This discussion is being really helpful to me everyone, many thanks.
and this is a very good point Nicholas. I still think Mann doesn't reject the constitution of actors in a Foucauldian sense; but I should think a little about your suggestion on governmentality. I still, almost intuitively, "feel" a kind of a confusion or a paradox in Mann, on the one hand he seems like to argue in favour of this very constitution of the actors yet on the other hand, as you're saying, he still seems instrumentalist.
Oh, and, yes, immanence and diffusion are not the same of course, sorry for the misunderstanding. What I meant was you could still find both of these two characteristics (diffusion and immanence) in Mann. But again, I should think a little more in line with your suggestion.
Best,
Ilgin
"Nicholas J. Kiersey" <nkiersey@xxxxxx> wrote: Hi all,
I think there may be a difference between saying power is
'diffused' (in Mann's sense) and power is 'imminent' (in the sense
used by Foucault, or Hardt and Negri). To say that the state has no
final consistency because it is fragmented is all very well, but it
does not prevent one from adopting an essentially liberal ontology
about how the state is founded and, subsequently, reproduced. But
aren't Foucauldians supposed to be interested in a different set of
questions? Aren't they interested not so much in the diffusion of
power among actors but, rather, the manner in which those actors are
constituted? In other words, to get to the point, can we say that
Mann believes in governmentality? My sense is that he does not. Nor
could he. Because his work is founded on an instrumentalist notion of
power (no matter how diffused or whatever he argues it may be today).
NiK
On May 16, 2007, at 8:23, Ilgin Yorukoglu wrote:
> Dear Arthur and Nicholas,
>
> I'm pondering...About the state still being "an actor of sorts -
> not in any way imminent to the social": Mann, as you know, gives
> the IEMP model in which ideology, economy, military and politics
> become important as the sources of power (while these four sources
> are not strictly separated and do overlap, of course). Doing this,
> supposedly he differentiates himself from both Marxists and
> Weberians since he separates the military relationships from the
> political ones.
>
> If we take ideology from these four, for instance, he explains how
> ideology was immanent in society in different civilizations (in
> Persian empire, for example) as "the solidification of states and
> ruling classes through the infrastructures of power". It is so true
> that infrastructures and organizations are extremely important for
> him as the resources (the media) through which the power is
> exercised. But in turn, power creates these resources. Foucault
> once said, in an interview, that we know who do not hold the
> power:) In Mann's case, yes, there seem like to be some actors as
> the ruling class, but this doesn't prevent the power being immanent
> (or "diffused").
>
> Risking oversimplification and using the terminology I would
> usually prefer not to, it seems to me that the confusing part of
> Mann might be that he's following the "second wave" historical
> sociologists in types of questions he's asking, while trying to
> answer them in a way that is done by the so-called "third wave"!
>
> Best,
> Ilgin
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Nicholas J. Kiersey
> To: Mailing-list
> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 3:32:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] historical sociology, anyone?
>
> Sorry to butt in, but I feel that Mann can't use Foucault - to do so
> would totally destroy his own intellectual project. I have made an
> argument in my own work, for example, which looks at Martin Shaw's
> use of Mann's model of social power in relation to the state - here i
> argue that the model of the state that Mann produces, while helpfully
> historical (for international relations theorists anyway - I can tell
> you as a member of that discipline that IR theorists have a very
> unhistorical view of the state), nevertheless reduces the state to a
> variation of Weber's classic definition. Recall, Borrowing only
> partially from Weber, Mann argues that a social body must satisfy
> four criteria if it is to be called a state. It must have:
>
> 1). a differentiated set of institutions and personnel
> 2) embodying a centrality in the sense that political relations
> radiate outwards from a centre to cover a
> 3) territorially demarcated area, over which it exercises
> 4) some degree of authoritative binding rule-making, backed up by
> some organized physical force.
>
> While the last element certainly concedes much to Weber, Mann insists
> that ?states can be recognized by the central location of their
> differentiated institutions? (1988: 4). In this way, he distances
> himself from both Marxist and IR Realism, both of which posit the
> function of the state as a function of the particular types of social
> power that concern them respectively. Mann?s more multi-modal state
> is never purely functional. Rather, different interest groups assert
> themselves over time, manipulating different institutions in order to
> assert their specific interests. This is a state, therefore, which
> ?Balkanizes? under the microscope ? a state which is so messy that it
> has ?no final unity or even consistency? (1988: 53, 56).
