Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 251-271 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Law and Critique |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2011 |
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‘Government(ality) By Experts: Human Rights as Governance’. / Sokhi-Bulley, Bal.
In: Law and Critique, Vol. 22, No. 3, 10.2011, p. 251-271.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘Government(ality) By Experts: Human Rights as Governance’
AU - Sokhi-Bulley, Bal
PY - 2011/10
Y1 - 2011/10
N2 - The suggestion that the general economy of power in our societies is becoming a domain of security was made by Michel Foucault in the late 1970s. This paper takes inspiration from Foucault?s work to interpret human rights as technologies of governmentality, which make possible the safe and secure society. I examine, by way of illustration, the site of the European Union and its use of new modes of governance to regulate rights discourse – in particular via the emergence of a new Fundamental Rights Agency. „Governance? in the EU is constructed in an apolitical way, as a departure from traditional legal and juridical methods of governing. I argue, however, that the features of governance represent technologies of government(ality), a new form of both being governed through rights and of governing rights. The governance feature that this article is most interested in is experts. The article aims to show, first and foremost, how rights operate as technologies of governmentality via a new relation to expertise. Second, it considers the significant implications that this reading of rights has for rights as a regulatory and normalising discourse. Finally, it highlights how the overlap between rights and governance discourses can be problematic because (as the EU model illustrates) governance conceals the power relations of governmentality, allowing, for instance, the unproblematic representation of the EU as an international human rights actor
AB - The suggestion that the general economy of power in our societies is becoming a domain of security was made by Michel Foucault in the late 1970s. This paper takes inspiration from Foucault?s work to interpret human rights as technologies of governmentality, which make possible the safe and secure society. I examine, by way of illustration, the site of the European Union and its use of new modes of governance to regulate rights discourse – in particular via the emergence of a new Fundamental Rights Agency. „Governance? in the EU is constructed in an apolitical way, as a departure from traditional legal and juridical methods of governing. I argue, however, that the features of governance represent technologies of government(ality), a new form of both being governed through rights and of governing rights. The governance feature that this article is most interested in is experts. The article aims to show, first and foremost, how rights operate as technologies of governmentality via a new relation to expertise. Second, it considers the significant implications that this reading of rights has for rights as a regulatory and normalising discourse. Finally, it highlights how the overlap between rights and governance discourses can be problematic because (as the EU model illustrates) governance conceals the power relations of governmentality, allowing, for instance, the unproblematic representation of the EU as an international human rights actor
U2 - 10.1007/s10978-011-9091-4
DO - 10.1007/s10978-011-9091-4
M3 - Article
VL - 22
SP - 251
EP - 271
JO - Law and Critique
JF - Law and Critique
SN - 0957-8536
IS - 3
ER -