De aparelhos ideológicos de Estado ao nascimento da biopolítica, e volta

Abstract

In search of a theoretically informed reading of the recent transformations in the neoliberal subjectivation process, this article is based on the following question: to what extent does the Michel Foucault’s genealogy of governmentality dialogue, advance, and/or regress in relation to the framework of contributions and contradictions outlined in Louis Althusser’s work? The analysis is guided by the hypothesis that it is possible to read the Foucaultian genealogy of both discipline and governmentality as a concrete development of the research program of the political production of subjects defined in Althusser’s seminal essay. It is, therefore, a question of mapping the way in which Althusser informs Foucault to think of at what level such Foucaultian formulations can contribute to the (re)reading of Althusser and thus to a critique of both in favor of a framework of analysis better suited to the present conjuncture of capitalism