Source :A. Eleveld, 'Government through Freedom: The Technology of the Life Cycle Arrangement', in: W. Zeydanlıoğlu and J. T. Parry,
Rights, Citizenship & Torture: Perspectives on Evil, Law and the State, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, forthcoming
Government through Freedom:
The Technology of the Life Cycle Arrangement
Anja Eleveld
This is an uncorrected version. Forthcoming in Rights,
Citizenship & Torture: Perspectives on Evil, Law and the State,
W. Zeydanlıoğlu and J. T. Parry (eds), Oxford: InterDisciplinary Press, 2009.
Abstract
Scholars, drawing on Foucault’s concept of ‘governmentality’, have shown
that, notwithstanding the decline of the sovereignty image of a single source
of law and authority, political power is still present in different forms of
government. In fact, as will be shown in a genealogy of liberalism, the
distinguishing feature of liberal government under advanced liberalism,
proves to be government through freedom. In the same way, the author will
demonstrate how the conduct of the workers is governed by the technology of
the Life Cycle Arrangement (LCA), a recently introduced Dutch arrangement
which enables workers to save a part of their income to finance future leave.
The analysis in this chapter is based on the examination of a number of
contrasting narratives which preceded the LCA. It will be concluded that
government implies the promotion of a new ethos, then through the LCA,
citizens are encouraged to identify themselves with workers and parents as
responsible life planners. Possibly, in the future, the population will be
divided along new lines of division of included independent, self improving,
rational life planners and the excluded who lack these abilities to a greater or
lesser extent.
Key Words: Governmentality, power, freedom, Foucault, narratives, welfare
state, insurance, Life Cycle Arrangement
1.
Introduction
It is difficult not to agree with Foucault when he argues that the
presentation of the state as a Nietzchian ‘cold monster’ 1 should be taken as
an overvaluation of the modern Western liberal state. In fact, we are now
facing a shift in the vocabulary in political analysis and policy making from
terms such as ‘the state’, ‘power’ and ‘sovereignty’ to ‘governance’,
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‘deliberation’ and ‘interdependence’. 2 These vocabulary changes seem to
indicate that the exercise of power vanishes with the emergence of new
forms of governance. Therefore, in political thought and analysis, as Foucault
has stated, ‘we still have not cut off the head of the king.’ 3
This chapter will argue that in current political analysis, the working
of power should not be underestimated. Scholars, drawing on Foucault’s
concept of ‘governmentality’, have shown that, notwithstanding the decline
of the sovereignty image of a single source of law and authority, political
power is still present in different forms of government. It manifests itself in
dispersed and shifting alliances in order to govern the conduct of individuals
and groups. 4 Along these lines of thought, scholars like Dean and Rose
object to the liberal dichotomy between freedom and autonomy on the one
hand and power on the other. Their analyses show us that the neo-liberalist
turn in Western democracies can not solely be explained in terms of freedom
and autonomy. Instead, these reforms entail a new way of government that
use different power mechanisms.
Whereas, in governmentality literature, the right to liberty is not
regarded as an absolutism or as a fundamental right, contributions to this
volume of Susan Herman, Francine Baker and Francesca Dominello are put
in a new perspective. For example, if we accept that the concept of liberty is
the result of (governmental) power, which decides which notion of liberty
must be accepted, the difficulties in handling challenges to the legality of
antiterrorism surveillance as experienced by several American courts (see for
example Susan Herman’s contribution), can be understood in a different way.
Indeed, an abstract juridical concept of liberty turns out to be challenged and
shaped by political force and powerful discourses.
The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the arguments of the
governmentality literature by an analysis of the Dutch Life Course
Arrangement (LCA). In the first part of this chapter governmentality
literature will be explored. The concepts of governmentality and government
will be explained by presenting a genealogy of liberalism in which liberalism
is analysed as an art of government. The emphasis is put on the relationship
between the concept of liberty and social law. In this respect, only a slight
difference with the other contributions in this section can be observed, as it
will be revealed that social law, just like criminal law, is able to impede
personal freedom. In the second part of this chapter the attention will shift to
the analysis of the LCA. It is argued that the technology of the LCA involves
‘government through freedom’, which has repercussions on the kind of
identity that is presupposed. In the concluding paragraph different threads
will be put together by demonstrating how in the LCA power and freedom
are interrelated by presenting a glimpse of a possible future.
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2.
Governmentality
By interpreting power as a way of government, or ‘the conduct of
the conduct’, instead of a relationship between the sovereign (the king, the
parliament, or the law) and the subject, Foucault designed a new concept of
power. 5 This new concept of power was elaborated by a number of scholars.
In the next two paragraphs, I will draw for the most part on the works of
Dean and Rose. Dean explains government as:
…any more or less calculated and rational activity, undertaken
by a multiplicity of authorities and agencies, employing a
variety of techniques and forms of knowledge, that seeks to
shape conduct by working through our desires, aspirations,
interests and beliefs, for definite but shifting ends and with a
diverse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects
and outcomes. 6
Thus, government can be distinguished from simple domination. To
govern people is not to diminish their capacity to act, but to presuppose their
freedom and to have knowledge of their capacities to act and use it for the
purposes of government. 7 Government can be conducted by a plurality of
agents and authorities and includes the government of the self. In addition, to
govern involves thinking about and have knowledge of persons to be
governed. Dean’s explanation of government also contains Foucault’s
concept of governmentality, which particularly refers to these methods of
collecting knowledge on the population and the political economy, resulting
in an extended governmental apparatus. 8
In governmentality studies, the principal question to be asked is how
government is conducted. This implies that an analysis of government starts
with the question, how are regimes or practices of government, or ‘the
organised ways of doing things’ 9 called into question? These thoughts that
seek to change the conduct of the governed are reproduced in governmental
programmes. However, as Dean points out, instead of focusing on the
explicitly calculated, programmatic logic, the analysis of government shifts
to the ‘non-subjective intentionality’, or ‘intrinsic logic’ of these
programmes. The object of an analysis of government then is ‘to seek to
constitute the intrinsic logic or strategy of a regime of practices’ 10 which is
not reducible to explicit formulated programmes.
