New Modes of Governance and the Commodification of Criminological Knowledge
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| Author | Reece Walters |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390301200101 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
40P 01 Walters (JS/D) 20/1/03 11:09 am Page 5
NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE
AND THE COMMODIFICATION
OF CRIMINOLOGICAL
KNOWLEDGE
REECE WALTERS
University of Stirling, UK
ABSTRACT
This article explores the influence of new modes of governance on the production of
criminological knowledge. In doing so, it examines the rise of discourses on risk and
critiques the ways in which academic environments are changing under new manager-
ialist philosophies. The article further explores the increasing ‘commodification of
criminological knowledge’ and analyses its effect on contemporary criminological
scholarship. Finally, this article examines the contours of critical criminological
scholarship and advocates for a criminology of resistance.
INTRODUCTION
WHATAREthe dangers of a ‘market-led criminology’? How are new
modes of governance in contemporary society, which focus on risk
management, privatization, cost-effectiveness and individual
responsibility influencing the production of criminological knowledge?
What is the future for the critical voice within these changing economic and
political landscapes? Why ask questions about the production of crimino-
logical knowledge? Is this a topic worthy of debate? Surely criminology with
its increasing student numbers, its new degrees and journals and its flour-
ishing commercial opportunities are signs of a discipline in a healthy state?
Nowadays ‘success’ is often determined by acceptance, relevance or prolif-
eration. The litmus test for assessing quality must be content, and not volume,
popularity, political versatility or pragmatic relevance. Toffler (1965) critiqued
the ‘culture boom’ in the United States during the post-war years, described
as the cultural revolution or renaissance (Grana, 1964). As Americans began
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 0964 6639 (200303) 12:1 Copyright © 2003
SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi,
www.sagepublications.com
Vol. 12(1), 5–26; 030842
40P 01 Walters (JS/D) 20/1/03 11:09 am Page 6
6
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 12(1)
to crowd the theatres and art galleries during the early 1960s, many began to
question what the emergence of art affluence meant for contemporary society.
The art elitist referred to it as the vulgarization of art; others saw it as a cultural
revolution. Toffler (1965) argued that the booming industry of art was
insufficient to conclude that American society had become more cultured. He
argued: ‘I know people who have gone to concerts every week of their lives
and say they love music, but most can’t tell Bach from Haydn or know what
a grace note is. . . . Attendance, then, at a cultural event is alone not evidence
of culture’ (Mannes, quoted in Toffler, 1965: 12).
Therefore, is growth in criminological scholarship necessarily a sign of a
discipline in a healthy state? This article addresses the above questions and
assesses the current contours of criminological scholarship within governing
ideologies that promote application, relevance and ‘value-for-money’.
GOVERNMENTALITY AND CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH
NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE
Criminological scholarship has historically been governed by the policy
needs of state governments and by medicolegal disciplines that have influ-
enced the production of a pragmatic and state-defined knowledge about
crime causation and correction (Garland, 1997). Since the mid-1980s, much
academic and political debate has focused on the rise of conservative ideolo-
gies and economic reform in western democratic societies. The increasing
body of literature on ‘neocorporatism’, ‘neoliberalism’, ‘advanced liberal-
ism’, ‘new managerialism’, and so on examines new modes of governance in
late modernity and the influence that such economically driven policies have
had on contemporary social life. Influenced by the works of Foucault (1977,
1991), researchers across a variety of disciplines have examined new methods
of rule in what is broadly defined as discourses of governmentality
(Smandych, 1999). Within these discourses, we have witnessed flourishing
debates about government’s accountability, risk society (Simon, 1987; Beck,
1992; Douglas, 1992) and a concomitant nexus with policies of crime control
and prevention (O’Malley, 1998).
As Garland (1999) points out, Foucault’s work on ‘governmentality’ has
provoked widespread debate about the role of criminology within discourses
of power/knowledge. He argues that the governmentality literature offers ‘a
framework for analysing how crime is problematised and controlled’
(Garland, 1999: 15). In turn, it aids our understandings of criminological
discourse: why certain categories or crimes became the objects of inter-
national inquiry, and what types of knowledge were pursued and produced
by researchers in the field of crime control (see Walters, 2001).
