Governable Places

Readings on Governmentality and Crime Control

Russell Smandych

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429763007
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

First published in 1999, this volume brings together for the first time the work of leading researchers in the new field of governmentality studies and crime control. Specific chapters of the volume are written by leading internationally-recognized criminologists and socio-legal scholars from Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Individual chapters deal with key theoretical and methodological issues now being addressed by researchers in the field, while also reporting the results of innovative theoretically-informed research on a range of substantive topics including: crime prevention: dangerousness: criminalisation and gender: risk management and government of drug users: along with the government of youth, property relations, urban space and indigenous peoples. Collectively, chapters reflect the range of new theoretical approaches and substantive research topics that are being developed by socio-legal scholars and criminologists who are working in the wake of the critical postmodern tide that is entering law and criminology partly through the influence of Foucault.

1 Introduction: The Place of Governance Studies in Law and Criminology

Russell Smandych

Recent years have witnessed an apparent erosion of state power accompanied by the rise of many different and new forms of governance which are beginning to take the place of state law and state justice institutions. Partly as a result of Michel Foucault's articulation of the need to decentre the state from social analysis (Foucault 1977, 1991), over the past 20 years researchers from numerous disciplines have directed attention to investigating the historical emergence and development of various forms of non-state or extra-state governance. Indeed, Foucault's (1991) effort at theorizing forms of governance - or governable places - which often exist outside the immediate view or interest of 'the state' has generated a huge amount of theoretical and empirical research across a wide range of social science and humanities disciplines (cf. Barry et al. 1996; Davidson 1997; O'Farrell 1997). In recent years, researchers in law and criminology have begun to use a variety of terms - including 'private justice', 'informalism', 'legal pluralism' and, most recently, 'governmentality' - to try to describe and develop a theoretical understanding of the complicated linkages connecting the various forms of state and non-state governance that appear to characterize modern societies. In addition, numerous studies have now been completed that provide data on the effect these new and changing forms of governance are having on individuals, communities and nation-states. The studies completed by socio-legal and criminology researchers have been pitched at several different levels of contemporary analysis, including: the study of community mediation as a political technology used in the formation of self-regulating citizens (Pavlich 1996a, 1996b); the discursive analysis of community crime prevention and community-based policing movements (O'Malley 1992; Stenson 1993; Pavlich, Chapter 5 in this volume); analyses of the changing character of labour law and labour-capital relations in an era of declining state power (Arthurs 1996); and the study of shifting power relations and agencies of governance in recently emerging post-communist and post-apartheid states (Loś 1994, 1995; Nina 1995; Shearing and Brogden 1993). Foucault's influence is also evident in historical work now being undertaken by both socio-legal and post-colonial researchers on the nature of 'colonial governmentality' (Scott 1995; Pels 1997; Hogeveen, Chapter 12 in this volume) and the way in which law may be implicated as a tool of European colonialism (Smandych and Lee 1995; Smandych and Linden 1996). Studies of this type (see also Ericson and Haggerty 1997; Feeley and Simon 1994; Fitzpatrick 1988, 1992; Garland 1996; Hunt and Wickham 1994; Hunt 1996; O'Malley 1991; Merry 1990, 1992; Rose and Miller 1992) have been accompanied by related recent attempts at developing a more adequate theoretical understanding of the significance of such changing forms of governance for constituted postmodern/post-colonial societies (see especially Cohen 1994; Merry 1995; Santos 1992, 1995). Although theoretically diverse, a common feature of this large body of work is the manner in which different authors have recognized the need for research aimed at unravelling the complex character of the relationship linking state and non-state forms of governance. In addition, a number of authors have made explicit use of Foucault's (1991) concepts of 'government' and 'governmentality' as a starting point for carrying out this research.

One of the issues raised in recent discussions, including those taken up in subsequent chapters of this current collection, is the question of the meaning and usefulness of these concepts for guiding socio-legal and criminological research. However, for present purposes, we can start with Hunt and Wickham's (1994: 52) observation that, for Foucault, 'Modernity ... is marked by the emergence of "government" and "governmentality"'. Hunt and Wickham, among others, point out that Foucault 'uses the term "government" in a way that is very different from the conventional sense of state executives and legislatures', and in a way that is 'consistent with his downgrading of the importance of the state'. In essence, he argues that government is 'not a matter of imposing laws on men, but rather of disposing things, that is to say to employ tactics rather than laws, and if need be to use the laws themselves as tactics' (Foucault 1991: 95). Another of Foucault's central contributions that has caught the attention socio-legal scholars and criminologists is his use of 'the neologism "governmentality" to capture the dramatic changes in techniques of government developed in the western world from the eighteenth century onwards' (Hunt and Wickham 1994: 175). According to Foucault, these changes included the development of 'a range of multiform tactics' for the government of populations outside the state, as well as 'the governmentalisation of the state' itself (Foucault 1991: 95, 101). Consequently, for him, (1991: 87), the study of the 'art of government' involved addressing questions of 'How to govern oneself, how to be governed, how to govern others, by whom the people will accept to be governed, and how to become the best possible governor' (ibid.: 87).

