The Question of Biopower: Foucault and Agamben

According to Foucault, a transformation in the exercise of power comes to light beginning with the eighteenth century, as life itself becomes an object of concern for power. “Biopower” is the term he uses to describe the new mechanisms and tactics of power focused on life (that is to say, individual bodies and populations), distinguishing such mechanisms from those that exert their influence within the legal and political sphere of sovereign power. In Homo Sacer, Agamben takes up Foucault's analysis and reestablishes it on the very terrain that the latter had wanted to break from: the field of sovereignty. Agamben argues that sovereign power is not linked to the capacity to bear rights, but is covertly linked to a “bare life,” which is life included in the political realm by a paradoxical exclusion, exposed to the violence and the decision of sovereign power. In this text, I bring into relief the extent to which Agamben shifts the meaning and content of Foucault's notion of biopower, which he grafts onto another terrain. What is of interest is the examination of this notion of biopower when applied to sovereign power, in order to assess its relevance and fruitfulness as well as what it brings to our understanding of modernity.