Power is misimagined as exterior restriction rather than interior formation

Evidence

Disciplinary methods have two important consequences for an understanding of the colonial and modern state—only the first of which is analysed by Foucault. In the first place, one can move beyond the image of power as a system of authoritative commands or policies backed by force that direct and constrain social action. Power is usually imagined as an exterior restriction: its source is a sovereign authority above and outside society, and it operates by setting limits to behaviour, establishing negative prohibitions, and laying down channels of proper conduct. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 25

Categorization

• XREF: The contrast between power-as-prohibition and power-as-formation resonates with the Milgrom law-merchant material on how institutions shape behavior from within. — connects to: Only outcasts outside the system can mount uncooptable opposition — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 886; Elite power over the imperial matrix is not absolute; The constitutive outside must be incommensurable yet enable the inside — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 63 (+1 more)