>
> However, despite these caveats, what is interesting about both Mann
> and Shaw is their description of the state, whatever it eventually
> is, in primarily liberal terms. They share Hobbes's conceit, for
> example, of state sovereignty as a form of collective agency. Hindess
> draws from Foucault to offer a good critique of such models. He
> focuses on how scholars that use this model tend to reduce their
> normative purview to simple issues to do with the appropriate
> political constitution of society. That is, a question of the proper
> relations between the ruler and the ruled. What gets forgotten, as
> Hindess suggests, is the issue of the role of government in producing
> these arrangements. In this sense, the critique is that, for Mann,
> the state is still an actor of sorts - not in any way imminent to the
> social, as Foucault would have us believe.
>
> Nicholas
>
>
> On May 15, 2007, at 14:54, Arthur Zinault wrote:
>
>> Ilgin,
>>
>> And what's even more ironic is that in a recent interview I saw on
>> the web
>> with Mann, Mann said that before he wrote a book he went on what he
>> called
>> "looting and pillaging raids" through other social sciences to
>> marshal
>> evidence for his stuff. Sounds fun -- also sounds like what
>> Foucault did!
>>
>> But I guess Mann never "looted and pillaged" Foucault's stuff!
>> Hard to
>> believe. Maybe Mann is jealous of our fave French power theorist
>> and doesn't
>> want to acknowledge some competition? ;)
>>
>>
>> -Arthur Zinault
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/15/07, Ilgin Yorukoglu wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for this reply, Arthur,
>>>
>>> Yes, Foucault's constant failure in citations are pretty well-
>>> known, and
>>> he's often criticized (sometimes pretty harshly, too, I must say)
>>> for this
>>> reason in many circles. But my concern is, specifically, that I
>>> find Mann's
>>> ideas very close to Foucault's, from his different typologies of
>>> power,including the "diffused power" to the "means" of power in
>>> order to
>>> construct a sort of an "unconscious" "normalization", and of
>>> course, also,
>>> the extension of Durkheim in emphasizing the ways in which normative
>>> discourses create communities and understandings, i.e.
>>> knowledges. To me,
>>> there are many other points where they follow extremely similar
>>> lines.Also,
>>> of course he's writing right after Foucault had become an
>>> important figure,
>>> so it's impossible that Mann was not aware of the latter.
>>>
>>> But thanks a lot again for reminding me of Russell's work, that's
>>> so true.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Ilgin
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>> From: Arthur Zinault
>>> To: Mailing-list
>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 8:12:52 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] historical sociology, anyone?
>>>
>>> Ilgin,
>>>
>>> Yes, Michael Mann is considered by many to be the best living power
>>> theorist
>>> since his _Sources of Social Power_, and you're right,t here's no
>>> Foucault
>>> in it. In fact, in a book I have called _Anatomy of Power_, which
>>> is a
>>> critical reader of Mann's works on power relations, the index of
>>> this 400
>>> page book records only two mentions of Foucault -- not by Mann,
>>> but by
>>> other
>>> authors briefly mentioning Foucault in some relation to Mann. Just
>>> two
>>> mentions in over 400 pages.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, however, Foucault was very picky in who he
>>> chose to
>>> quote. For example, Bertrad Russell's _Power_ was never, ever
>>> mentioned by
>>> Foucault as far as I'm aware, yet t was one of the pre-eminent
>>> studis of
>>> power before the 1950s, an ambitious project in which Russell
>>> proposed to
>>> do
>>> for "power" what Marx had done for economics. 9And by most
>>> accounts failed
>>> but nonetheless left the world with some enlightening insights
>>> anyway.)
>>>
>>> As well, much of the classical anarchist tradition dealt EXACTLY
>>> with the
>>> distribution of power in socity and its finest was and is a critical
>>> methodology of social power relations, yet Foucault barely refers
>>> to it
>>> explicitly, either. German anarchosyndicalist Rudolf Rocker's
>>> _Nationalism_and_Culture_,a prescient anti-racist and anti-
>>> nationalist
>>> book
>>> from the 1920s, posits the "will to power" as a primary impetus
>>> behind
>>> much
>>> of humanity's current matrix of power relations. ANd you'llf ind
>>> other
>>> examples in Emma Goldman,w ho also lectured and wrote often about
>>> Nietzsche.
>>> But these and others were never mentioned by Foucault as far as
>>> I'm aware.