Criminological discourses often pivot and orbit around modalities of
power (O’Malley, 1996; Stenson, 1999). Within contemporary market
societies, these modalities of power (such as crime control industries, private
40P 01 Walters (JS/D) 20/1/03 11:09 am Page 7
WALTERS: CRIMINOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
7
security, state and local regulatory authorities) provide multiple examples of
the differing ways in which society is governed. These new modes of
governance are informed by an ensemble of conservative and ‘middle-
ground’ ideologies (for example, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, communi-
tarianism and Third Wayism) that have become increasingly popular in the
United Kingdom (Hood, 1990; Giddens, 1998), the United States
(Osbourne and Gaebler, 1993), Australia (Castles et al., 1996) and New
Zealand (Boston et al., 1996). In this new mode of governance, the ‘myth of
the sovereign state’ (Garland, 1997) or state sovereignty over crime is eroded
and dispersed to private industry and the individual (Hughes, 1998).
Moreover, these emerging modes of governance foster notions of responsi-
bility. As a result, individuals, families and communities are urged to take
greater responsibility for the search for solutions to social and economic
ailments (Rose, 1996). In appealing for a more active responsibility in the
‘government’ of one’s own life and that of the family and the community,
this emergent mode of governance represents a profound recasting of the
relationship between state and citizen (cf. Hughes, 1998). Braithwaite (2000)
argues that this relationship is characterized by what he calls the ‘new regu-
latory state’, whereby the ‘steering process’ of policy development is clearly
demarcated from the ‘rowing process’ of implementation (cf. Osbourne and
Gaebler, 1993) in what is now recognized as a fundamental aspect of ‘govern-
ing at a distance’ (Miller and Rose, 1990). Or, as Rose (2000: 323–4) has
suggested, this advanced form of ‘liberal government’ is distinguished by the
state as ‘partner, animator and facilitator for a variety of independent agents
and powers, and should exercise only limited powers of its own, steering and
regulating rather than rowing and providing’.
These changing modes of governance are influencing the production of
crime control knowledge. As Simon (1987) argues, new technologies of rule
in ‘late modernity’ are characterized by actuarial forms of governance. These
mentalities of rule or governance aim to manage ‘risks’ within society. The
management of risk populations (those ‘at risk’ of ill health, unemployment,
criminal victimization, benefit dependency, and so on) as well as risk indus-
tries (at risk of profit loss, share devaluation and reduced productivity)
become key objectives of regulatory authorities (Simon, 1987; Ericson, 1994).
The identification of risk groups (through disseminating information and
implementing risk management strategies) becomes wedded to processes of
prediction and measurement (Feeley and Simon, 1992). Not surprisingly,
‘crime’ as a category of risk has created new discourses within criminology
and social science, which include references to community, individuals,
management and statistics (Pavlich, 2000a).
RISK MANAGEMENT AND CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH
O’Malley (1992) argues that risk management has become a growing
industry under conservative political ideologies. Individuals are encouraged
40P 01 Walters (JS/D) 20/1/03 11:09 am Page 8
8
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 12(1)
by commercialism to secure themselves and their families against an increas-
ing number of risks in what O’Malley refers to as the ‘new prudentialism’
(see O’Malley 1992).1 The practice of government has increasingly become
one of risk management (Beck, 1992). The management of risks has occurred
simultaneously with the ‘hollowing out of the state’ (Rhodes, 1994, 1997),
where the enhancement of personal security and safety, a traditional
function of state, has required the recruitment of the ‘community’ within a
politics of responsibilization and economic reform. Individuals within
communities or ‘territories of security’ (Rose, 2000) become responsible for
the protection and safety of their local environments within modes of
governance that promote technologies of prudentialism (O’Malley, 1996).
Rose (1996) argues that risk identification, assessment and management have
increasingly become the role of health professionals, financial advisors,
lawyers and other ‘experts’. Such professionals have traditionally provided
information for the identification and treatment or solution to a given
problem. Now they must provide strategies ‘to monitor and manage risks’
(Rose, 1996: 349).