Dean depicts different dimensions of analysis. The first dimension
examines the mechanisms, instruments, technologies etc., used by
government to pursue its objectives. The second dimension relates to the
episteme of government. For example, it might be asked how thoughts on
government are translated in programmes 11 and political rationalities. How
do these practices of government generate forms of knowledge? What means
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of calculation are used in these practices of government? In fact, we can
observe how the concept of governmentality obtains a central place in this
dimension. Thirdly, it can be examined how government works through the
construction of certain individual and collective identities. Accordingly, it
can be asked which forms of the self, or what kind of identities are promoted
or presupposed by programmes of government. 12
3.
A Genealogy of Liberalism
As we saw in the previous section, government involves the shaping
of the conduct of free acting people. As a consequence we can never fully
understand what it means to be free to live and act. What we can do is to
develop a critical stance towards our Western concept of freedom through a
historical analysis. For this reason, this section will present a genealogy of
liberalism. According to Foucault, genealogy differs from a teleological
historical analysis in which certain historical evens are explained as being
part of some achieved, glorified end. Genealogy instead, ‘must record the
singularity of events outside of any monotonous finality, it must seek them in
the most unpromising places, in what we tend to feel is without history.’ 13 In
genealogy attention is directed to questions of how particular truths,
rationalities and technologies for a particular government came into being,
so as to provoke critical thought on the present. 14 Thus, liberalism will not be
studied as an ideology or a philosophy of freedom, but as a practice which
must be understood in its own historical context. 15 In addition, certain
governmental practices within liberalism will be examined by the use of the
analytic tools presented above.
3.1
The Governmentalisation of the State
According to Foucault, in Europe, the starting point of modern
government as autonomous rationality, or state reason, can be traced back to
the sixteenth century, when the state was no longer envisioned as being part
of a divine or cosmic order. This new style of political government which
entails a knowledge of the state, gets an impulse in the German territories
after 1648 and is called polizeiwissenschaft, or ‘science of police’. The
central aim of police is to foster the prosperity and happiness of the people
and the strength of the state. Government takes place not through general
forms of law, but through specified, detailed regulations and decrees which
extend to manners and morals. The ‘population’ then increasingly becomes a
new object of government. The ‘productive logic’ used by these new forms
of government can be contrasted with the ‘deductive logic’ used by forms of
sovereignty before the sixteenth century. Whereas divine sovereignty used a
technology of subtraction by taking away goods from the people and was
exercised through the right to kill and to live, new forms of government aim
to aspire to create wealth and prosperity. 16
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It is this growing concern with the population which Foucault
characterizes as bio-politics and which, in the eighteenth century, initiates the
‘governmentalisation of the state’. 17 The members of a society are no longer
simply conceived as subjects bound together in a territory, but as ‘living,
working and as social beings with their own customs, habits, history and
forms of labour. In addition, the knowledge of the population in the forms of
statistical and demographic accounts becomes an object of government. As
Dean argues, bio-politics can be considered as a precondition of classical
liberalism; conversely, liberalism can also be conceived as a critique of state
reason, a kind of critique that sets limits to the action of the state. 18 In fact,
liberalism tries not only to manoeuvre between the demands of bio-politics
and the ‘new’ demand of economy, liberalism is also confronted with
individuals who are both economic subjects of interest and legal subjects of
rights. 19 In this respect, sovereign power is threatened by either loosening the
economic domain from the space of sovereignty or turning into an executive
institution of economic science. Foucault explains how, under liberal
government, this problem is solved by identifying society as the domain
which has to be governed. 20 Society is portrayed as an already existing nonpolitical, natural domain, thus it cannot be regarded as the outcome of
sovereign power or a fictional ‘social contract’. As Burchell asserts,
‘(through the government of society) the unifying framework of legalpolitical sovereignty is not in itself challenged, but only the identity of
governmental reason with a totalising reason of the sovereign state’. 21
The objective of governing, then, becomes ‘securing the conditions
of the optimal and, as far as possible, autonomous functioning of economic
processes within society’. As it will be explained more extensively later,
instead of respecting the rights and freedoms of the citizens, liberalism
governs its subjects by forming their identity for purposes of the security of
the state. For example, whereas in a police state security is used as a
condition for liberty, in liberalism this relationship is reversed, hence
responsible liberty is necessary to secure the natural processes of economy
and population, which in turn must be guaranteed by mechanisms of
regulation. 22 Hence, as Foucault argues, a liberal art of government must
manufacture and organize freedom. 23 In addition, we can observe a
transformation of law as a coercive technique of sovereignty into a set of
regulatory mechanisms. According to Ewald, law can no longer be regarded
in essentialist terms now that its validity is derived from its relation to a
common standard. 24 Public conduct is thus regulated according to the
division of the normal and the abnormal, or the pathological. As a
consequence, to regulate the behaviour of people, the enforcement of law is
not required and the exclusive connection between power and law dissolves.
Indeed, in the disciplinary society free individuals are to be governed as
normal subjects. 25
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3.2
The Social Question
In the nineteenth century, in a number of European countries liberal
government gave rise to the ‘social question’. Initially, it was widely
believed that these problems of urban misery, unhygienic conditions and
poverty could be solved by the technique of moral responsibility. 26 Dutch
laissez faire economists, for example, permitted state interference as long as
it was limited to the encouragement of a virtuous life style. 27 At the end of
the nineteenth century however, it became clear that this technology did not
provide a sufficient answer to the problematic of social fragmentation and the
28
danger of social unrest. In this period, the social insurance emerged as a
major innovative governmental technology. As Ewald contends, the
collective insurance can be distinguished from the technique of law in that
the juridical moral logic of responsibility disappears. 29 Insurance allows the
group to make social judgments with respect to itself in a way that always
reflects the current state of society and is based on normative rather than
prescriptive evaluation. Through collective insurance the burden of
individual injuries is spread over a group, according to a collectively agreed
principle of justice. 30 According to Ewald, with normalizing effects,
insurance can be conceived as a technology to promote a solidaristic society
and to dissipate social conflict. In addition, insurance is a technology which
forms the identities of the subjects, as one can no longer place one’s life in
the hands of God, instead one is expected to take responsibility of one’s life.