>>>
>>> Likewise, Giorgio Agamben, after Foucault's death, found it
>>> remarkable
>>> that
>>> while Foucault wrote about prisons, mental hospitals, and even war
>>> towards
>>> the end of his life, that he never discussed the institution of
>>> concentratin
>>> camps or death camps. Agamben obviously sought to remedy this with
>>> "Remnants
>>> of Auschwitz," et. al.
>>>
>>> So, Mann doesn't refer to Foucault, which seems odd, but Foucault
>>> also
>>> didn't reference a lot of folks that to me seem a bit odd, too.
>>> But then
>>> again, one can't cite everything under the sun all the time.
>>> However, I do
>>> agree Mann's almost complete, if not willful, ignorance of
>>> Foucault seems
>>> counter-intutitive.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Arthur Zinault
>>>
>>>
>>> On 5/9/07, Ilgin Yorukoglu wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Greetings everyone,
>>>>
>>>> I believe Foucault has been very influential in such works on state
>>>> formation, punishment etc. Yet, many times he is not cited (I
>>>> have in
>>> mind
>>>> Michael Mann's hundreds of pg. work on the source of social
>>>> power, in
>>> which
>>>> he doesn't cite Foucault even once), or other times, I believe,
>>>> he's
>>> often
>>>> misinterpreted and criticized based on this misinterpretation.
>>>>
>>>> Any suggestion, idea, thought will be very much appreciated.
>>>> Many thanks beforehand,
>>>>
>>>> Ilgin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Foucault-L mailing list
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________________________
>>> _
>>> _______________Luggage?
>>> GPS? Comic books?
>>> Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search
>>> http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=graduation
>>> +gifts&cs=bz
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Foucault-L mailing list
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foucault-L mailing list
>
> ----------------------------------
> Nicholas J. Kiersey
> - Teaching Fellow, Department of Social Sciences
> University of Virginia, Wise
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> ______________Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's
> Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when.
> http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
----------------------------------
Nicholas J. Kiersey
- Teaching Fellow, Department of Social Sciences
University of Virginia, Wise
office: (276) 328-0137
mobile: (540) 250-3056
home: (276) 328-6244
email: njk4y@xxxxxxxxxxx
blog: http://homepage.mac.com/thenervousfishdown/
AIM/iChat: thenervousfishdown@xxxxxxx
_______________________________________________
Foucault-L mailing list
---------------------------------
Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV.
and this is a very good point Nicholas. I still think Mann doesn't reject the constitution of actors in a Foucauldian sense; but I should think a little about your suggestion on governmentality. I still, almost intuitively, "feel" a kind of a confusion or a paradox in Mann, on the one hand he seems like to argue in favour of this very constitution of the actors yet on the other hand, as you're saying, he still seems instrumentalist.
Oh, and, yes, immanence and diffusion are not the same of course, sorry for the misunderstanding. What I meant was you could still find both of these two characteristics (diffusion and immanence) in Mann. But again, I should think a little more in line with your suggestion.
Best,
Ilgin
"Nicholas J. Kiersey" <nkiersey@xxxxxx> wrote: Hi all,
I think there may be a difference between saying power is
'diffused' (in Mann's sense) and power is 'imminent' (in the sense
used by Foucault, or Hardt and Negri). To say that the state has no
final consistency because it is fragmented is all very well, but it
does not prevent one from adopting an essentially liberal ontology
about how the state is founded and, subsequently, reproduced. But
aren't Foucauldians supposed to be interested in a different set of
questions? Aren't they interested not so much in the diffusion of
power among actors but, rather, the manner in which those actors are
constituted? In other words, to get to the point, can we say that
Mann believes in governmentality? My sense is that he does not. Nor
could he. Because his work is founded on an instrumentalist notion of
power (no matter how diffused or whatever he argues it may be today).
NiK
On May 16, 2007, at 8:23, Ilgin Yorukoglu wrote:
> Dear Arthur and Nicholas,
>
> I'm pondering...About the state still being "an actor of sorts -
> not in any way imminent to the social": Mann, as you know, gives
> the IEMP model in which ideology, economy, military and politics
> become important as the sources of power (while these four sources
> are not strictly separated and do overlap, of course). Doing this,
> supposedly he differentiates himself from both Marxists and
> Weberians since he separates the military relationships from the
> political ones.
>
> If we take ideology from these four, for instance, he explains how
> ideology was immanent in society in different civilizations (in
> Persian empire, for example) as "the solidification of states and
> ruling classes through the infrastructures of power". It is so true
> that infrastructures and organizations are extremely important for
> him as the resources (the media) through which the power is
> exercised. But in turn, power creates these resources. Foucault
> once said, in an interview, that we know who do not hold the
> power:) In Mann's case, yes, there seem like to be some actors as
> the ruling class, but this doesn't prevent the power being immanent
> (or "diffused").