What influence is this changing governing ethos having on criminological
researchers? There is a two-fold effect. First, new forms of...
NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE
AND THE COMMODIFICATION
OF CRIMINOLOGICAL
KNOWLEDGE
REECE WALTERS
University of Stirling, UK
ABSTRACT
This article explores the influence of new modes of governance on the production of
criminological knowledge. In doing so, it examines the rise of discourses on risk and
critiques the ways in which academic environments are changing under new manager-
ialist philosophies. The article further explores the increasing ‘commodification of
criminological knowledge’ and analyses its effect on contemporary criminological
scholarship. Finally, this article examines the contours of critical criminological
scholarship and advocates for a criminology of resistance.
INTRODUCTION
WHATAREthe dangers of a ‘market-led criminology’? How are new
modes of governance in contemporary society, which focus on risk
management, privatization, cost-effectiveness and individual
responsibility influencing the production of criminological knowledge?
What is the future for the critical voice within these changing economic and
political landscapes? Why ask questions about the production of crimino-
logical knowledge? Is this a topic worthy of debate? Surely criminology with
its increasing student numbers, its new degrees and journals and its flour-
ishing commercial opportunities are signs of a discipline in a healthy state?
Nowadays ‘success’ is often determined by acceptance, relevance or prolif-
eration. The litmus test for assessing quality must be content, and not volume,
popularity, political versatility or pragmatic relevance. Toffler (1965) critiqued
the ‘culture boom’ in the United States during the post-war years, described
as the cultural revolution or renaissance (Grana, 1964). As Americans began
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 0964 6639 (200303) 12:1 Copyright © 2003
SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi,
www.sagepublications.com
Vol. 12(1), 5–26; 030842
40P 01 Walters (JS/D) 20/1/03 11:09 am Page 6
6
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 12(1)
to crowd the theatres and art galleries during the early 1960s, many began to
question what the emergence of art affluence meant for contemporary society.
The art elitist referred to it as the vulgarization of art; others saw it as a cultural
revolution. Toffler (1965) argued that the booming industry of art was
insufficient to conclude that American society had become more cultured. He
argued: ‘I know people who have gone to concerts every week of their lives
and say they love music, but most can’t tell Bach from Haydn or know what
a grace note is. . . . Attendance, then, at a cultural event is alone not evidence
of culture’ (Mannes, quoted in Toffler, 1965: 12).
Therefore, is growth in criminological scholarship necessarily a sign of a
discipline in a healthy state? This article addresses the above questions and
assesses the current contours of criminological scholarship within governing
ideologies that promote application, relevance and ‘value-for-money’.
GOVERNMENTALITY AND CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH
NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE
Criminological scholarship has historically been governed by the policy
needs of state governments and by medicolegal disciplines that have influ-
enced the production of a pragmatic and state-defined knowledge about
crime causation and correction (Garland, 1997). Since the mid-1980s, much
academic and political debate has focused on the rise of conservative ideolo-
gies and economic reform in western democratic societies. The increasing
body of literature on ‘neocorporatism’, ‘neoliberalism’, ‘advanced liberal-
ism’, ‘new managerialism’, and so on examines new modes of governance in
late modernity and the influence that such economically driven policies have
had on contemporary social life. Influenced by the works of Foucault (1977,
1991), researchers across a variety of disciplines have examined new methods
of rule in what is broadly defined as discourses of governmentality
(Smandych, 1999). Within these discourses, we have witnessed flourishing
debates about government’s accountability, risk society (Simon, 1987; Beck,
1992; Douglas, 1992) and a concomitant nexus with policies of crime control
and prevention (O’Malley, 1998).
As Garland (1999) points out, Foucault’s work on ‘governmentality’ has
provoked widespread debate about the role of criminology within discourses
of power/knowledge. He argues that the governmentality literature offers ‘a
framework for analysing how crime is problematised and controlled’
(Garland, 1999: 15). In turn, it aids our understandings of criminological
discourse: why certain categories or crimes became the objects of inter-
national inquiry, and what types of knowledge were pursued and produced
by researchers in the field of crime control (see Walters, 2001).
