The Social in the Global: Social Theory, Governmentality and Global Politics

Year 2014, Volume: 6 Issue: 1, 1 - 3, 01.06.2014

Ulrich Hamenstädt

Abstract

Global change appears to us as a multifactorial and complex phenomenon. In his new book, Jonathan Joseph combines the concept of Hegemony from Gramsci with the Foucaultian Governmentality approach, in order to analyze this phenomenon more in detail. It is an outstanding monograph that works on how the neoliberal discourse and several central ideas of liberalism “trickle down” from the official papers of the World Bank or the IWF to the EU administration, and there of into the developing programs in Africa. What makes the book unique is the  theoretical framework that combines two central terms of critical IR theory: Foucault´s Governmentality approach and Gramsci´s notion of Hegemony. Joseph uses the concept of Hegemony to explain “why” certain phenomena become present, and the concept of Governmentality to answer the question “how” they function. 1 To summarize this in Jonathan Joseph´s own perspective: “While the neo-Gramscian approach tells us a lot about neoliberalism´s social and historical context, Governmentality tells us more about its rationality.

Keywords

Social, Theory, Governmentality