Foucault’s Conception of Power and Resistance

Ashkan Rezvani Naraghi

December 7, 2012

Introduction:

Michel Foucault’s conception of power is a controversial theory that has provoked a vast

array of discussions since its first conceptualization in the 1970’s. Since that time, many scholars

have written against or in favor of his specific notion of power and it has faced different types of

critiques. One of the main ideas that develops as a direct consequence of his theory is the notion

of resistance against power. Some scholars (de Certeau (1984), Driver (1985), and Low (1996))

believe that in Foucault’s theory there is no place for resistance; power has an inviolable security

against any kind of attack. Others (Bevir (1999) and Spierenburg (2004)) believe that there is a

possibility of resistance but it is different from other discourses of power.

In this short literature review on the conception of power in Foucault’s works, I argue

that to understand Foucault’s attitude towards the idea of resistance we should understand his

conception of power and how he forms his theory in dialogue with Marxism’s and Nietzsche’s

views towards the same concept. As a result, this literature review consists of two major parts. In

the first part I will study Foucault’s theory of power and I will compare it to Marxism’s and

Nietzsche’s views upon the same subject. In the second part I will shift to the notion of resistance

and I will talk about the role of individuals in his theory.

I.

Foucault on Power:

In Discipline and Punish, Foucault develops his specific conception of power through a

genealogical study of crime and punishment in Europe. He starts his book with two contrasting

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scenes. First is the horrifying scene of an execution in 1757: a spectacle of torture in front

of the public in which the criminal was tortured slowly and painfully until he died. The

second is from eighty years later. It is a detailed timeline of the activities that prisoners

had to do during the day. There was no extreme physical pain in the second way of

punishment; there was no torture and no execution. This was a detailed account of the

regulation of the prisoners’ lives (Foucault 1977, 3-7). One may think that the second

form of punishment is more humane, more modern, more philanthropic, but, as Foucault

claims, the aim was “not to punish less, but to punish better” (Foucault 1977, 82). In this

shift from pre-modern to modern approaches of punishment, four major transitions

happened: 1- The disappearance of public display of punishment; 2- punishment of the

criminal rather than the crime; 3- the role of ‘experts’ (psychiatrists, social workers,

parole boards) in determining the judicial sentences rather than judges; and 4- ‘reform

and rehabilitation’ of the criminal instead of ‘retribution’ (Gutting 2005, 80).

The question, as Foucault proposes it, is that “if the penality in its most severe

forms no longer addresses itself to the body, on what does it lay hold?” (1977, 16). He

believes that it is the soul of the prisoner which should bear the burden of the

punishment: “The expiation that once rained down upon the body must be replaced by a

punishment that acts in depth on the heart, the thoughts, the will, the inclinations.” As he

argues, now the punishment does not tend to punish the crime, “but to supervise the

individual, to neutralize his dangerous state of mind, to alter his criminal tendencies, and

to continue even when his change has been achieved” (1977, 18). This supervision,

neutralization and alteration results in the creation of ‘Docile Body.’

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 Foucault’s notion of ‘docility’ is connected to the notions of an ‘annlysable body’ and the

‘manipulable body.’ He believes that a body is docile that may be “subjected, used, transformed

and improved” (1977, 136). Foucault claims that the procedures which make possible the control

of the body and assure “the constant subjection of its forces and imposed upon them a relation of

docility-utility” can be called ‘Discipline’ (1977, 137). Docility is achieved through ‘micro-

management’ of the behavior of the criminal. Discipline creates bodies that not only do what it

wants but do it exactly in the way that it desires (Gutting 2005, 82).

Foucault recognizes three means of creation of docile bodies. The first is the ‘hierarchical

observation.’ It means that discipline can control the actions of people by just observing them.

The second is ‘normalizing judgment.’ People are judged in relation to others. It produces norms

and, consequently, highlights ‘abnormal’ behaviors. The third means of discipline in the

production of docile bodies is ‘examination.’ It is the result of the combination of the two

previous means. Individuals can be ‘differentiated’ and ‘judged’ through examination (Foucault

1977, 170-194).