Then, to ‘calculate risk is to manage time and to discipline the future.’ 31
In the twentieth century the technique of insurance is extended to
other risks and after the Second World War, in a number of liberal Western
states mandatory contributions are replaced by indirect contributions via
taxation. As a consequence, the membership of a society itself creates a right
to social security and the character of insurance is significantly
transformed. 32 According to O’Malley, this new art of government relates to
a modernist way of approaching problems. Through the deployment of
rational scientific measures, the ‘welfarist’ 33 government aims to regulate
society through the disappearance of all risks. 34 Hence, the rise of the welfare
state is strongly connected to the objective of a well-ordered society. In the
case of the Dutch state, for example, it is acknowledged that the extended
welfare state was not only built to favour certain groups, but because it was
necessary for a well functioning society. 35
This new form of society which provides citizens with civil,
political and social rights, also created a new image of the social citizen. As
it was emphasized in the Beveridge report, a report which has been the basis
for post-war Anglo-Saxon system of social security, the technology of social
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insurance would promote a sense of personal responsibility and mutual
obligation on the part of each citizen. 36 Hence, Rose argues that in the
welfare state the conduct of the ‘social citizen’ is evaluated according to the
social moral. 37 On the other hand, O’Malley contends that compulsory
insurance also entails a re-imagining of thrift. Instead of focusing on the
moral problematic of thrift and seeking to govern working class thrift by
weekly collection of insurance premiums, Beveridge imagines insurance in
terms of commodities. The necessary commodities are to be delivered by the
state and financed by compulsory insurance, and voluntary thrift is left to the
field of personal needs. Voluntariness loses the connotation with ‘discipline’
and becomes a matter of choice. As a consequence, the citizen is to be
regarded as a consumer and concepts such as ‘frugality’ and ‘thrift’ lose their
significance. 38 As it will be explained in the next section, during the
twentieth century the image of the citizen as a consumer will gain
significance.
3.3
Advanced Liberalism
At the end of the 1970s, the ‘welfarist’ art of governing came to be
increasingly criticized for suppressing responsibility, deterring risk taking,
and increasing relations of dependency. These critique gave rise to a new
rationality of government, which Rose calls, ‘advanced liberalism’. 39 Though
advanced liberalism is well known for its governmental strategy which is
based on market relations, governmentality literature points to another
perspective, which is, in advanced liberalism government is conducted
through the freedom of individuals. In other words, the objective of
government is to shape subjects into individuals who are capable of making
autonomous decisions. For example, Cruikshank has shown how welfare
dependants in the United States who were to be ‘empowered’ by
governmental bureaucracy, were subjected to governmental strategies which
acted as a ‘qualitative transformation of forms of subjectivity’. 40
Paradoxically, ‘empowering subjects’ implied employing governmental
strategies which were embedded in relations of power.
Other examples of government in advanced liberalism concern the
government of the unemployed and workers through discourses of ‘human
capital’ and ‘life long learning’. For Foucault, the worker increasingly
becomes responsible for his own investment decisions and is thus considered
as an enterprise, an entrepreneur of him/herself. 41 According to Rose, two
interrelated technologies, the technologies of consumption and of
psychology, have enabled people ‘to be governed and to govern
themselves’. 42 With regard to the former, Rose contends that in the age of
mass consumption, citizens are increasingly viewed as consumers. The
identities of individuals are shaped by the power of the goods and the
rationalities worked out by salesmen, market researchers, etc. Thus,
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consumption technology creates an image of living a life that is both pleasant
and in accordance with the norms of civil society. Subsequently, images of
the self and an ethical life extend beyond matters of buying and selling.
Individuals now govern themselves as ‘they shape a style of life for
themselves through the acts of choice in a world of goods.’ 43 For instance,
even a question of having or not having children is no longer represented as a
matter of nature, but as a matter of lifestyle choice. 44 Moreover, with regard
to domains such as health, education and insurance, ‘individuals are not
merely ‘free to choose’, but obliged to be free to understand and enact their
lives in terms of choice’, 45 or alternatively, consumers have to live their lives
in terms of risk-management. 46 These processes are reinforced by
psychological technologies. As Rose explains, nowadays, instead of
producing knowledge of the normal or social individual, the science of
psychology ‘lies in the know-how of the autonomous individual striving for
self-realisation’. 47 The individual takes up the therapeutic language and
techniques in their daily life, as a result of which the disciplined and
normalised subjects are transformed into demanding consumers who do not
view their life anymore as a matter of fate, but as the outcome of individual
acts of choice. The self is now regarded as a knowledgeable object which can
reach autonomy through a process of self improvement by the deployment of
rational knowledge and techniques. 48
These developments in society thus enables a new art of government
in which the citizen is to become a consumer who considers his life and that
of his family as an enterprise. 49 The language of obligations, duty and social
citizenship has been replaced by creativity and self actualisation. Individuals
are now linked to society by acting as active agents whether in the form of
consumer or employer, who make responsible choices. 50 In this respect
O’Malley points out that in the nineteenth century as well as in recent times,
government envisions an uncertain future. However, the future is shaped
differently. Whereas in the nineteenth century the government would
promote prudential habits for the working class, advancing a ‘defensive
uncertainty’, we are currently instructed to practice a ‘creative uncertainty’. 51
Accordingly, we can observe how our conception of the future is shaped by
power.
