Language, Illiberalism and Governmentality

Abstract

The final chapter draws on earlier empirical analyses to illustrate the fluid nature of any particular discursive formation. This fluidity is realised across time by rules of transformation and, across space, by recontextualizing rules. Our analyses have also uncovered distinctive ways in which certain aspects of governmentality are realized through the language and discourse of security. These semantic configurations are not the representation of sets of policies that already pre-exist the documents under scrutiny. Rather, the production of words and statements are coterminous with the very strategies and tactics of governmentality itself. One such strategy is that of creating a ‘state of exception’ through language and discourse. We conclude that exceptionalism co-exists discursively with persistent appeals to liberal values, to manifest a condition of ‘illiberalism’.LanguageFoucault, M.and governmentality