>
> Risking oversimplification and using the terminology I would
> usually prefer not to, it seems to me that the confusing part of
> Mann might be that he's following the "second wave" historical
> sociologists in types of questions he's asking, while trying to
> answer them in a way that is done by the so-called "third wave"!
>
> Best,
> Ilgin
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Nicholas J. Kiersey
> To: Mailing-list
> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 3:32:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] historical sociology, anyone?
>
> Sorry to butt in, but I feel that Mann can't use Foucault - to do so
> would totally destroy his own intellectual project. I have made an
> argument in my own work, for example, which looks at Martin Shaw's
> use of Mann's model of social power in relation to the state - here i
> argue that the model of the state that Mann produces, while helpfully
> historical (for international relations theorists anyway - I can tell
> you as a member of that discipline that IR theorists have a very
> unhistorical view of the state), nevertheless reduces the state to a
> variation of Weber's classic definition. Recall, Borrowing only
> partially from Weber, Mann argues that a social body must satisfy
> four criteria if it is to be called a state. It must have:
>
> 1). a differentiated set of institutions and personnel
> 2) embodying a centrality in the sense that political relations
> radiate outwards from a centre to cover a
> 3) territorially demarcated area, over which it exercises
> 4) some degree of authoritative binding rule-making, backed up by
> some organized physical force.
>
> While the last element certainly concedes much to Weber, Mann insists
> that ?states can be recognized by the central location of their
> differentiated institutions? (1988: 4). In this way, he distances
> himself from both Marxist and IR Realism, both of which posit the
> function of the state as a function of the particular types of social
> power that concern them respectively. Mann?s more multi-modal state
> is never purely functional. Rather, different interest groups assert
> themselves over time, manipulating different institutions in order to
> assert their specific interests. This is a state, therefore, which
> ?Balkanizes? under the microscope ? a state which is so messy that it
> has ?no final unity or even consistency? (1988: 53, 56).
>
> However, despite these caveats, what is interesting about both Mann
> and Shaw is their description of the state, whatever it eventually
> is, in primarily liberal terms. They share Hobbes's conceit, for
> example, of state sovereignty as a form of collective agency. Hindess
> draws from Foucault to offer a good critique of such models. He
> focuses on how scholars that use this model tend to reduce their
> normative purview to simple issues to do with the appropriate
> political constitution of society. That is, a question of the proper
> relations between the ruler and the ruled. What gets forgotten, as
> Hindess suggests, is the issue of the role of government in producing
> these arrangements. In this sense, the critique is that, for Mann,
> the state is still an actor of sorts - not in any way imminent to the
> social, as Foucault would have us believe.
>
> Nicholas
>
>
> On May 15, 2007, at 14:54, Arthur Zinault wrote:
>
>> Ilgin,
>>
>> And what's even more ironic is that in a recent interview I saw on
>> the web
>> with Mann, Mann said that before he wrote a book he went on what he
>> called
>> "looting and pillaging raids" through other social sciences to
>> marshal
>> evidence for his stuff. Sounds fun -- also sounds like what
>> Foucault did!
>>
>> But I guess Mann never "looted and pillaged" Foucault's stuff!
>> Hard to
>> believe. Maybe Mann is jealous of our fave French power theorist
>> and doesn't
>> want to acknowledge some competition? ;)
>>
>>
>> -Arthur Zinault
>>
>>
>>
>> On 5/15/07, Ilgin Yorukoglu wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for this reply, Arthur,
>>>
>>> Yes, Foucault's constant failure in citations are pretty well-
>>> known, and
>>> he's often criticized (sometimes pretty harshly, too, I must say)
>>> for this
>>> reason in many circles. But my concern is, specifically, that I
>>> find Mann's
>>> ideas very close to Foucault's, from his different typologies of
>>> power,including the "diffused power" to the "means" of power in
>>> order to
>>> construct a sort of an "unconscious" "normalization", and of
>>> course, also,
>>> the extension of Durkheim in emphasizing the ways in which normative
>>> discourses create communities and understandings, i.e.
>>> knowledges. To me,
>>> there are many other points where they follow extremely similar
>>> lines.Also,
>>> of course he's writing right after Foucault had become an
>>> important figure,
>>> so it's impossible that Mann was not aware of the latter.
