Government has come to mean governance. This article investigates this change, which, through an investigation of Foucault’s concept of governmentality, it will show to be a substantial modification of the concept of government.By the late 1970s, Foucault had begun to construct a political philosophy shorn of traditional power structures. He replaced these with the concept of governmentality, of which the “governmental rationality of liberalism” is one form. In this rationality, the government is no longer the final instance, but is rather (...) a process of structuring a field of action.Government ceases to be a specific method of organisation; the concept of governmentality is hence amorphous and is not limited to liberalism. But liberalism instituted a radical change: a hitherto unpracticed permeability between reasons of state and reasons of the market. Liberalism is characterised by frugal government. However, the check against excess in government does not emerge, as it did in other forms, through the rule of law or the balance of power of nations, both external to liberal rationality.Seeing the transactional economic model as the model of good governance, liberalism is frugal by its own nature. Unlimited economic productive power, necessary for the continuance of the liberal state, entails limited government, and anything that would limit economic transactions must limit from outside.Other rationalities, such as moral or judicial rationalities, are thus external to the nature of liberal rationality – they play no role in the only test liberalism uses to validate its actions: economic effect. This new rationality, which emerges in the middle of the 18th century as new concept of government, is the emergence of the political economy. (shrink)

Première introduction au séminaire de 1978-1979 de Michel Foucault au Collège de France. Depuis la mort de Michel Foucault en 1984, de nombreuses exégèses ou critiques de sa pensée ont été écrites. La publication en 1999 de Dits et Ecrits a suscité de nouvelles interprétations des textes de Foucault mettant son travail en perspective. Ainsi de l'éthique et de la biopolitique. Cependant à isoler éthique et biopolitique, on risquerait de ne pas prendre la mesure de l'apport de Foucault. Peut-on en (...) effet rendre autonomes l'éthique et la question de la subjectivation d'une philosophie politique? Peut-on comprendre le concept de biopolitique sans le relier à sa réflexion sur le libéralisme? La biopolitique, selon Foucault, est la technologie politique du libéralisme naissant. Elle vise à améliorer ses performances jusqu'au déclin de sa raison d'être. Un libéralisme sans liberté interroge l'obstination avec laquelle Foucault tente de proposer de nouvelles catégories de philosophie politique qui ne soient pas l'exclusive d'une philosophie du pouvoir. En effet, l'introduction du terme de libéralisme est concomitante de la création de concepts comme ceux de biopolitique, de gouvernementalité. L'instauration de ces notions est complexe car elle renvoie à une lecture inédite du libéralisme qui n'est pas considérée comme une doctrine, ni comme une construction d'un système dont la liberté serait le centre, non plus qu'un idéal politique, voire une idéologie dominante. Pour Foucault, il s'agit d'une effectuation d'un type de rationalité qui met en œuvre une technologie politique spécifique. (shrink)

This book presents an academic introduction, presentation and argument of stakeholder theory as as a model for strategic management of business firms and corporations and public organizations and institutions. The concept of stakeholder is generally used for the parties that affect or are affected by the activities of private or public organizations. Stakeholders are those interested parties who, other than shareholders, have a connection with the activities of a corporation, a firm or an organization. The reference to the stakeholders refers (...) to a conception of a business firm as founded on negotiated governance, where the maximization of the value for the shareholder is not the ultimate criterion. In this model the stakes and the interests that are not those of shareholders or investors, and which go beyond capital and include civil society, are important. This book presents this theory and makes it known as an ethical model for strategic management that is both concrete and useful for developing democracy in the firm, and making it possible to present elements of a social contract in the context of global capitalism. (shrink)