Finally, we reach to the crux of his argument. Although Foucault starts with the

genealogy of punishment and prison in the last chapter of his book he claims that the disciplinary

technique, which belongs to punishment of criminals, is a pervasive aspect of modern society.

We can find the same model in factories, hospitals, and schools. He uses the term ‘carceral

archipelago’ and claims that “this great carceral network reaches all the disciplinary mechanisms

that functions throughout society” (Foucault 1977, 298). Carceral archipelago helps us to

understand the meaning of power relations in Foucault’s works. To understand this point, we

should move out of the framework of Discipline and Punish and look at one of his later essays:

The Subject and Power (Foucault 1982). Here, Foucault develops the idea of power more

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precisely. He claims that since the sixteenth century the state as a new form of political

power has been continuously developing. The modern state finds its origins in a much

older institute of power which Foucault calls ‘pastoral power’ (782). For Foucault,

pastoral power “cannot be exercised without knowing the inside of people’s minds,

without exploring their souls, without making them reveal their innermost secrets. It

implies a knowledge of the conscience and an ability to direct it” and its function “has

spread and multiplied” throughout society (783).

Foucault argues that the modern state is not an entity above the individuals

“ignoring what they are and even their very existence, but, on the contrary, as a very

sophisticated structure, in which individuals can be integrated” (Foucault 1982, 783). It

deals with relations of power. “It exists only when it is put into action” (788). Foucault

claims that relationships of power is a mode of action that acts upon other’s actions: “it

incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; in the extreme it

constrains or forbids absolutely; it is nevertheless always a way of acting upon an acting

subject or acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action” (789). As a

result, Foucault does not believe in ‘the power’ that is dominant over society. Instead, he

is talking about numerous ‘micro-powers’ which are present in the whole nexus of

society (Driver 1985, 425). For him, the power is omnipresent and it is practiced in all the

relationships between individuals and institutes.

To sum up, for Foucault, the omnipresent power is an everyday fact of modern

society. It controls people the creation of docile bodies. The process of transferring free

people into docile bodies is implemented through numerous tiny power relations that are

forms of ‘actions over the actions’ of people. After this heavily Foucaultian part, which

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was an introduction to his main conceptions, I will continue to the relation between his theory

with Marxism’s and Nietzsche’s arguments upon the same subject.

Marx and Foucault Dialogue on Conception of Power:

Anthony Giddens (1982, 217) claims that classical Marxian texts lack two pivotal

theories. They “not only lack an elaborated theory of the state… they lack a satisfactory

conception of power in a more general sense.” In his belief, Marx’s classic analysis of class

power or class domination puts its emphasis on the notion of ‘class’ rather than the ‘origin of

power.’ This fact doesn’t mean that we cannot compare Foucault’s theory of power to

Marxism’s. A general look at Foucault’s theory will provide us with the principles for such a

comparison.

Pier Spierenburg (2004, 625-626) believes that Foucault, in clarification of the concept of

micro-powers, introduces and rejects four commonly held notions. First, power is something

which certain people have and others are deprived of it. The second notion, which is connected

to the first one, is that power can be localized or “it can be confined to state institutes.” “Three,

power is subordinate to or a derivative of a mode of production.” Finally, power is only

originated from physical forces and violence. Obviously, the third thesis demonstrates

inconsistency between Foucault’s conception of power and Marxism’s conception. In

Spierenburg’s (2004, 625) view Foucault sees power as a “constitutive element of the prevailing

mode of production. It is only through power mechanisms that people are prepared to devote a

considerable part of their lives to labor.” However, in a more general view, all the first three

claims are interconnected and show contradiction between Foucault’s view of power relations

and Marxism’s conception of power. As Mark Bevir (1999, 353) indicates, in Marxism power is

concentrated in hands of certain “political institution through which the ruling class maintain the

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relations of production that enable them to exploit the proletariat.” In contrast, Foucault

illustrates state as a ‘polymorphic entity’ which has developed and established through

adaptation of various techniques of government. These techniques are not connected to a

central state power but rather at work in diffuse and varied ways throughout society.

