Return of Homo Politicus under Neoliberal Governmentality

Abstract

The article analyzes return of populism in liberal democracies from the viewpoint of Michel Foucault’s conception of neoliberal governmentality. The paper shows how neoliberalism managed to hegemonize discursive field of politics through rationalizing its power, by applying economic analysis to various forms of social relations. Such an analysis considered a human being as homo oeconomicus thus promoting appropriate social behaviour. At the same time, homo oeconomicus is not the only theoretical model. Scientific originality of the study lies in the fact that populism is considered through the prism of the governmentality conception, which allows identifying political causes for modern growth of populism. The research findings are as follows: the author shows that neoliberal governmentality, which ignored other theoretical models, unwittingly stimulated demand for these very models, first of all, the model of homo politicus, and it was satisfied by right-wing populists.

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: June 30, 2020.
• Published: August 31, 2020.

Keywords

• homo oeconomicus
• homo politicus
• Фуко
• правительность
• неолиберализм
• популизм
• M. Foucault
• governmentality
• neoliberalism
• populism

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© 2020 The Author(s)
© 2020 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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