| The author investigates Foucault's account of power in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, and concludes that Foucault opens fascinating and fruitful perspectives on personal, social, political, and penal relations; nevertheless, Foucault's perspectives are inherently limited, cannot be taken as complete bases for explanation, and must be supplemented by additional factual and theoretical analyses.;The author interprets Foucault's notion of power to be relations of domination of forces under political technology, organized strategically. Foucault's power is, essentially, an interpretation of the notion of "power over." Power is pluralistic--ubiquitous, found in both macro and micro relations; fragmented, localized, and non-possessory, a temporary product of relations and not the exclusive attribute of any person, group, or institution; and ascending in effect, large-scale arrangements of power being dependent on smaller-scale relationships. Foucault accords key roles to resistance and the body in power analyses. Foucault's account of power, however, has explanatory and ethical deficiencies, and is insensitive to the plurality of power in the law.;Foucault's account of the strategical aspect of power is, in the author's estimation, the weakest part of his account of power. Foucault attempts to distinguish his position from idealist, subjectivist, and invisible hand accounts, but does not properly develop his position. His position does have some resemblance to Marxist analyses of social change.;Foucault applies his analytic of power to punishment and the prison. These applications are crucial to Foucault's position, since, for Foucault, penal technology is the paradigm case of power in modern Western societies, operative across our social lives. Foucault's technological power analyses yield surprising insights and directions for further research into penality. His account of the prison, however, would have been improved had he consistently and resolutely applied the pluralistic aspect of his power analysis. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). |