Deleuze, who had a great impression on Foucault’s works, categorizes five

‘traditional postulates’ of Marxism’s conception of power which Foucault ‘implicitly’

challenges: “these were the postulates of class ownership (by the bourgeoisie),

localisation (in the state), subordination (to the mode of production), its mechanism

(repression), and its relation to the law” (Driver 1985, 431). If we look back at Foucault’s

conception of power we can see how he rejects these five principles. Foucault’s

description of micro-powers and his idea of pervasive power relationships in entire nexus

of society do not leave any space for power ownership of a certain class or localization

and centralization of power in the form of state. In response to mechanism of repression,

I can refer to Foucault’s concept of docile bodies. Modern institutes are controlling,

instead of repressing, individuals through establishing certain modes of individualization

in them. These are kinds of constructed identities that are institutionalized inside

individuals through educational systems, churches, hospitals, prisons, etc. Finally, Driver

(1985, 431) believes that “instead of seeing the law as a state of peace emanating from a

battle won by the dominant class, Foucault emphasizes that the law is, in some sense, the

battle itself, the actual agency through which illegalities are created and challenged and

delinquency produced.”

To sum up, Foucault does not conceptualize power as an inherently repressive

system. Power is not a burden which individuals have to bear it. In Giddens (1982, 217)

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words “power, for Foucault, is declaredly the opposite of that haunted an hunted spectre which it

appears as in Marxist theory- a noxious expression of class domination, capable of being

transcended by the progressive movement of history.” In fact, power is the reason whereby all

things happen; it is production of things. It creates pleasure and it generates knowledge. The

latter is the fact that we cannot understand merely through the dialogue between Foucault and

Marx. Instead, we should look at the other side of the story to see how Nietzsche’s works have

influenced Foucault’s theory.

Nietzsche and Foucault Monologue on Conception of Power:

The fundamental convergence point between Foucault and Nietzsche on conception of

power is the methodological framework that Foucault uses for his study. Gutting (2005, 43)

names genealogy as the common point between these philosophers: “commentators on Foucault

have generally assumed that his notion of genealogy is much the same as Nietzsche’s…”

Harcourt (2011) believes that genealogical approach of Foucault towards development of

punishment and his concept of production of docile bodies find their origins in Nietzsche’s

works. He even goes further to claim that Nietzsche’s writings were the primary steps in the

genealogical approach that later would develop as the notion of ‘savoir-pouvoir’ [knowledge-

power] in Michel Foucault's writings. Following Harcourt’s argument, Gutting (2005, 50)

indicates to the same point differently. He claims that “there is an intimate tie between

knowledge and power” in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish that in his belief has a Nietzschean

origin. In this approach “changes in thought are not due to thought itself, suggesting that when

thoughts change the causes are the social forces that control the behavior of individuals.” We

will see how this notion relates to conception of resistance in Foucault’s writings and how it

provides critics with a dent of criticism.

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 Before going further, it would be helpful to investigate more in Foucault’s power-

knowledge relation which he has developed under a Nietzschean influence. Foucault

believes that production of knowledge is a basic character of modern power. He argues

that power and knowledge ‘directly imply’ one another: “there is no power relation

without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does

not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations” (Foucault 1977, 27).

Bevir (1999, 349) argues that through this conception, Foucault wants to change our

negative understanding of power “as something that represses by stressing how it also

can act positively to produce and to define.” He claims that as an effect of this

relationship, the ‘will to power’ (in its Nietzschean terminology) masquerades as a ‘will

to truth.’ Consequently, it would be wrong to examine power relations merely as negative

and repressing relationships. Power has a positive aspect and that is the production of

knowledge or in Spierenburg (2004, 626) words: “every situation in which power is

exercised is also an instance of gathering knowledge.”

Despite many common points between Nietzsche and Foucault, there is a

fundamental difference between their conceptions of power. Gutting (2005, 52) believes

that “power for Nietzsche, as Foucault reads him, is always violence. Humans do

establish systems of rules (social and, presumably, also epistemic), but these are merely

vehicles for violent domination.” However in Subject and Power (1982, 789), Foucault

asks whether violence is the ‘primitive form’ of power relations, the form that appears

when it is forced to show its real nature. He continues explaining his conception of power

which is a mode of action over action and he concludes: “obviously the bringing into play

of power relations does not exclude the use of violence any more than it does the

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obtaining of consent; no doubt the exercise of power can never do without one or the other, often

both at the same time. But even though consensus and violence are the instruments or the results,

they do not constitute the principle or the basic nature of power. The exercise of power can

produce as much acceptance as may be wished for: it can pile up the dead and shelter itself

behind whatever threats it can imagine.” Foucault does not deny violence as a possible result of

violence, but he rejects violence as the nature of power.

