Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society

By Mitchell Dean

Book Overview

Lucid, timely and shrewd, this book makes a major contribution to understanding a concept that is belatedly being recognized as a core concept in the social sciences, governmentality.

By looking at the work of Foucault, this book aims to reclaim governmentality as a central concept in sociology, asking what is governmentality and how are individuals and cultures organised in modern society?

Dean seeks to learn from Foucault, but also draws on wider analytical frameworks and traditions to provide the first complete overview of the concept. He argues that governmentality encapsulates a fundamentally new orientation to the study of power and authority. It allows for a new, more relevant understanding of how the individ

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803975880
• ISBN13: 9780803975880
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 0.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

THE book to read if you want an overview of Governmentality studies.

As a political economist geographer, I was wary of reading about post-modern governmentality. However, this book analyzed governmentality studies in a systematic, thorough and chronological order that actually made the topic enjoyable. Other than Nikolas Rose's "The Powers of Freedom" book, no book is as approachable as this one. In fact, this one is the best book I have read on the topic. Very useful for anyone studying political and power processes. I highly recommend it.