Digital governmentality: Participatory governance vs. biopolitics

Abstract

The notion of governmentality was first used by the French postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault during his lectures at the College de France in 1978-1979. The term is one of the characteristics of political power, along with sovereignty and discipline, but it characterizes its later stages of evolution. Foucault and his commentators give multiple meanings to this term, but perhaps the most accurate ones are the definition of governmentality as a way of rational thinking about the realization of political power and governmentality as the art of government. The emergence of governmentality is associated with the emergence of political economy and implies the use of biopolitical techniques, a concept that Foucault introduces to emphasize the need for socio-humanitarian knowledge in disciplining the “political body”. Evolution and peculiarities of biopolitics are discussed in detail in this article in relation to each type of governmentality. This article examines three types of governmentality (liberalism, authoritarianism, neoliberalism) introduced by the French thinker and proposes considering a new type of governmentality that characterizes the modern stage of society’s development. Here we use a governmentality concept as a methodological instrument for analysis of a new type of governance. The author notes that digital governmentality is characterized by governance using digital platforms. The article provides a detailed description of the architecture of one such platforms, as well as a set of algorithms that will mediate the interaction between the population and government representatives. The purpose of this article is to identify the essence of digital governmentality and its nature. Is the emerging form of public governance through digital platforms, as a consequence of its digitalization, democratic and participatory, or is it still a more sophisticated way of governing the population using manipulative, biopolitical strategies? An attempt to answer this question is made in the article by considering both the evolution of the term governmentality itself and the technological features of digital platforms with their interpretation based on Michel Foucault’s concept.