To sum up, Nietzschean themes are prominent in Foucault’s study of power. The

omnipresent power which has priority to truth, knowledge and value and more important the idea

that body provides the surface for implementation of power are some of these themes (Giddens

1982, 219).

II.

Resistance to Power:

Many scholars believe that Foucault’s conception of power leaves no space for

resistance. Setha Low (1996, 862), who studies social production and construction of space,

believes that Foucault illustrates “how architecture contributes to the maintenance of power of

one group over another at a level that includes both the control of the movement and the

surveillance of the body in space.” She claims that Foucault and his followers fails to address

either the ‘lived experience’ or ‘resistance’ of individuals and groups to the process of spatial

social control.

Michel de Certeau (1984, xiv & xv) in his great work, The practice of Everyday Life, has

the same view. He mentions Foucault’s Discipline and Punish as the second orientation of his

investigation. He claims that more urgent than Foucault’s claim of omnipresent discipline is “to

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discover how an entire society resists being reduced to it.” He tries to investigate the

clandestine, creative ‘tactics’ that individuals implement to the omnipresent discipline.

Finally, Driver (1985, 441) joins the other scholars and claims that “Foucault

derogates the importance (or even the very principle) of struggle.” He quotes from

Leonard that Foucault, by exaggerating the process of normalization “left little room for

‘revolts’ against the ‘gaze’ which have occupied other historians.”

In contrast to these scholars, I argue that not only Foucault sees the role of

resistance, or in his terminology ‘struggle,’ but also he explains the trajectory of

resistance, confrontation, victory and domination between power relations. What

Foucault ignores in his theoretical framework is the role of agency which, in my view, is

a prerequisite element of his theory.

In The Subject and Power, Foucault (794) claims that “at the heart of power

relations and as a permanent condition of their existence there is an insubordination and a

certain essential obstinacy on the part of the principles of freedom, then there is no

relationship of power without the means of escape or possible flight.” He talks about the

strategies of struggle or confrontation. In his view (780-1), struggles consist of taking the

“forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point.” These forms of

resistance try to ‘dissociate’ power relation. He mentions six common characteristics

between the anti-authority struggles: 1- They do not limit to one country, instead they are

‘transversal.’ 2- “The aim of these struggles is the power effects as such.” 3- They oppose

the ‘immediate’ sources of power which have the straight effect on them. 4- They are

against the ‘government of individualization.’ 5- They fight with the power knowledge

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relations. 6- Finally, they oppose the abstractions which ignore “who we are individually.”

Generally speaking, the struggles attack the main performance of modern power which is

creation of docile bodies. In Foucault’s (1982, 785) words, it is not important “to liberate the

individuals from the state and from the state’s institutions but to liberate us both from the state

and from the type of individualization which is linked to the state.” Struggles have their own

strategies. These are methods of changing the power relations in the favor of the struggles in

time of confrontation. Foucault (1982, 794) argues that “a relationship of confrontation reaches

its term, its final moment (and the victory of one of the two adversaries), when stable

mechanisms replace the free play of antagonistic reactions.”

Foucault (1982, 794) ends his analysis of struggles and power relations with a horrifying

fact. He claims that every strategy of confrontation will change into a new power relation if it

manages to win its battle ground. He depicts a dark and repetitive cycle of power and struggle

with no bright future at its end. Here, one can ask what is the role of individuals in this cycle?

Foucault started his story of resistance and confrontation with a promise of liberation of

individuals. What did happen to that promise?

This is the point that we can find the main critiques of Foucault. As Mark Bevir (1999,

349) provides us with one: “Foucault emphatically did not reintroduce the subject as an agent of

change.” For him, subject is a function of ‘will to power.’ He continues: “history appeared as a

‘single drama’ of repressive construction in which power represses the subject as a body at the

same time as it constructs the subject as a set of beliefs and desires that it then represses again.”