The control mechanism of the advanced liberal government also
differs from earlier forms. Government does not take place through
technologies of moralization, discipline or solidarity, instead government
operates trough the creation of an ethical subjectivity. According to Rose,
control functions:
through the rational reconstruction of the will and of the
habits of independence, life planning and self improvements
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…so that the individual can be reinserted…into the
continuous circuits and flows of control society 52
In comparison, individuals who cannot or will not act in accordance
with ‘the ethics of virtuous self responsibility’ 53 will be submitted to
‘authoritarian’ measures. As a result, new forms of exclusions emerge,
consisting of people living on welfare, lacking education, social and cultural
capital and/or a spirit of improvement. 54 As Dean explains, the governmental
constructions of freedom can said to be curved out of the substantive forms
of life which are only known through these exceptions. To clarify this
argument, one can think of a person living on welfare. In the Western liberal
concept, s/he will be regarded as a dependent citizen. Hence, the Western
liberal concept of freedom is derived from the independent citizen not living
on welfare. However, according to a less dominant standard of a
countermovement, such as the squatters’ movement, s/he might be
considered an independent person, who is pursuing his/her own goal in life.
The al-Qaeda terrorist provides us with another powerful example.
In a Western perspective, s/he will be judged an antithesis of freedom,
whereas from a different point of view, it can be argued that s/he is operating
as a highly autonomous person. 55 According to Dean, these examples show
us that the concept of freedom in advanced liberalism is derived from the
norm of the autonomous subject which is identified by exceptions or
pathologies. Consequently, these exceptions are to be remedied by
authoritarian governmental power. 56 In this respect, Dean reveals how the
long-term unemployed and single parents are increasingly being subjected to
different kind of rules, which eventually affects the dignity of the individual.
For example, single mothers are not blamed for having children, but for
wrongly planning their lives, thereby sanctioning the imposition of forced
labour. As a result, the ultimate sanction consists of a withdrawal of
assistance which in fact results in a withdrawal of the means of life. It could
therefore be argued that in advanced liberalism ‘obligation has become more
fundamental than rights and enforcement has replaced entitlement’. 57
As it was pointed out in the introduction, governmentality literature
thus illuminates a paradox between the discourse on the decrease of powerful
sovereignty and the simultaneous enlargement of control by a rational
reconstruction of the will and the enhancement of the use of coercive
measures in the treatment of certain sections of society. 58
3.4
Freedom and Power
A genealogy of liberalism reveals how starting at the end of the
eighteenth century, instead of regulating all aspects of life, the liberal art of
government implied ‘governing the processes in society’, a domain which is
situated outside the domain of political authority. Hence, the episteme of
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government involves securing the prosperity and happiness of the people and
autonomous economic processes within society. Initially, liberalism ruled
through the ‘natural processes’ in society, including existing normalising
practices. In later phases liberalism also governed through the technology of
insurance and the obligations of social citizenship, fostering an ethos of
personal responsibility and mutual obligation. As the welfarist state appeared
to be counterproductive, because of its negative effects on individual
responsibility and increasing relationships of dependency, the episteme of
government was modified. Programmes of government no longer seek to
govern all risks. Instead, the political rationality refers to an uncertain future,
which has to be managed by enterprising individuals. Subsequently,
governmental technologies are derived from the technologies of consumption
and psychology. Government takes place through the reconstruction of the
will in which an ethos of independence, life planning and self improvement
is promoted and through the use of coercive measures towards citizens who
are not able to conform to this new ethos. The distinguishing feature of
liberal government under advanced liberalism proves to be government
through freedom, a freedom which is be shaped by relations of power. It
should, however, be noted that in the analysis of governmentality,
government through freedom is not something which principally should be
opposed. Instead, a genealogy of freedom tries to be critical of the way
freedom is presented as freedom is a historically contingent notion that is
closely related to power. 59
4.
The Dutch Life Course Arrangement
In the second part of this contribution the LCA will be examined by
using the concepts of the governmentality literature. In order to answer the
question of how the conduct of people is governed by the LCA, the method
of narrative analysis will be deployed, a research method which will be
explained in section 4.1. Following this, our attention will shift to the seven
narratives which were told in the processes of the development of a life
course policy (sections 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4). Finally, we will analyse how
government becomes possible through the LCA. Before moving to the
analysis of the LCA, the operation of LCA and the formal political rationality
that is connected to this arrangement will be clarified.
The LCA was introduced to Dutch law in 2006 and facilitates the
saving of a part of an income before tax. The worker can dispose his savings
when taking up a period of full-time or part-time unpaid leave. During the
period of unpaid leave, monthly payments are transferred to the worker.
Generally speaking, the leave-taker pays less tax, which generates a financial
advantage, particularly for participants with a high income. 60 In addition, the
worker on leave is, with a maximum of 18 months, insured against
unemployment and disability. The LCA is likely to be extended in future in
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order to finance periods of unemployment. 61 Because of its individual
character, the LCA is considered to be a third pillar on top of the basic social
protection provided by the first pillar (basic social insurance) and the second
pillar protection for organised (collective agreements). According to the
explanatory memorandum of the legislative proposal for the LCA, the main
purpose of this arrangement is to facilitate transitions in life, like those
between work and parenting and work and education. 62 So as to profit from
fiscal facilitation, the purpose of taking a period of leave is irrelevant as it
can be obtained for a sabbatical, care, education or for other reasons.
According to the expressed rationality, it might be concluded that the
LCA encourages workers to save a part of their income for the purpose of
taking leave. Hence, this arrangement can be analyzed as a practice of
government which seeks to govern the conduct of workers in a particular
way. In order to understand the intrinsic logic of the LCA,, we will in the
next section examine the emergence of this arrangement.