Most of the authors whose work appears in the present volume have been greatly influenced by Foucault's writings of the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which he considered the topic of government in relation to a wide range of issues, from that of 'the correct government of one's self to the pedagogic question of the government of children and the question of the government of the state by the monarch' (McNay 1994: 113). The influence of Foucault's thinking is increasingly coming to be reflected in the work of critical socio-legal scholars and criminologists who - like most of those included in the present volume - have begun to recognize that the study of the 'art of government' involves the study of a sweeping range of questions concerning the nature and form of various techniques, strategies and rationalities of liberal government.

This volume highlights the work that has been completed to date by leading English-speaking researchers working in the field of governmentality and crime control. Despite the argument that much of the current work of 'governmentality researchers' can be subsumed within the discipline of sociology (Garland 1997 and Chapter 2 in this volume), the current collection of essays clearly reflects the multidisciplinary character of the field, with 13 authors representing the six ostensibly separate disciplines of law, sociology, anthropology, geography, social work and criminology. The volume also reflects the growing international importance of studies of governmentality and crime control, as measured both by the country of origin of the contributing authors and the substantive and geographical focus of their research. Contributing authors represent countries including Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, while specific essays investigate either historical or contemporary developments surrounding governmentality and crime control in the UK (David Garland, Kevin Stenson), Australia (Pat O'Malley), New Zealand (George Pavlich), Eastern Europe (Maria Lo/l=s'/), Hawai'i (Sally Merry), Canada (Nicholas Blomley and Jeff Somers, Richard Ericson and Kevin Haggerty, Bryan Hogeveen), and cross-nationally (John Pratt, James Sheptycki). Collectively, the arguments and findings presented by these authors pose profound implications for future socio-legal and criminological research on a wide range of topics that can be seen to fall within the field of governmentality and crime control.

In his essay on '"Governmentality" and the Problem of Crime' David Garland (Chapter 2) offers a critique of the growing body of governmentality literature in law and criminology. He argues that while 'the governmentality literature offers a powerful framework for analysing how crime is problematized and controlled', it also has several limitations and problems. One of the problems with most governmentality research, according to Garland, is the tendency for researchers to look at 'government' as 'a problem-solving activity' mainly 'through the perceptual grid of the programmes and rationalities that the authorities generate to deal with them'. This methodological weakness is one of basically taking the statements of authorities concerning crime control at face value without trying to glean knowledge about crime control programmes and rationalities from other possible sources. Combined with this problem, Garland argues, is the tendency of governmentality researchers to direct their analyses towards 'technical and knowledge-based' crime-control rationalities, while neglecting 'the expressive, emotionally driven and morally toned currents' that play a large part in shaping crime control policy. Added to this, Garland argues, is the somewhat false impression given by governmentality researchers that their approach is unique and different from other discipline-based approaches to the study of crime and crime control, particularly sociological. On the contrary, Garland claims that the work of governmentality researchers shares a close affinity to theorizing and research that has a long history in the discipline of sociology, and that future work could benefit from extending governmentality studies by drawing on more critical forms of sociological theory.

Kevin Stenson (Chapter 3) offers a critique of Garland's claim about the principally sociological nature of governmentality studies. According to Stenson, Garland's argument is based on only a partial understanding of Foucault's key concepts of sovereignty, discipline and governmentality. In his programmatic discussion of these concepts, Foucault attempted to provide, in abstract form, a diagrammatic account of the contours of power and the conditions of possibility for making the institution of government and also for governance operating within delimited institutional spheres both thinkable and operable. While this attempt has helped to generate productive work on shifting modes of government/governance, Stenson maintains that it has also generated ambiguities in our understanding of these issues and what may count as acceptable research agendas. Most problematically, researchers following Foucault's lead have focused on forms of governmental knowledge, particularly as they tend to be seen in textual or written forms in legal and other professional contexts. Stenson argues that it is possible to further develop Foucault's key concepts of sovereignty, discipline and governmentality as tools for describing and analysing the complex interrelations of governing practices. Here the emphasis shifts from knowledge, more narrowly conceived, towards governing practices in which oral and textual forms of knowledge interpenetrate and are embedded in practices. According to Stenson, this shift in research agenda requires different forms of evidence, including ethnographic and other field-derived sources. He provides several examples from his own ethnographic research, including his work on the government of ethnic-based youth gangs in inner-city London, to illustrate his methodological prescriptions.