Criminological discourses often pivot and orbit around modalities of
power (O’Malley, 1996; Stenson, 1999). Within contemporary market
societies, these modalities of power (such as crime control industries, private
40P 01 Walters (JS/D) 20/1/03 11:09 am Page 7
WALTERS: CRIMINOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
7
security, state and local regulatory authorities) provide multiple examples of
the differing ways in which society is governed. These new modes of
governance are informed by an ensemble of conservative and ‘middle-
ground’ ideologies (for example, neoliberalism, neoconservatism, communi-
tarianism and Third Wayism) that have become increasingly popular in the
United Kingdom (Hood, 1990; Giddens, 1998), the United States
(Osbourne and Gaebler, 1993), Australia (Castles et al., 1996) and New
Zealand (Boston et al., 1996). In this new mode of governance, the ‘myth of
the sovereign state’ (Garland, 1997) or state sovereignty over crime is eroded
and dispersed to private industry and the individual (Hughes, 1998).
Moreover, these emerging modes of governance foster notions of responsi-
bility. As a result, individuals, families and communities are urged to take
greater responsibility for the search for solutions to social and economic
ailments (Rose, 1996). In appealing for a more active responsibility in the
‘government’ of one’s own life and that of the family and the community,
this emergent mode of governance represents a profound recasting of the
relationship between state and citizen (cf. Hughes, 1998). Braithwaite (2000)
argues that this relationship is characterized by what he calls the ‘new regu-
latory state’, whereby the ‘steering process’ of policy development is clearly
demarcated from the ‘rowing process’ of implementation (cf. Osbourne and
Gaebler, 1993) in what is now recognized as a fundamental aspect of ‘govern-
ing at a distance’ (Miller and Rose, 1990). Or, as Rose (2000: 323–4) has
suggested, this advanced form of ‘liberal government’ is distinguished by the
state as ‘partner, animator and facilitator for a variety of independent agents
and powers, and should exercise only limited powers of its own, steering and
regulating rather than rowing and providing’.
These changing modes of governance are influencing the production of
crime control knowledge. As Simon (1987) argues, new technologies of rule
in ‘late modernity’ are characterized by actuarial forms of governance. These
mentalities of rule or governance aim to manage ‘risks’ within society. The
management of risk populations (those ‘at risk’ of ill health, unemployment,
criminal victimization, benefit dependency, and so on) as well as risk indus-
tries (at risk of profit loss, share devaluation and reduced productivity)
become key objectives of regulatory authorities (Simon, 1987; Ericson, 1994).
The identification of risk groups (through disseminating information and
implementing risk management strategies) becomes wedded to processes of
prediction and measurement (Feeley and Simon, 1992). Not surprisingly,
‘crime’ as a category of risk has created new discourses within criminology
and social science, which include references to community, individuals,
management and statistics (Pavlich, 2000a).
RISK MANAGEMENT AND CRIMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH
O’Malley (1992) argues that risk management has become a growing
industry under conservative political ideologies. Individuals are encouraged
40P 01 Walters (JS/D) 20/1/03 11:09 am Page 8
8
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 12(1)
by commercialism to secure themselves and their families against an increas-
ing number of risks in what O’Malley refers to as the ‘new prudentialism’
(see O’Malley 1992).1 The practice of government has increasingly become
one of risk management (Beck, 1992). The management of risks has occurred
simultaneously with the ‘hollowing out of the state’ (Rhodes, 1994, 1997),
where the enhancement of personal security and safety, a traditional
function of state, has required the recruitment of the ‘community’ within a
politics of responsibilization and economic reform. Individuals within
communities or ‘territories of security’ (Rose, 2000) become responsible for
the protection and safety of their local environments within modes of
governance that promote technologies of prudentialism (O’Malley, 1996).
Rose (1996) argues that risk identification, assessment and management have
increasingly become the role of health professionals, financial advisors,
lawyers and other ‘experts’. Such professionals have traditionally provided
information for the identification and treatment or solution to a given
problem. Now they must provide strategies ‘to monitor and manage risks’
(Rose, 1996: 349).
What influence is this changing governing ethos having on criminological
researchers? There is a two-fold effect. First, new forms of...
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