4.1
Narratives Preceding the LCA
Since the LCA concerns the conduct of workers, our analysis is
concerned with the way the government of the conduct of workers was
problematised. For this purpose, governmental documents were selected in
the period between 1995 and 2002 on the use of the word ‘life course
perspective’. 63 Furthermore, the data consist of interviews, a report, and few
journal articles which reveal certain ideas and plans on the LCA of the Dutch
Christian-Democratic Party (CDA) that operates at the centre of the political
spectrum. It was during this party’s administration that the LCA was
introduced. 64
A few words have to be said here about the method used to analyse
these documents. According to political scientists using interpretative
methods, policy documents can be conceived of as attempts to structure and
give meaning to a chaotic reality. 65 A narrative can be defined as a ‘form of
human comprehension that is productive of meaning by its imposition of
certain formal coherence on a virtual chaos of events’. 66 Therefore, as a
consequence of the nature of most of the data, the analysis of the ‘narratives’
which were told in the documents were chosen as the main method of
research. The narratives were further selected by their content, i.e. the
problematisation of the government of workers.
4.1.1
Paid Work and Care in the Modern Society
The first narrative can be given the name of its programme: ‘the
enhancement of labour market participation of women’. Interestingly, the
authorities view the enhancement of labour participation of women as an
‘autonomous process’, indicating that generally speaking, the government of
the labour market participation of women is beyond the control of the central
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government. According to the rationality in this narrative, the participation
of women in the labour market should be increased for emancipatory
reasons. A second rationality attached to this programme can be detected in
the narrative of the modern society. This narrative tells the story of the
potential shortage of labourers and the accompanying fear of lagging behind
in the world economy. According to both narratives, increased participation
of women in the labour market can only be achieved through a redistribution
of paid work and unpaid work between men and women. However, as a
consequence of the limited possibilities of the intrusion of labour law in the
domain of the private family, the central authorities have only limited power
over the conduct of workers in this respect. Thus, we observe the first
problematisation of the government of the conduct of workers. In addition,
the narrative of the modern society, which is characterised by processes of
‘globalisation’, ‘individualisation’ and ‘aging’, contains a second
problematisation of the government of the conduct of workers, in that it
includes an image of the nation state where the national authorities lose their
grip on domestic economic and social processes. In other words, the extent to
which social change, like the enhancement of the participation of women in
the labour market, can be influenced by government is significantly
decreased.
A third narrative, which can be called the narrative of ‘taking care
of the family by yourself’, is placed in opposition to the narrative of the
modern society. According to this narrative, the value of ‘taking care of the
family by yourself’, is an intrinsic Dutch value which should be cherished in
defence of the changes in modern society. Although the government of the
conduct of the workers is again problematised, because of its personal
character, the central authorities seek to govern the conduct of the workers by
formulating a 29 to 32 hour work-week as an ideal norm for each parent.
This normalizing practice is further supported by governmental reports which
aim for the institutional facilitation of the programmes and rationalities
expressed by this narrative.
4.1.2
Employability and Diversity
Whereas the first three narratives were linked to the labour market
position of women compared to men, the fourth narrative of ‘employability’
and the fifth narrative of ‘diversity’ are using a broader set of categories. The
narrative of employability concerns the need of trained and educated workers
and includes the narrative of human capital. According to the latter narrative,
human capital must be maintained, like a machine, to be productive for a
lengthy period. In other words, the worker, including the elderly worker, has
to engage in constant training, in order to keep up with economic and
technological changes. In addition, the narrative of employability is strongly
related to the earlier mentioned narrative of the modern society for its
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emphasis on the potential shortage of (trained) personnel. Whereas the
conduct of the workers with regard to employability is generally governed by
the organisation of the labour (and in addition by the government of the self),
we observe again that notwithstanding governmental rationalities, the
conduct of workers can only be partly regulated by the central authorities.
Next, the narrative of diversity emphasises the diverse preferences
and lifestyles of workers which can contradict the rigid organisation of
labour. According to the narrative of diversity, a worker should be given
more control over the distribution of his time between paid work and other
activities. As a consequence, labour relations in companies should be
adjusted, for instance by introducing flexible working hours or a generous
policy of unpaid leave. As in the narrative of employability, the conduct of
workers is governed by the organisation of labour. In this respect, central
authorities lack power to give effect to this political rationality. This
narrative is important for another reason as well, as it links knowledge on
diverse preferences with normative rules. For example, in a government
report from 2002 it can be noticed that the value of ‘freedom of choice’ is
paired with ‘individual responsibility’, then according to this report, people
want to take responsibility of their choices. 67 In addition, in an important
advisory document of the same year, the choice for children is formulated as
a ‘manufactured risk’, implying that this choice now is to be regarded as a
‘lifestyle choice’ and accordingly, at least in principle, the parents have to
bear the costs fully. 68 Hence, the narrative of diversity also implies that with
regard to certain individual preferences which affect the income of the
workers, the conduct of the workers is to be governed by individual
responsibility.
4.1.3
The Family Gap
Apart from the governmental narratives preceding the LCA, we
witness the narrative of the ‘family gap’, which, within the CDA, played an
important role. In 2002 when this party came to power, its political
programme already contained in broad lines the ideas of a LCA, which
proved to be heavily influenced by the narrative of the family gap. In
previous narratives the relationship between time and paid work was
problematised. In the narrative of the family gap, one could detect a
problematisation of the conduct of the workers with regard to the
relationship between the disposable income and the phase in the life course.
According to this narrative, the income of households with children takes on
a graphic figure resembling the two humps of a camel. The shape of the
curve is explained in the following way. In the early years, when there are no
children in the household, the disposable income of the household increases,
which is followed by a sharp drop after the children are born and financial
resources are mostly needed. Although this trend is reversed after the
14
Anja Eleveld
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children leave home, the household income decreases again after the parents
retire. According to the programme inherent in this narrative, the gaps can be
filled by a better spread of the income during the life course. Thus, the
conduct of the worker should be reshaped, in that s/he saves a part of his/her
income during the ‘wealthier’ periods. This narrative was used by the CDA
government to support its plans for an individual savings system. According
to the CDA, with the help of an individual savings system, parents would be
enabled to reduce the time spent on paid work activities in order to take care
for their children, or to engage in schooling or training for a temporary
period.
