Treating power as repression is a clichéd inheritance from Hegel and Freud.

Evidence

If power is exercised, what is the exercise of power? What does it consist of? What is its mechanism? We have here what I would call an off-thecuff answer, or at least an immediate response, and it seems to me that this is, ultimately, the answer given by the concrete reality of many contemporary analyses: Power is essentially that which represses. Power is that which represses nature, instincts, a class, or individuals. And when we find contemporary discourse trotting out the definition that power is that which represses, contemporary discourse is not really saying anything new. Hegel was the first to say this, and then Freud and then Reich.’ In any case, in today’s vocabulary, being an organ of repression is almost power’s Homeric epithet. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 34

Categorization

• XREF: Foucault later rejects the sovereign/repressive model in favor of productive power — the machinery the Islamophobia field inherits for analyzing discursive construction of the Other. — connects to: Repression and war are twin hypotheses about power’s mechanisms — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 36; Social change is explained by overdetermination drawn from Freud; Historical materialism is a break with rather than an inversion of Hegel. (+1 more)

Related

• The concept of repression is a juridico-disciplinary notion, tainted from the outset (similarity 0.81)
• Repression and war are twin hypotheses about power’s mechanisms (similarity 0.81)
• Western thought has no representation of power outside the legal model (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Repression and war are twin hypotheses about power’s mechanisms #qualifies (0.72) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 36
• Historical materialism is a break with rather than an inversion of Hegel. #expands (0.72)
• German idealists like Kant and Hegel remained essentially pre-Humian rationalists #corroborates (0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2449
• Social change is explained by overdetermination drawn from Freud #qualifies (0.70)