While Garland and Stenson offer contending theoretical and methodological prescriptions for future work in the field of governmentality and crime control, the remaining chapters of the book provide a variety of examples of the type of research that is now being completed by socio-legal scholars and criminologists who have begun to enter the field. While some of the analyses of different, and often shifting, programmes and strategies of government offered in the following chapters make limited direct reference to Foucault, others draw quite openly and heavily on Foucault's key concepts and arguments. Nevertheless, the work of these authors provides many illustrations of the substantive topics and new theoretical approaches that are now being developed by socio-legal scholars and criminologists who are working in the wake of the critical postmodern tide that is now entering law and criminology, partly through the influence of Foucault.

In her essay on the changing governance of sexuality and gender violence in Hawai'i, Sally Engle Merry (Chapter 4) draws on Foucault to provide a starting point for her analyses of laws that criminalize specific gendered aspects of family life. Specifically, Merry notes that, in his analysis of the development of the art of government to the mid-eighteenth century, Foucault recognizes a shift in the significance of the family; as governmentality increasingly focuses on populations, the family disappears as a model of government and instead becomes an element within the population and a fundamental instrument in its governance. Merry extends Foucault's analysis, arguing that, since the mid-eighteenth century, there have been significant variations within this pattern in response to particular cultural configurations and processes such as capitalist transformation, colonialism and globalization. Moreover, Merry contends that recently in advanced capitalist societies, the family as a sovereign unit of governance seems to be becoming more effaced, and that individuals are coming more directly under state systems of governance, particularly within subordinate class groups. In her essay, she compares two instances in which the laws of Hawai'i have criminalized certain practices of family life. The first, in the 1840s and 1850s, redefined all sexual relations outside the marriage bond as crimes. The second, in the 1990s, redefined acts of violence against women within marriages as crimes. According to Merry, both of these changes reflect the legal construction and reconstruction of family relationships through criminal law. At the same time, these examples illuminate historical variations in the way the governance of the family is embedded in the governance of the state.

George Pavlich (Chapter 5) explores another pervasive development in criminal justice in the 1990s that can be more adequately understood by taking into account Foucault's insights on governmentality - namely, community crime prevention. According to Pavlich, in recent decades, and in a variety of contexts, rationales of 'social governance' have been affected by the rising popularity of an amorphous quest for 'community' regulation. Like other observers (cf. Cohen 1985), Pavlich notes that, consequently, in recent years, 'community-based' crime prevention schemes have been put into place alongside residual patterns of 'state' social control. In his essay, Pavlich analyses emerging neo-liberal governmental rationales around community crime prevention measures in Aotearoa/New Zealand, recognizing that there are important parallels with commensurate 'community' crime initiatives elsewhere. His overall thesis is that 'the rise of community crime prevention is not just a slight adjustment to political technique; rather, the very notions of who is governed, who governs and what governance entails are in the process of significant revision'. According to Pavlich, 'along with altering governmental rationalities come changes in the objects of governance (abnormal individuals in society versus prudent and "at-risk" groups or victims in the community), and who governs (individual social science experts as opposed to rational, responsible, managerially focused, enterprising, prudent selves). Finally, the very notion of what it is to govern is recast, and the emphasis on corrective disciplinary techniques is shifted with the rise of actuarial technologies and techniques of self that seek to "manage" risk in the "self-interests" of predefined communities.' Pavlich also offers an analysis of possible dangers associated with this ongoing shift from 'social-welfare' to 'neo-liberal' crime prevention measures and rationalities.

John Pratt (Chapter 6) studies the extent to which recent reforms...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Series Preface
• 1 Introduction: The Place of Governance Studies in Law and Criminology
• 2 'Governmentality' and the Problem of Crime
• 3 Crime Control, Governmentality and Sovereignty
• 4 Criminalization and Gender: The Changing Governance of Sexuality and Gender Violence in Hawai'i
• 5 Preventing Crime: 'Social' versus 'Community' Governance in Aotearoa/New Zealand
• 6 Governmentality, Neo-Liberalism and Dangerousness
• 7 Governing the Young
• 8 Consuming Risks: Harm Minimization and the Government of 'Drug-users'
• 9 Policing, Postmodernism and Transnationalization
• 10 Beyond the Law: The Virtual Reality of Post-Communist Privatization
• 11 Mapping Urban Space: Governmentality and Cartographic Struggles in Inner City Vancouver
• 12 An Intrusive and Corrective Government: Political Rationalities and the Governance of Plains Aboriginals 1870-90
• Index