Governmentality
| Author | Michael Merlingen |
| Published date | 01 December 2003 |
| Date | 01 December 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0010836703384002 |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
Governmentality
Towards a Foucauldian Framework for the
Study of IGOs
MICHAEL MERLINGEN
ABSTRACT
In this article I draw on the later work of Michel Foucault to elaborate
a governmentality framework for the study of international govern-
mental organizations (IGOs). The main ‘value added’ of the proposed
framework is that it brings into focus the micro-domain of power rela-
tions,thereby highlighting what mainline IGO studies fail to thematize.
IGOs exercise a molecular form of power that evades and undermines
the material, juridical and diplomatic limitations on their influence.
They are important sites in the non-sovereign, microphysical workings
of power that shape territorialized populations in unspectacular ways.
In short, I argue that our understanding of IGOs remains incomplete if
we do not pay attention to the effects of domination generated by their
everyday governance tasks and good works. I develop this argument
through a brief engagement with an innovative strand of IGO studies:
research on international socialization, which is empirically illustrated
through a brief exploration of the induction by the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe of post-socialist countries into its
embryonic security community.
Keywords: biopolitics; discipline; Foucault; governmentality; OSCE;
political technologies; political rationalities; power;security community;
socialization
In different fields of knowledge there has been a growing interest in a prob-
lematic that became a significant theme in the later work of Michel
Foucault: governmentality, i.e. the political rationalities and techniques of
the organization and exercise of power. There are papers on ‘Govern-
mentality in Educational Practices’,‘Nursing as Means of Governmentality’
and ‘The Contemporary Governmentality of Child Sexual Abuse’. Yet,
so far, few international relations scholars have drawn on the insights of
this literature (but see Dillon, 1995; Dillon and Reid, 2000; Aradau, 2002;
Bigo, 2002). In this article, I extend the Foucauldian problematic in a new
direction with a view to developing a critical framework for the study of
international governmental organizations (IGOs).1Such a framework pro-
vides a new interpretative purchase upon international governance by
Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association
Vol.38(4): 361–384. Copyright ©2003 NISA www.ps.au.dk/NISA
Sage Publications www.sagepublications.com
0010-8367[200312]38:4;361–384;039023
offering a different theoretical idiom to capture the power exercised by
IGOs.
Among the central power considerations of IGO studies are the follow-
ing: Baldwin, 1993; Mearsheimer, 1994/95; Murphy,1994; Cox, 1996; Barnett
and Finnemore, 1999; Joseph, 2000; Sanders, 2002.Are the creation, main-
tenance, change and decline of IGOs an expression of changing social
forces? To what extent are IGO mandates, processes and output a function
of the power relationships among member states? Do the executive heads
of IGOs, secretariats or other IGO bodies influence world politics? If so,
what is the source of the power of IGOs and for what purpose do they use
their power? A governmentality approach brings to the fore a different
concern. How, and by virtue of what means, do IGOs conduct the conduct
of countries? A framework built around this problematic brings into focus
the effects of domination produced by the everyday governance activities
and the good works of IGOs.They exercise a molecular form of power that
evades and undermines the material, juridical and diplomatic limitations on
their influence and enables them to shape member governments, their civil
societies and even individuals in unspectacular ways.This micro-domain of
power relations formed and sustained by IGOs is disregarded by mainline
approaches that conceive of IGOs either as arenas in which states act out
their power relations, as service providers enabling states to overcome col-
lective action problems, or as socializing agents involved in international
policy transfer and norm diffusion (cf. Hasenclever et al., 2000).
While the argument just outlined can be developed in different ways,
here it is elaborated through a brief engagement with an innovative strand
of IGO studies: research on international socialization.To empirically illus-
trate the argument, the article brings into play the security community-
making practices of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE).2The purpose of engaging with the international social-
ization literature is to contrast what it has to say about the role of power in
the induction by the OSCE of post-socialist countries into its embryonic
security community with what a governmentality framework highlights.
There are two reasons for engaging with this particular literature. First, in
terms of the conception of power, international socialization studies are
representative of IGO studies in general. Second, the literature is still not
very large, making it easier to deal with in a piece whose main purpose is
not to contribute to the analysis of international socialization but to outline
a critical framework for the study of IGOs.As to the choice of the OSCE
rather than, say, the World Bank or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), this particular IGO was selected because it is generally regarded
as a marginal institution with little if any real powers.A Foucauldian con-
ception of power makes it possible to see that even such an apparently
powerless IGO conducts the conduct of countries in manifold ways.
I proceed as follows. In the next section, I briefly discuss international
socialization with a view to bringing to light the conceptions of power
underpinning accounts of the process.This sets the stage for introducing a
contrasting understanding of power. I briefly present Foucault’s analysis of
power before elaborating a governmentality framework for the study of
362 COOPERATION AND CONFLICT 38(4)
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