22 February 1978

Abstract

MF tracks the gensis of the shift from "territorial" to "population" state through the notion of government. He focuses on the procedures and means employed to ensure "the government of men".(1) pastoral power of the Hebrew sheperd, whose concern is not over a fixed territory but over a multitude in movement toward a goal. (2.) the rise of "governmentality," or the way in which the behavior of a set of individuals became involved in the exercise of soverign power (p.68). Out of governmentality and pastoral power emerges a "reason of state": a new matrix of rationality for governing men over an indefinitie time. From the "reason of the state" emerge two ensembles of political knowledge: diplomatico-military (indefinitie competition between states) and policy (increase the state's strength from within). Branching from the technology of policy and in correlation with economic thought (managment of resources) comes the political problem of population.