>>>
>>> But thanks a lot again for reminding me of Russell's work, that's
>>> so true.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Ilgin
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>> From: Arthur Zinault
>>> To: Mailing-list
>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 8:12:52 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Foucault-L] historical sociology, anyone?
>>>
>>> Ilgin,
>>>
>>> Yes, Michael Mann is considered by many to be the best living power
>>> theorist
>>> since his _Sources of Social Power_, and you're right,t here's no
>>> Foucault
>>> in it. In fact, in a book I have called _Anatomy of Power_, which
>>> is a
>>> critical reader of Mann's works on power relations, the index of
>>> this 400
>>> page book records only two mentions of Foucault -- not by Mann,
>>> but by
>>> other
>>> authors briefly mentioning Foucault in some relation to Mann. Just
>>> two
>>> mentions in over 400 pages.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, however, Foucault was very picky in who he
>>> chose to
>>> quote. For example, Bertrad Russell's _Power_ was never, ever
>>> mentioned by
>>> Foucault as far as I'm aware, yet t was one of the pre-eminent
>>> studis of
>>> power before the 1950s, an ambitious project in which Russell
>>> proposed to
>>> do
>>> for "power" what Marx had done for economics. 9And by most
>>> accounts failed
>>> but nonetheless left the world with some enlightening insights
>>> anyway.)
>>>
>>> As well, much of the classical anarchist tradition dealt EXACTLY
>>> with the
>>> distribution of power in socity and its finest was and is a critical
>>> methodology of social power relations, yet Foucault barely refers
>>> to it
>>> explicitly, either. German anarchosyndicalist Rudolf Rocker's
>>> _Nationalism_and_Culture_,a prescient anti-racist and anti-
>>> nationalist
>>> book
>>> from the 1920s, posits the "will to power" as a primary impetus
>>> behind
>>> much
>>> of humanity's current matrix of power relations. ANd you'llf ind
>>> other
>>> examples in Emma Goldman,w ho also lectured and wrote often about
>>> Nietzsche.
>>> But these and others were never mentioned by Foucault as far as
>>> I'm aware.
>>>
>>> Likewise, Giorgio Agamben, after Foucault's death, found it
>>> remarkable
>>> that
>>> while Foucault wrote about prisons, mental hospitals, and even war
>>> towards
>>> the end of his life, that he never discussed the institution of
>>> concentratin
>>> camps or death camps. Agamben obviously sought to remedy this with
>>> "Remnants
>>> of Auschwitz," et. al.
>>>
>>> So, Mann doesn't refer to Foucault, which seems odd, but Foucault
>>> also
>>> didn't reference a lot of folks that to me seem a bit odd, too.
>>> But then
>>> again, one can't cite everything under the sun all the time.
>>> However, I do
>>> agree Mann's almost complete, if not willful, ignorance of
>>> Foucault seems
>>> counter-intutitive.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Arthur Zinault
>>>
>>>
>>> On 5/9/07, Ilgin Yorukoglu wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Greetings everyone,
>>>>
>>>> I believe Foucault has been very influential in such works on state
>>>> formation, punishment etc. Yet, many times he is not cited (I
>>>> have in
>>> mind
>>>> Michael Mann's hundreds of pg. work on the source of social
>>>> power, in
>>> which
>>>> he doesn't cite Foucault even once), or other times, I believe,
>>>> he's
>>> often
>>>> misinterpreted and criticized based on this misinterpretation.
>>>>
>>>> Any suggestion, idea, thought will be very much appreciated.
>>>> Many thanks beforehand,
>>>>
>>>> Ilgin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Foucault-L mailing list
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________________________
>>> _
>>> _______________Luggage?
>>> GPS? Comic books?
>>> Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search
>>> http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=graduation
>>> +gifts&cs=bz
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Foucault-L mailing list
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foucault-L mailing list
>
> ----------------------------------
> Nicholas J. Kiersey
> - Teaching Fellow, Department of Social Sciences
> University of Virginia, Wise
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> ______________Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's
> Comedy with an Edge to see what's on, when.
> http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
----------------------------------
Nicholas J. Kiersey
- Teaching Fellow, Department of Social Sciences
University of Virginia, Wise
office: (276) 328-0137
mobile: (540) 250-3056
home: (276) 328-6244
email: njk4y@xxxxxxxxxxx
blog: http://homepage.mac.com/thenervousfishdown/
AIM/iChat: thenervousfishdown@xxxxxxx
_______________________________________________
Foucault-L mailing list
---------------------------------
Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV.