Hegemoney and Governmentality: Power and the Possibility of Resistance

Abstract

Using Foucault’s concept of governmentality along with the theory of hegemony articulated by Gramsci and developed by Laclau and Mouffe, this thesis investigates the establishment and exercise of modern power, in order to determine whether such power can allow for meaningful or transformative resistance. By combining certain aspects of these two theories—especially notions of the immanence of resistance to power, from Foucault, and the importance of empty signifiers for Laclau and Mouffe’s concept of hegemony—and using them together, I explore the possibility of resistance grounded in particularities and specific circumstances. I conclude that the models of power represented by both governmentality and hegemony not only allow for resistance, but are in fact predicated upon distinct and ongoing movements of opposition and struggle. These movements represent both the condition and the limit of modern power.