Sovereignty theory was retained as ideology to mask disciplinary power

Evidence

Foucault in fact has argued that the new disciplinary power was something ‘absolutely incompatible’ with the notion of the authority or sovereignty of the state. The theory of sovereignty, he argues, was retained merely as an ideology, ‘to be superimposed upon the mechanisms of discipline in such a way as to conceal its actual procedures’. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 545

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s own argument about the incompatibility of sovereignty and discipline — useful as a quoted anchor for anyone writing on disciplinary power. — connects to: Kirchheimer framed Bolshevik rule as sovereign over the merely constitutional Social Democratic state — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 954; The invisible hand doctrine functions to disqualify the political sovereign — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 1457; Hayek rejects sovereignty as a false theological concept — Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise…, 113