Mesopolitics: Foucault, Environmental Governmentality and the History of the Anthropocene

Abstract

It seems increasingly undeniable that no “world politics” (or what is referred to by this concept) can ignore the new problems posed by the ecological crisis, which (according to the Pentagon) is a major national security issue for the USA.1 We know how far geostrategic considerations have asserted their own logic in ways of tackling the effects of climate change. Thus, the melting of the Arctic sea ice seems to be problematized predominantly from the perspective of the new opportunities for exploiting natural resources it opens up for the countries that seize them and the tensions this may cause between them. A whole new field of knowledge is in the process of being created under the rubric of “Climate Governance and Environmental Policy,” conveying a new “global raison d’État,” that is, a form of rationality that approaches the environment exclusively via actors’ strategic and economic interests.