Biopolitics, the State, and COVID

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and state responses to this crisis, questions surrounding state capacity and contemporary biopolitics have proliferated. In particular, the effects of capital accumulation and circulation on public health strategy call for a reevaluation of the relationship between biopolitical strategy, state power, and capital. The author argues for bringing Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics closer to Marxist critiques that emphasize the compulsion of capital in balancing public health interventions with economic crisis management. Returning to the work of Nicos Poulantzas offers a path forward in this recalibration of Foucault’s concept. Poulantzas provides a sense of institutional agency in the state and the capacity of state agents to strategically coordinate that is not adequately theorized in Foucault’s work. Moreover, the theoretical resources of Poulantzas can be taken up to grasp the struggle between classes and class fractions in shaping state pandemic response.