, p. 71.

118 Foucault, Michel, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Sheridan, Alan (London: Penguin, 1991), p. 272Google Scholar.

119 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine, p. 20.

120 Abrahamsen, ‘The power of partnerships’; Harrison, The World Bank in Africa; Löwenheim, ‘Examining the state’, p. 268.

121 Abrahamsen and Williams, Security beyond the state, pp. 220–21; Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed; Dean, Governing Societies; Dean, ‘Liberal government’; Hindess, ‘Politics as Government’, pp. 402–3; Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life.

122 Chandler, Empire in denial, pp. 57–8; Duffield, Mark, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001)Google Scholar; Richards, Paul, Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone (Oxford: James Currey, 1996)Google Scholar.

123 A classic example is Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy. See also Berdal, Mats R. and Malone, David (eds), Greed and Grievance: Economic agendas in Civil Wars (London: Lynne Rienner, 2000)Google Scholar.

124 Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 236.

125 Duffield, ‘Governing the borderlands’; Duffield, Mark, Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples (Cambridge: Polity, 2007)Google Scholar; Nordstrom, ‘Out of the shadows’; Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest.

126 Hoffman, Danny, ‘The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia: Political Power, Military Strategy, and Humanitarian Intervention’, African Affairs, 103:411 (2004), pp. 211–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 Hoffman, ‘The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia’, p. 211.

128 Hoffman, Danny, ‘Disagreement: Dissent politics and the war in Sierra Leone’, Africa Today, 52:3 (2006), pp. 3–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

129 Nordstrom, ‘Out of the shadows’, p. 220.

130 Dean, Governmentality, pp. 131–9; ‘Liberal government’.

131 Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed, pp. 7 and 36.

132 Abrahamsen and Williams, Security beyond the state, pp. 148–70; Denney, Lisa, ‘Reducing poverty with teargas and batons: The security-development nexus in Sierra Leone’, African Affairs, 110:439 (2011), pp. 275–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hoffman, ‘The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia’; Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest.

133 Neumann and Sending, Governing the Global Polity, p. 11.

134 Duffield, ‘Governing the borderlands’, pp. 309–10.

135 Death, Carl, ‘Troubles at the Top: South African protests and the 2002 Johannesburg Summit’, African Affairs, 109:437 (2010), p. 568CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

136 Tosa, ‘Anarchical governance’.

137 Jackson, ‘The State Didn't Even Exist’.

138 Ferguson, Global Shadows.

139 Abrahamsen and Williams, Security beyond the state.

140 Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest, pp. 30–1.

141 Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 242.

142 Harrison, Neoliberal Africa; Mamdani, Mahmood, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (London: James Currey, 1996)Google Scholar.

143 Abrahamsen, Disciplining Democracy; Bayart, The State in Africa; Ferguson, Global Shadows.

144 Harrison, Neoliberal Africa, p. 143.

145 Barnett and Duvall, ‘Power in International Politics’.

146 Engel and Olsen, ‘Authority, sovereignty and Africa’, p. 63.

147 As such this article echoes the conclusions of Brown and Lemke in this journal regarding the applicability of many insights derived from politics in Africa for the study of politics elsewhere. Brown, ‘Africa and International Relations’; Lemke, ‘Intra-national IR in Africa’. See also Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South, p. 7; Cornelissen et al., ‘Introduction’, pp. 12–13; Harrison, Neoliberal Africa, p. 116.

148 Abrahamsen and Williams, Security beyond the state, pp. 218–19. See also Rosenow, ‘The merits of a Foucauldian approach’, p. 500.

149 Bayart, The State in Africa, p. 268. See also Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South.

150 Nadesan, Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life, p. 6.

151 Dean, Governing Societies, p. 103.

152 Comaroff and Comaroff, Theory from the South, p. 48.

153 Ahluwalia, Out of Africa, p. 6.

154 Dean, Governing Societies, p. 83. Similar arguments are advanced by Joseph, ‘The limits of governmentality’, p. 224; Tosa, ‘Anarchical governance’, p. 417.

155 Mbembe, On the Postcolony; Miller and Rose, Governing the Present.

156 David Chandler's discussion and critique of governmentality-inspired analyses of development partnerships relies on questioning the motivation of donor institutions. This is a subject on which an analytics of government approach is not particularly well-suited to conducting research. Chandler, Empire in denial, pp. 15–18.

157 Dean, Governing Societies, pp. 50–1.

158 Foucault, Michel, ‘On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress’, in Rabinow, P. (ed.), Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Vol. 1, trans. Hurley, R.et al., (New York: The New Press 1997), p. 256Google Scholar. See also Abrahamsen, ‘African Studies and the Postcolonial Challenge’, p. 210.

159 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, p. 313.

160 Ibid.

161 Rose, Powers of Freedom, p. 60.