Research On Foucault’s Governance Thought In Late Period

Foucault,as a dazzling star in contemporary French ideological circle,is known as "the greatest thinker after Sartre" by the world for his maverick character and innovative academic achievements.Foucault’s thought research covers a wide range of topics,including intellectual power,life politics,space theory,governance and so on.Among them,the series of lectures in the French Academy from 1978 until his death was an important epitome of his later thought development,and also became an important literature group to open Foucault’s later thought.Throughout his lectures in the middle and late period of the French Academy,we found that governance is the core concept throughout.Therefore,it is necessary to take the late Foucault’s governance thought as the main research object,take the historical materialism method as the guide,and try to restore the theoretical context and realistic context of Foucault’s governance thought through text interpretation,and on this basis,briefly explain its emergence,development and transformation.In order to analyze the genealogy of Foucault’s late thoughts around the concept of governance,this study starts with a series of lectures given by Foucault at the French Academy in his late years,such as Security,Territory and Population and the Birth of Life Politics.Firstly,it analyzes the theoretical background,the historical background and the usual genealogy research methods of Foucault’s governance thoughts,and leads to the birth of his concept of governance in the transformation of discourse order to power technology and discipline power to life politics.Then,on the premise of trying to talk to Marxism,it focuses on Foucault’s carding and analysis of the pedigree of governance skills.From the Christian period to the modern western society,and then to the contemporary capitalist society,these three stages of governance art constitute the main development thread of governance.In the period of Christianity,the pastoral power in the eastern society was the main governance skill.In modern society,the state became a new governance form,and diplomacy-military technology and public management together constituted the technical whole of governance.With the frequent crisis of public management,liberal governance has been born.Therefore,the market becomes the place of truth,and naturalism also constitutes the basic rule of governance.However,the expansion of national phobia has prompted liberal "governance" to give way to neoliberalism.Represented by German order liberalism and American neoliberalism,western society has developed a unique governance path.Neoliberal governance looks beautiful,but in Foucault’s eyes it means the continuous expansion and deepening of governance.Therefore,since the early 1980 s,Foucault has chosen to explore governance from the object dimension of power skills to the subject angle,especially in the history of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy,to rethink the relationship between subject,truth and governance.Returning to ancient Greece can be seen as Foucault’s attempt to get rid of the shortcomings of modern governance skills,but obviously this attempt was unsuccessful.Although his idea of returning to ancient Greece failed,it is undeniable that this exploration has certain enlightenment significance for us to reflect on how individuals live in modern society.With his death in June,1984,this drama of criticism and escape from neoliberalism ended with regret.On the whole,by exploring the concept of late Foucault’s governance,it can be proved that Foucault is by no means a post-modernist in the eyes of some people.As far as his profound criticism of liberalism and neoliberalism from Marx and Frankfurt School is concerned,Foucault should obviously be included in the list of critical thinkers,and we can regard him as a fellow traveler of Marxist critical theory.Foucault’s late governance thought has important theoretical value and practical significance for us to understand contemporary capitalist society and develop Marxist critical theory.