Foucault and the Modern International

This book addresses the possibilities of analyzing the modern international through the thought of Michel Foucault. The contributors question four of the most self-evident characteristics of our contemporary world-'international,' '(neo)liberal,' 'biopolitical' and 'global'-and thus fill significant gaps in both international and Foucault studies. The chapters discuss what a Foucauldian perspective does or does not offer for understanding international phenomena while also questioning many appropriations of Foucault's work. This transdisciplinary volume will serve as a reference for scholars and students of international relations, international political sociology, international political economy, political theory/philosophy and critical theory more generally.

1. Introduction: The International as an Object for Thought.- 2. The Figure of Foucault and the Field of International Relations.- 3. Michel Foucault and International Relations: Cannibal Relations.- 4. Microphysics Of Power Redux.- 5. Political Spirituality: Parrhesia, Truth And Factical Finitude.- 6. Power as Sumbolon: Sovereignty, Governmentality and the International.- 7. Foucault and Method.- 8. Silencing Colonialism: Foucault and The International.- 9. Violence and the Modern International: An Archaeology of Terrorism.- 10. Foucault and the Historical Sociology of Globalization.- 11. On Liberalism: Limits, the Market and the Subject.- 12. On Bureaucratic Formalization: The Reality-Like Fiction of Neoliberal Abstractions.- 13. Too-Late Liberalism: From Promised Prosperity to Permanent Austerity.- 14. Biopolitics in the Twenty-First Century: The Malthus-Marx Debate and the Human Capital Issue.- 15. Mesopolitics: Foucault, Environmental Governmentality and the History ofthe Anthropocene.- 16. The Word and the Things: An Archaeology of An Amnesic Notion.- 17. Foucault and Geometrics.- 18. Conclusion.