Governing the Present

Book excerpt: The literature on governmentality has had a major impact across the social sciences over the past decade, and much of this has drawn upon the pioneering work by Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose. This volume will bring together key papers from their work for the first time, including those that set out the basic frameworks, concepts and ethos of this approach to the analysis of political power and the state, and others that analyse specific domains of the conduct of conduct, from marketing to accountancy, and from the psychological management of organizations to the government of economic life. Bringing together empirical papers on the government of economic, social and personal life, the volume demonstrates clearly the importance of analysing these as conjoint phenomena rather than separate domains, and questions some cherished boundaries between disciplines and topic areas. Linking programmes and strategies for the administration of these different domains with the formation of subjectivities and the transformation of ethics, the papers cast a new light on some of the leading issues in contemporary social science modernity, democracy, reflexivity and individualisation. This volume will be indispensable for all those, from whatever discipline in the social sciences, who have an interest in the concepts and methods necessary for critical empirical analysis of power relations in our present.