Governed By Law?
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399800700405 |
| Author | Mariana Valverde,Nikolas Rose |
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
GOVERNED
BY
LAW?
NIKOLAS
ROSE
Goldsmiths
College,
University
of London,
UK
AND
MARIANA
VALVERDE
University
of
Toronto,
Canada
Another
consequence
of
this
development
of
bio-power
was
the
growing
importance
assumed
by
the
action
of
the
norm
at
the
expense
of
the
juridical
system
of
the
law...
I
do
not
mean
to
say
that
the
law
fades
into
the
back-
ground
or
that
the
institutions
of
justice
tend
to
disappear,
but
rather
that
the
law
operates
more
and
more
as
a
norm,
and
that
the
judicial
institution
is
increasingly
incorporated
into
a
continuum
of
apparatuses
(medical,
adminis-
trative,
and
so
on)
whose
functions
are
for
the
most
part
regulatory.
A
nor-
malizing
society
is
the
historical
outcome
of
a
technology
of
power
centred
on
life.
(Michel
Foucault,
The
History
of Sexuality
Vol.
1,
1979:
144)
Foucault’s
analysis
leaves
open
two
questions:
first,
if
the
juridical
is
an
inappropriate
category
to
use
in
interpreting
bio-power,
how
do
we
make
sense
of
all
those
’instruments
of
the
law’
(codes,
constitutions,
laws,
regulations)
that
have
developed
and
expanded
during
the
era
of
bio-power?
Second,
if
the
actions
of
norms
replaces
the
juridical
system
of
law
as
the
code
and
language
of
power,
what
role
remains
for
law?
(François
Ewald,
’Norms,
discipline
and
the
law’,
1990:
159)
AVE
THE
instruments
of
law,
today,
become
integrated
into
tech-
~
nologies
for the
government
of
life?
To
what
extent
are
contempor-
ary
legal
practices
organized
around
the
notion
of
the
norm?
What
are
the
risks
and
the
possibilities
associated
with
the
hybridization
of
law
and
norm
in
contemporary
regimes
of
government
and
control?
Franqols
Ewald
raises
these
questions
in
his
discussion
of
the
implications
of
the
rise
of
’bio-
power’
for
the
status
and
function
of
law
in
modern
societies
(Ewald,
1990).
He
points
out
that
the
rise
of
the
forms
of
knowledge
and
power
that
take
the
administration of
life,
individually
and
collectively,
as
their
object
and
target
has
been
accompanied
by
significant
change,
development
and
ramification
of
what
one
might
term
a
’legal
complex’.
The
formation
of
a
normalizing
society,
he
argues,
has
neither
diminished
the
power
of
the
law
nor
caused
legal
SOCIAL
&
LEGAL
STUDIES
0964
6639
(199812)
7:4
Copyright
©
1998
SAGE
Publications,
London,
Thousand
Oaks,
CA
and
New
Delhi,
Vol.
7(4), 541-551;
006257
541-
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