Michel Foucault on Power

Michel Foucault – the 20th century French philosopher has influenced the study of power and politics in a different philosophical view through his writings. The contribution of Foucault, through the understanding of power and politics is profound and transformative. He challenged traditional notions of power as something held by individuals or institutions and instead conceptualized power as diffuse, relational, and embedded in everyday practices and knowledge systems. 

Foucault’s analysis of power comes in two forms i.e. empirical and theoretical. The empirical concerned with historical form of power and how these emerged from previous forms of power. Foucault's power analysis begins on micro-level, with singular "force relations". According to him, force relations are an effect of difference, inequality or unbalance that exists in other forms of relationships (such as sexual or economic). Power, according to Foucault, operates through both tactics (individual-level actions) and strategies (larger, organized systems), and it is constantly shifting through interactions and resistance. 

According to Foucault there are three types of power in empirical form, namely, sovereign power, disciplinary power and bio power. Sovereign power is the traditional, top-down model seen in monarchies, where authority resides in a ruler who has the right to take life or property, often reinforcing power through public punishment. Disciplinary power, on the other hand, is modern and subtle, functioning through institutions like schools, prisons, and hospitals. It aims to train and control individuals by shaping their behaviours, desires, and identities using techniques like surveillance, normalization, and exams. 

Biopower shifts the focus from individuals to entire populations, managing life itself by regulating birth rates, health, sexuality, and demographic patterns through norms rather than force. It operates under the guise of optimizing life but has historically been used to justify control, exclusion, and even mass violence, such as in eugenics or modern wars framed as humanitarian interventions. Foucault’s broader aim is to reveal how deeply power shapes thought and behaviour, encouraging critical awareness and the potential for resistance and change.

This French philosopher, Michel Foucault, has had a major influence on political thought by fundamentally redefining the concept of power and how it operates in society. He had influenced the society with the help of some of his writings, namely: 

• Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason (1961), 
• The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences (1966), 
• Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (1975), 
• The history of sexuality: The will to knowledge.

Foucault’s overall political stance remains a subject of intense debate among scholars, with disagreements over both the consistency of his views throughout his career and the specific positions he held at different times. While interpretations vary widely—some viewing him as aligned with the political right for rejecting liberal notions of freedom and justice, and others seeing him as either a revolutionary leftist or transcending conventional political categories—there is general agreement that Foucault introduced a radically new approach to political thought. Central to this was his focus on power and subjectivity, approached through a historical lens and a discursive methodology that emphasized the study of texts and how discourse shapes institutions and beliefs. 

His work became explicitly political in the 1970s, during which he developed the genealogical method to analyse power's historical transformations. Before this period, in the 1960s, his work was more theoretical and less overtly political, and its implications remain contested. Overall, Foucault’s political thought aims to uncover how historical discourses shape modern political systems and ideologies.

- submitted by Pooja Rai, Ph D Scholar