Interestingly, in a way, the narrative of the family gap tells quite a
different story than the narrative of diversity. Indeed, instead of drawing
attention to the individualising trends in society, in this narrative the
enduring existence of the traditional household is emphasised. As a matter of
fact, this narrative was first published by a member of staff of the ‘Dutch
family council’, who figured out that a different interpretation of statistic
calculations would refute the narrative of the individualised society (which
was based on other calculations). 69 Hence, we also observe here an instance
of the way in which statistics can be used to contribute to the ‘episteme’ of
government and how it can render new governmental programmes.
Furthermore, this narrative contrasts with most other narratives as well, since
the emphasis has shifted to the facilitation of periods in which the (female)
worker wants to reduce her paid working activities.
4.2
How Government becomes Possible through the Technology of
the LCA?
In order to discern how government becomes possible through the
LCA, this governmental practice will be analysed along the dimensions of
technology, the episteme and its ethos. The technology of the LCA entails an
individual savings arrangement, whereby the individual worker has to decide
when and how much s/he will save a part of his/her wage in order to finance
future leave. According to the expressed rationality, the main purpose of the
LCA is to facilitate transitions in life. In order to understand the implicit
logic of the LCA, its emergence was examined by an analysis of a number of
narratives preceding it. This analysis revealed that the design of the LCA is
strongly influenced by the narrative of the family gap. Importantly, this
narrative includes the generation of new types of knowledge. Now, for the
first time, statistical techniques are directed to the calculation of the financial
position of a household with children during a life-course. In addition,
preceding the emergence of the LCA, we observed a number of other
narratives each containing different forms of knowledge on the workers, such
as the amount of women participating in the labour market, the influence of
aging on the working population, the diverse preferences of workers and so
Anja Eleveld
15
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forth. The narratives further include diverse programmes such as the
enhancement of participation of women in the labour market, the promotion
of the value of taking care of the children by yourself, the redistribution of
income during a life course in order to finance periods of voluntarily
unemployment, the improvement of employability of individual (elderly)
workers and the accommodation of diverse preferences in relation to
labour. 70
The accomplishment of these programmes entails the shaping of the
conduct of the workers. Hence the government of the conduct of workers is
problematised in several ways. In a number of narratives and especially in
the influential narrative of the modern society, it is stated that central
governmental authorities possess limited power to affect the conduct of
workers. Therefore, the government seeks to govern the workers through
other means, for example, through normalising practices. By contrast, the
chosen technique in the LCA is based on individual responsibility. This art of
government fits well in with the solution found in the narrative of diversity.
In this narrative, the knowledge on diverse preferences is transformed into a
normative claim: the citizen has to take responsibility for his/her own
choices. Thus, in terms of governmentality we might conclude that the
rationalities and programmes of government furnish a particular episteme of
government, which is government through freedom.
Still we have to mention an important side effect of the chosen art of
government with regard to the position of women compared to men.
Generally speaking, whereas women will finance parental leave, there will be
little savings left for the financing of leave for other purposes, such as
education or early retirement. In this respect, the inequality between the
sexes tends to increase. 71 Our final and perhaps most important observation
regarding ‘the conduct of the conduct’ concerns the kind of identity of
individuals that is presupposed by the LCA. Following the analysis of the
programmes and rationalities deployed by the LCA, it can be concluded that
government implies the promotion of a new ethos. Through the LCA citizens
are encouraged to identify themselves as workers, parents and as responsible
life planners.
5.
Conclusion
The insights of governmentality literature generate an alternative
view of reality. Research in governmentality literature centres around the
question how people are governed. Thus, an analysis of liberalism reveals
how the liberal art of government implies ‘governing the processes in
society’. In other words, liberal government entails a particular concern with
‘the conduct of the conduct.’ Under advanced liberalism we observe a new
art of government: The conduct of the people is governed through freedom.
Hence, instead of attributing a kind of essentialism to the value of freedom,
16
Anja Eleveld
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in governmentality literature it is demonstrated that freedom is the result of
certain configurations of power.
The analysis of the implicit logic of life course politics
demonstrates that although the worker is free to take a leave financed by the
LCA for whatever reason, it seeks to govern the conduct of workers in
particular directions. The LCA appears to be constituted by an episteme of
government through freedom. Moreover, the conduct of the workers is
governed through the creation of an ethos which entails that citizens are
encouraged to identify with workers and parents as responsible life planners.
Interestingly, the LCA has been criticized because of its presupposition of
the existence of rational economic subjects. Analysis of the LCA, however,
draws attention to an opposite aspect, that the LCA will be successful to the
extent that workers come to experience themselves as active responsible life
planners.
Finally, it can be demonstrated in three ways how in the LCA
freedom and power are interrelated. Firstly, it is revealed how by the
deployment of freedom inequality between the sexes tends to increase.
Secondly and more importantly: The LCA seeks to create a new ethical
subject. Hence, power works as a reconstruction of the will. In the third
instance, as argued in the governmentality literature, citizens who are not
able to conform to the new ethos of the individual as responsible life planner,
can be subjected to the classical exercise of governmental power. As the
LCA has been in operation for three years and is only related to a few ‘social
risks’, we must be tentative to draw similar conclusions with regard to the
Dutch government. Nevertheless, in view of the intended expansion of the
LCA to the financing of the period in between two jobs and the retrenchment
of the Dutch welfare state, we can already express concern that those people
who are not able to conform to this model of the rational life-planner will
increasingly be subjected to rigid measures of the government. Subsequently,
the population will be divided along new lines of division of included
independent, self improving, rational life planners, and the excluded who
lack these abilities to a greater or lesser extent.
