In his interview with Jacques Donzelot, Colin Gordon offers an interesting and unconventional understanding of Foucault's political and intellectual stance vis-a-vis liberalism. Gordon asserts that in his 1978-1979 lectures, Foucault "presents neoliberalism as a modern political rationality worthy of attention and a certain intellectual respect, while commenting that democratic socialism has failed to engender a distinctive governmental rationality" (in "Foucault Studies" No. 5, p. 49). Clearly the idea that Foucault found neoliberalism "worthy of attention" is not remarkable or controversial. However, the second part of the sentence is important; it contains two key ideas: that to a certain degree Foucault had an intellectual respect for (neo)liberalism, and that he also was critical of socialism's failure to generate its own effective political rationality. The two ideas are obviously related.
I bring this up for two reasons. Firstly, if Gordon is correct, it offers a more complicated view of Foucault's position on liberalism. In a related fashion, it also complicates the notion of governmentality. For, while many understand Foucault's political philosophy as one that is fundamentally critical of most if not all political projects that aim at governing others (or, indeed, of providing the basis for subject's to govern themselves), Gordon's reading of Foucault suggests that Foucault does not reject any form of governmentality tout court, but instead is open to the possibility, maybe even the necessity, of a politically progressive form of governmentality. Of course, if the last suggestion is correct, it also means that governmentality is not necessarily synonymous with liberal governmentality (although it is the latter that is the object of Foucault's analysis and is clearly the dominant, if not sole contemporary governmentality).
I would be very glad to hear others' thoughts on this subject.
Jason R. WeidnerPhD. candidate, Department of International RelationsFlorida International UniversityMiami, FL USA