Now, we can realize how Nietzsche’s conception of power has left its dramatic impression on

Foucault’s philosophy. The words of Bevir (1999, 355) sounds reasonable when he argues that

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“Foucault and his followers often seem to be calling us to a rather vague form of

resistance to what they see as the false freedoms tied to pastoral power.”

Foucault’s denial of agency has another consequence. As Bevir argues (1999,

354) it depicts an illusionary freedom for individuals “in that we do not truly make

ourselves through our own creative activity, but rather construct ourselves in a way that is

prescribed for us by the technologies of the self sanctioned by the modern regime of

power”. Bevir (357-358) asks if the subject is the outcome of power relations, how we

can explain his creative actions; “how can we explain changes within a regime of

power?” He admits that Foucault is right when he talks about the influences of power

relations on the individuals but he claims that Foucault’s theory needs a reformulation;

we should consider a space for agency in it (359).

Finally, it would be helpful to see how the notion of resistance differs from other

philosophic base of this literature review. Gary Gutting (2005, 87-88) provides us with a

comparison between Marxian and Foucaultian notions of resistance. He argues that, in

the former, there is no place for revolutionary acts. There is no chance of revolt against

the Foucault’s omnipresent power. Instead, Marxism identifies “groups and institutions as

sources of domination, the destruction or appropriation of which will lead to liberation.”

But in Foucault’s view, there is no center of power for revolutionaries to turn it down and

fulfill their revolution. There is no king to be executed; there is no dictator to be

assassinated. There are countless relationships of power that seem impossible to take over

them all.

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 Conclusion:

Michel Foucault develops his conception of resistance mostly in The subject and Power.

It is a short essay, in comparison to a full book, which was published two years before his death

in 1982. In this essay, he develops his previous ideas about subjectivity, power relations and

resistance. As I argued in this literature review, we need to connect his conception of resistance

to his more general view towards power. We cannot understand the meaning of resistance in

Foucault’s work, until we have not examined the meaning of power in his former essays

especially Discipline and Punish. This is the exact procedure that I adopted in this essay.

Moreover, I continued one step further and I tried to investigate the underlying foundations of

Foucault’s notion of power. I did this work through the study of power in Nietzsche’s and

Marxist’s theories and I showed how their views are connected to Foucault’s theory.

Foucault’s Discipline and Punished was originally published in 1975 in France. In this

book, he does not develop any argument about resistance. One of the main critiques to this

shortcoming, in the intellectual atmosphere of France, was provided by Michel de Certeau. He

criticizes Foucault in The Practice of Everyday Life which was originally published in 1980. It

will remain a dilemma whether Foucault’s The Subject and power was written as a reaction to

Cearteau’s critique or not.

References:

 Bevir, Mark. 1999. Foucault, power, and institutions. Political Studies XLVII: 345-359.
 Certeau, Michel de. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven F. Rendall.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
 Driver, F. 1985. Power, space, and the body: A critical assessment of Foucault’s
discipline and punish. Environment and Planning D: Society & Space 3, no. 4:425-446.
 Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Trans. Alan
Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books.

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 Foucault, Michel. 1982. The subject and power. Critical Inquiry 8, no. 4 (Summer): 777-
795.
 Giddens, Anthony. 1982. From Marx to Nietzsche? Neo-conservatism, Foucault, and
problems in contemporary political theory. In Profiles and critiques in social theory, ed.
Anthony Giddens,215-230. London: The Macmillan Press LTD.
 Gutting, Gary.2005. Foucault: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press.
 Harcourt, Bernard E. 2011. Radical thought from Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, through
Foucault, to the present: Comments on Steven Lukes's in defense of False Consciousness.
University of Chicago Legal Forum. University of Chicago.
 Low, Setha M. 1996. The social production and social construction of public space in
Costa Rica. American Ethnologist 23, no. 4 (November): 861-879.
 Spierenburg, Pieter. 2004. Punishment, Power, and History: Faucault and Elias. Social
Science History 28, no. 4 (Winter): 607-636.

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