Notes
1
M Foucault, Security, Territory, Population. Lectures at the Collège de
France 1977-1978, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007, p. 109.
2
M A Hajer and H Wagenaar, ‘Introduction’, in Deliberative Policy
Analysis. Understanding Governance in the Network Society, M.A. Hajer and
H. Wagenaar (eds.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 1.
3
M Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1. An Introduction, Allen Lane,
London, 1979, p.88.
Anja Eleveld
17
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4
N Rose, Powers of freedom. Reframing political thought, University press,
Cambridge, 1999, p.2.; M Dean, Governmentality. Power and rule in modern
society, Sage publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, pp. 10-11.
5
M Foucault, ‘The Subject of Power’, in Michel Foucault: beyond
Structuralism and Hermeneutics, H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (eds.),
Harvester, Brighton, 1982, p. 221; Dean, ibid, p. 47.
6
Dean, op. cit., p. 11. In this definition, Dean seeks to incorporate several
aspects in the definition of governmentality which Foucault has mentioned
during his lectures in 1977-1979. Foucault himself defines governmentality
in his 1977-1978 lecture as: ‘The sensible formed by institutions, procedures,
analyses and reflections, calculations, and tactics that allow the exercise of
this specific, albeit very complex, power that has the populations as its target,
political economy as its major form of knowledge, and the apparatuses of
security as its essential technical instrument.’ (Foucault, 2008, op. cit., p.
108.).
7
Rose, op. cit., p. 4; Dean, ibid., p. 15.
8
See note 6.
9
Dean, op. cit., p. 18.
10
ibid., pp. 21- 22.
11
Foucault explicates the meaning of ‘programmes’ in: M Foucault,
‘Questions of Method’, in The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality,
G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds.), the University of Chicago,
Chicago, 1991, pp. 73-86.
12
Dean, op. cit., pp. 27-33; N Rose and P Miller, ‘Political Power beyond
the State: Problematics of Government’, British Journal of Sociology, vol.
43, nr. 2, pp. 175-183.
13
M Foucault, ‘Nietzsche Genealogy, History’ , The Foucault Reader, in P.
Rabinow (ed.), Penguin Books, London, 1984, p. 77.
14
Rose and Miller, op. cit.; Rose, op. cit., p.19.
15
M Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France
1978-1979, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2008, p. 20.
16
Foucault, Security, Territory, population. Lectures at the Collège de
France 1977-1978, p. 73; Dean, op. cit., pp. 89-97 and p. 105; C Gordon,
‘Governmentality Rationality: an Introduction, in The Foucault Effect.
Studies in Governmentality, G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds.), The
University of Chicago, Chicago, 1991, pp. 8-10.
17
Foucault, Security, Territory, population. Lectures at the Collège de
France 1977-1978, p. 109 and Dean, ibid., p. 105.
18
For Foucault, ‘The whole question of critical governmental reason will turn
on how not to govern too much’ (Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures
18
Anja Eleveld
______________________________________________________________
at the Collège de France 1978-1979, p. 13); see also Dean, op. cit., p.50;
Gordon, op. cit., p. 15; and Rose, op. cit., p. 70.
19
Dean comments on Foucault’s definition of liberalism. In his lectures on
Bio Politics, Foucault understands liberalism as:
‘1. Acceptance of the principle that somewhere there must be a limitation of
government and that this is not jus an external right.
2. Liberalism is also a practice: where exactly is the principle of the
limitation of government to be found and how are the effects of this
limitation to be calculated’ (Foucault The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the
Collège de France 1978-1979, p. 20)
20
G Burchell, ‘Peculiar Interests: Civil Society and Governing the System of
Natural Liberty’, in The Foucault Effect. Studies in governmentality, G.
Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds.), the University of Chicago, Chicago,
1991, pp. 137-138; see also Gordon, op. cit., pp. 22-23; Dean, op. cit., p. 50
and p. 124; and Rose and Miller, op. cit., p. 180.
21
Burchell, ibid., p. 138.
22
Dean, op. cit., pp. 116-117; see also Foucault, Security, Territory,
population. Lectures at the Collège de France 1977-1978, pp. 48-49.
23
Foucault, ibid., p. 63.
24
Ewald, F., ‘Norms Discipline and the Law’, Representations, vol. 30,
Spring 1990, p 155.
25
Ewald, ibid., pp. 140-148; Dean, op. cit., p. 119; Rose, op. cit., pp. 73- 76.
26
Dean, ibid., p. 128; Rose, ibid., p. 74.
27
See for example, De Bosch Kemper, Ackersdijck and Mees (T J Boschloo,
De productiemaatschappij. Liberalisme, Economische Wetenschap en het
Vraagstuk der Armoede in Nederland 1800-1875, Verloren, Hilversum,
1989).
28
Dean, op. cit., p. 128 and Rose, op. cit., p. 74.
29
F Ewald, ‘Insurance and risk’, in The Foucault Effect. Studies in
Governmentaliy, G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds.), the University
of Chicago, Chicago, 1991, p. 202.
30
Ibid., p. 146.
31
Ibid., p. 207.
32
It should be stressed that both Dean and O’Malley contend that these
changes should be regarded as a result of political struggle. For this reason
the technology of social insurance cannot solely be linked to a kind of
amorality as Ewald asserts, but is in a sense the outcome of political conflict
over important moral themes such as the question of public redistribution.
33
This term introduced by Rose and Miller, op. cit.
34
P O’ Malley, Risk, Uncertainty and Government, Cavendish and
Glasshouse, London, 2004, pp. 40-45.
Anja Eleveld
19
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35
See for example, J Berghman and I Verhalle, ‘Heading for the Future:
Social Security and Social Cohesion’, in Social Security in Transition, J.
