Biopower and the political: actual aspects of contemporary discussions

The concept of biopolitics and its diverse versions, which emerged in the second half of the 20th century and are acquiring special intensity today, have affected virtually all levels of political knowledge — from classical political science to various areas of political theory and systems of political philosophy, marking a very characteristic turn in the interpretation of the concept of the political. The Swiss­-German philosopher and cultural theorist Byung­Chul Han specifically highlights Michel Foucault’s fundamentally important remark that biopolitics is a state technology of disciplinary power. However, neoliberalism, as a further development and, in fact, a modified form of capitalism, opened psyche as a productive force, having made a turn towards psychopolitics. The French philosopher and anthropologist Bernard Stigler also constantly emphasizes the thesis that Foucault’s concept of biopower has already become an anachronism and is being replaced by “psychotechnological psychopower”. In this case, we are talking about “soft” and psychological shocks, the center of which are consumer goods. After the “conservative revolution”, it is marketing that determines the conditions in which technological innovation is socialized, replacing social political systems. One of the most significant objections that supporters of the conceptual model of biopower developed by M. Foucault usually face is the following: why does sovereign power, which is now largely assigned a subordinate role, continue to determine our understanding of the political? It is well known that Foucault views political philosophy in the Kantian sense as an intellectual project for defining the proper boundaries of political power: philosophy, as a discourse that is par excellence bound up with truth, can establish the limits of the rights of power. The German philosopher Thomas Lemke quite rightly focuses on the fact that in such a rethinking of the fundamental problems of political philosophy the concept of biopolitics played an important role. Likewise, the Foucault’ concept of power critically distances himself from both legal and “belligerent” concepts that view power in terms of strength. As a result, power and freedom do not form opposites that exclude each other; in many ways, “freedom” becomes an existential condition of power. Of course, the question remains open to what extent the above­mentioned discussions around new problems of political ontology find a response in modern political science and political psychology. A comparative analysis of scientific works devoted to the problems of political power and political leadership, in our opinion, indicates that many scientists are inclined to share not the newest interpretations of Michel Foucault’s philosophy of power, but rather the theoretical positions and principles of Byung­Chul Khan and Bernard Stigler. The influence of the latter’s ideas is partly manifested in the formation of new psychopolitical interpretations of power, for example, within the framework of three psychological concepts, within the framework of which various types of political leadership and reactions of social groups are analyzed — “power as control”; “power as a threat”; “power: approach and inhibition”.