Foucauldian power is sovereign in origin and operation

Evidence

One of the most emblematic, and often cited, lines of the first volume of Foucault’s history of sexuality, La Volonté de savoir, published in 1976, the year of this course, is the trenchant remark “In thought and political analysis we have still not cut off the head of the king.” … In studying the historico-political discourse of war in this course, Foucault shows us one way to detach ourselves from the philosophicojuridical discourse of sovereignty and the law that has so dominated our thought and political analysis. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 250 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Boulainvilliers describes the phenomenon of power not in juridical terms of sovereignty but in historical terms of domination and the play of relations of force. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 4931 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Foucault’s eagerness not to fall into Marxist economism causes him to obliterate the role of classes, the role of economics, the role of insurgency and rebellion in the societies he discusses…. The problem is that Foucault’s use of the term pouvoir moves around too much, swallowing up every obstacle in its path, … obliterating change and mystifying its microphysical sovereignty…. Foucault’s history is ultimately textual or rather textualized; its mode is one for which Borges would have an affinity … they [his archaeologies] make not even a nominal allowance for emergent movements, and none for revolutions, counterhegemony, or historical blocs. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 373 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Foucault’s power is sovereign because it originates from no external source — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 194; Foucault sought to break thought free of the sovereign-model of power — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 250; Sovereign power makes principles rather than obeying them (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Foucault sought to break thought free of the sovereign-model of power #contradicts (0.95) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 250
• Domination and relations of force replace juridical sovereignty as the lens on power #contradicts (0.92) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 4931
• Foucault’s notion of power erases class and revolution #complicates (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 373
• The invisible hand doctrine functions to disqualify the political sovereign #complicates (0.72) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1457
• Political economy founded itself on the impossibility of an economic sovereign #complicates (0.72) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 1456
• Colonial sovereignty operates outside legal and institutional rules of warfare #complicates (0.70) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 84