Berghmann, A. Nagelkerke, K. Boos, R. Doeschot and G. Vonk (eds.),
Kluwer Law International, The Hague/London/New York, 2000.
36
Beveridge, W., Social Insurance and Allied Services, Cmd 6404 HMSO,
London, 1942.
37
Rose, op. cit., pp. 133-134.
38
O’Malley, op. cit., pp. 117-133.
39
Rose, op cit., pp. 137-166.
40
B Cruikshank, ‘The Will to empower: Technologies of Citizenship and the
War on Poverty’, Socialist Review, vol. 23, nr. 4, pp. 29-55; Dean, 1999, op.
cit., p.70.
41
Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France 19781979, pp. 225-233; see also Rose, op. cit., pp. 161-162.
42
Rose, ibid., p. 84.
43
Rose, ibid., p. 86.
44
Rose, ibid.
45
Rose, ibid., p. 87.
46
As a result, the relationship between citizens and bureaucracy officials
changes. This is illustrated by O’Malley in his comparison between
welfarism, where welfare dependants were treated as subordinate ‘clients’,
and advanced liberalism, where ‘prudential’ subjects are engaged in
partnerships with public agencies (P O’Malley, ‘Risk and Responsibility’, in
Foucault and Political Reason. Liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Rationalities
of Government, A. Barry, T. Osborne, N. Rose (eds.), UCL Press, London,
1996, p 203.
47
Rose, op. cit., p. 90.
48
Rose, ibid., pp. 92-93.
49
Rose, ibid., p. 164 and pp. 233-234; O’Malley, op. cit., pp. 73-76.
50
Rose, ibid., p. 166.
51
O’Malley, op. cit., pp. 176-181.
52
Rose, op. cit., p. 270.
53
Rose, ibid., p. 265.
54
M Dean, Governing Societies: Political Perspectives on Domestic and
International Rule, Open University Press, Maidenhead, Berkshire 2007, p.
76 and pp. 102-129; Dean, Governmentality. Power and rule in modern
society, pp. 131-148 ; Rose, op. cit., p. 270.
55
This example is given by Dean, Governing Societies: Political
Perspectives on Domestic and International Rule, pp. 121- 122.
56
Dean., ibid., pp. 102-129.
57
Dean, ibid., p. 105.
20
Anja Eleveld
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58
Dean, ibid., p. 128.
Rose, op cit. pp. 96-97 and Dean, Governmentality. Power and rule in
modern society, pp. 37-38.
60
See, C L J Caminada and K P Goudswaard, ‘Wat levert Levensloop op’, in:
Maatschappelijk heffen, deel 1 De wetenschap, D.A. Albregtse en P.
Kavelaars (eds.), Kluwer, Deventer, 2006, pp. 133-144.
61
Coalition agreement 2007, nr. 13.
62
Kamerstukken II 2003-04, 29760 nr. 3.
63
These documents consist of the key document, in which the term ‘life
course perspective’ is used for the first time (Kamerstukken II 2000-2001, 27
061, nr. 3), its preceding documents (Kamerstukken II 1992-1993, 22 913 nr.
1; Kamerstukken II 1995-1996, 24 406, nr. 5; Kamerstukken II 1998-1999,
26 447, nr. 2; Kamerstukken II 1999-2000, 27 061, nrs. 1-2; Kamerstukken II
1994-1995, 24 332, nr. 2; Kamerstukken II 1996-1997, 25 477, nr. 3), and
two governmental documents in which the contours of the LCA can be
detected ( Ministerie SZW, Verkenning levensloop, Den Haag: SZW 2002; F
Leijnse, K P Goudswaard, J Plantenga en J P van den Toren, Anders denken
over Zekerheid, Levenslopen, Risico en Verantwoordelijkheid, SZW, Den
Haag 2002).
64
Interviews with, P. Cuyvers, former worker of the Dutch family council,
and E. van Hasselt, director of the scientific bureau form the CDA; Report of
the CDA (Wetenschappelijk Instituut voor het CDA, De Druk van de Ketel.
Naar een Levensloopstelsel voor Duurzame Arbeidsdeelname, en Tijd en
Geld voor Scholing, Zorg en Privé, Wetenschappelijk Instituut voor het
CDA, Den Haag, 2001); See also Dutch journal articles: Volkskrant, 30-91995, NRC, 4-10-1995 and 21-10-1995, Staatscourant, 21-8-1995.
65
See for example, D Yanow, Conducting Interpretative Policy Analysis,
Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi, 2000 and M A
Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse. Ecological Modernization
and the Policy Process Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995.
66
H White ‘The Narrativization of Real Events’, in On Narrative, W.J.T.
Mitchell (Ed.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1981, p. 251, cited in
Yanow, ibid., p. 58.
67
Ministerie SZW, op. cit.. We can observe some parallels with the narrative
of the modern society in international literature in which the process of
individualization in a miraculous way becomes connected to individual
responsibility; see for example A Giddens, The Third Way. The Renewal of
Social Democracy, Blackwell Publishers Inc., Maiden, 1998, pp. 36-37.
68
Leynse, et all, op. cit.
69
Interview with P. Cuyvers.
59
Anja Eleveld
21
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70
It must, however, be added that with regard to some of the governmental
programmes and rationalities, the cooperation of the employer is still needed.
Indeed, in most cases, a request for taking leave necessitates the permission
of the employer.
71
As Keuzenkamp concludes: ‘Women will use the life-course savings
scheme more often to fund parental and/or care leave, while men will more
frequently use it to fund pre-pension arrangements’ ( S Keuzenkamp (ed.) .,
Een EER voor de levensloopregeling, Sociaal en Cultureel planbureau, Den
Haag, 2004).
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Anja Eleveld is a doctoral student at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
She is currently writing her thesis on the meaning of the life cycle discourse
for the ideals in Dutch social security law.