Cited by 2,877Foucault, Power, and EthicsGlobalization and political ideologiesEconomic Theory and Institutions

Governing economic life

Miller, Peter, Rose, Nikolas·1990·Economy and Society

Abstract

This paper proposes some new ways of analysing the exercise of political power in advanced liberal democratic societies. These are developed from Michel Foucault's conception of ‘governmentality’ and addresses political power in terms of ‘political rationalities’ and ‘technologies of government’. It draws attention to the diversity of regulatory mechanisms which seek to give effect to government, and to the particular importance of indirect mechanisms that link the conduct of individuals and organizations to political objectives through ‘action at a distance’. The paper argues for the importance of an analysis of language in understanding the constitution of the objects of politics, not simply in terms of meaning or rhetoric, but as ‘intellectual technologies’ that render aspects of existence amenable to inscription and calculation. It suggests that governmentality has a characteristically ‘programmatic’ form, and that it is inextricably bound to the invention and evaluation of technologies that seek to give it effect. It draws attention to the complex processes of negotiation and persuasion involved in the assemblage of loose and mobile networks that can bring persons, organizations and objectives into alignment. The argument is exemplified through considering various aspects of the regulation of economic life: attempts at national economic planning in post-war France and England; the role ascribed to changing accounting practices in the UK in the 1960s; techniques of managing the internal world of the workplace that have come to lay special emphasis upon the psychological features of the producing subjects. The paper contends that ‘governmentality’ has come to depend in crucial respects upon the intellectual technologies, practical activities and social authority associated with expertise. It argues that the self-regulating capacities of subjects, shaped and normalized through expertise, are key resources for governing in a liberal-democratic way.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/03085149000000001

Cites

0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Researchers in critical accounting have been primarily concerned with localization of power: creation of obligatory passage points or centres of calculation allowing government at a distance and long distance control through accounting.

    “researchers have been primarily concerned with the localization of power: the creation of “obligatory passage points” or “centres of calculation” (Latour, 1986) that allow for “government at a distance” (Miller & Rose, 1990) and “long distance control” through accounting”

    From Evaluative infrastructures: Accounting for platform organization (2017) · cites this paper as Miller & Rose, 1990

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Miller, P., & Rose, N.
Venue
Economy and Society
Published
1990-02
Volume
19
Issue
1
Pages
1-31
ISSN
  • 0308-5147 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-5766
OpenAlex
W2035029990
Cited by
2,877
References
46
Citations by year
2026: 112 · 2025: 86 · 2024: 77 · 2023: 121 · 2022: 79 · 2021: 108 · 2020: 162 · 2019: 159 · 2018: 141 · 2017: 113 · 2016: 101 · 2015: 108 · 2014: 113 · 2013: 115 · 2012: 138
FWCI
62.53
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Economy and Society (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Foucault, Power, and Ethics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Globalization and political ideologies
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic Theory and Institutions
Keywords
governmentality, political power, political rationality, technologies of government, national economic planning, accounting practice, workplace management, expertise, self-regulation, liberal democracy, Michel Foucault, action at a distance, intellectual technologies, postwar France, post-war England

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review