The Disciplinary Society: From Weber to Foucault

The Disciplinary Society: From Weber to Foucault Author(s): John O'Neill Source: The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1986), pp. 42-60 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The London School of Economics and Political Science Stable URL: . Accessed: 25/04/2011 19:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . . . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@.

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John O'Neill

Thedisciplinarysociety:fromWeberto FoucaultF

ABSTRACT

Weber'sanalysisof bureaucracyis framedin termsof the legaland

rationalaccountingrequirementsof politicaland economicorgan-

izations.These, in turn, furnishlegal dominationwith its auraof

administrativerationality and adequacy. The formal analytic

featuresof bureaucraticdisciplinearedrawnfromWeber'sstudies

of the army,church,university,andpoliticalparty,as wellas from

the organizationof the discoveringsocial sciences. Foucault's

studiesof the hospital,prison,and school,in additionto accounts

of the factorysystemby Marxandrecentsocialhistorians,ground

Weberianformalanalysisin thehistoryofvarioussocialtechniques

for the administrationof corporeal,attitidunaland behavioural

discipline,i.e., the disciplinarysociety.Foucault'sstudies,however

controversialm, ay be seen to extendWeber'sconceptof rational-

legal discipline through studies of the discursivepracticesthat

constructa physiologyof power/knowledgewhich deserves the

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attentlon

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ot socla

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sclentlsts.

The formidableworksof Weberand Foucaultmay be consideredin termsof theirconvergenceupona singlequestion,namely,whatarethe techniqubesywhichmanhassubjectehdimseltfo therationadlisciplinoef the appliedhumansciences(law, medicine, economics, education, and administration)?Clearly,it is not possibleto pursuethis questionin the same historicaland comparativedetail to be foundin eitherthe Weberian corpus or in Foucault's recent archaeologicalstudies. Rather, it will be argued that certain developmentsin Foucault's studies of the disciplinarysociety (1978; 1979b) may complement Weber's formal analysis of the modern bureaucraticstate and economy- despiteFoucault'sdifferentconceptionof socialrationality. Thus, the formalanalyticand historicalfeaturesof Weber'saccount of the bureaucraticstate and economymay be relatedto Foucault's analysis of the discursive production of the human sciences of

ThelXriti.hJourtlaloJ,Sociologv VolumLe L\ 1'1/ NumberI

Thedisciplinarsyocietyf:rom WebertoFoucault

43

government,economics and social policy and to the concomitant

regimentationof docilebodiesunderthe disciplinesof the prison,the workhouseand the factory.DespiteFoucault'scriticalstanceon the Marxisttheoryof state power,we cannotoverlookMarx'sattention (as well as that of morerecentsocialhistorians)to the riseof factory disciplinesince this is an essentialpresuppositionin the theoryof discipline and power espoused both by Foucault and Weber. An historical sketch of the struggle over the work process, labour

discipline,Taylorismand the bureaucratizationof controlsbacked ultimatelyby the State which also guaranteesrightsto work,health and education,is necessaryto understandhow labouris rendered docilein the disciplinarycultureof the therapeuticstate (Millerand Neussus 1979;Hirsch 1979).

I STATE POWER, BUREAUCRACY, AND BIO-POLITICS

It is not far-fetchedto considerWeberan archaeologistof the power man exerts over himself, and thus to see him as a precursorof Foucault'sconceptionof thedisciplinarysociety.In eachcase,history is not ransackedfor its rational essence, even though it is only understoodas a processof increasingrationalizationN. or is history seen as the storyof individualfreedom,eventhoughwesternpolitical history is only intelligibleas its invention.What intervenesis the logic of the institutionsthat bringtogetherrationality,individualism and freedomin the large-scaledisciplinaryenterprisesof capitalism, bureaucracyand the moderntherapeuticstate. Modernsocietymakes itself rich, knowledgeableand powerful but at the expense of substantivereasonand freedom.Yet neitherWebernorFoucaultare much beguiledby the socialistdiagnosisof these trends.Of course neither thinker is entirely intelligibleapart from Marx's analytic concerns.But botharecloserto Nietzschethanto Marxin theirgrasp of the radicalfinitudeof humanrationality(Foucault1970).In this, Weberand Foucaultpartcompanywith Marx'sultimatelyromantic rationalism and its sad echoes in the halls of socialist state hureaucracy. Both of them are resolutely separated from any transcendentalrationality,althoughWeberseems at times to have yearned for the desert winds of charisma to blow through the disciplinarysociety.But Foucault,distinguishinghimselffromWeber, shows no such equivocation.

One isn't assessingthings in termsof an absoluteagainstwhich theycouldbe evaluatedas constitutingmoreorlessperfectformsof rationality,but ratherexamininghow formsof rationalityinscribe themselvesin practicesor systemsof practices,andwhatrolethey play within them. Because it's true that 'practices'don't exist

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John O'Neill

withouta certainregimeof rationality.But ratherthanmeasuring this regimeagainsta value-of-reasonI, wouldpreferto analyseit accordingto two axes:on the one hand, that of codification/prescription(howit formsan ensembleof rules,proceduresm, eansto an end, etc.). and on the other, that of true or false formulation (howit determinesa domainofobjectsaboutwhichit is possibleto articulatetrueor falsepositions).(Foucault1981:8)

The onlypossibilityof anyreversalin thediscursiveproductionof the disciplinarysciencesand theirtechnologiesof administrativecontrol, as Foucaultseesit,is thatarchaeologicasltudiesoftheknowledge/power complexwill simultaneouslyunearththe subjugatekdnowledgoef those groups (not simply identifiablewith tlle proletariat)who have been condemnedto historicaland politicalsilence(undersocialismno less thancapitalism).If Weber,on the otherhand,saw no relieffromhis vision of the bureaucraptircoductioonf thestate,economayndsocietyi,t is because he regardedscience in general, and the social sciencesin particular, as 'factions' in the production of the rationalization process they simultaneouslydiscover as a topic and deploy as a resourcefortheirown disciplinaryorganization(Wilson1976;1977). Thus Webercarriedout his ownvocationas a 'specialist',limitedby his reflectionsupon politics and historyitself unable to transcend positive finitude. Weber's commitment to his discipline did not representa modeof self-alienationor of politicalbad conscience,so muchas theresponsibleethicof an individualwhohadseenthelimits of our faithin scienceas an objectivebelief.The alternativeis a leap into the barbarismof reflectionand a utopianinvocationof the cycle of historyto delivernew men on the backof the old man.

Weber'sdistillateof the formalfeaturesof bureaucratiocrganization and discipline (1947; 1967) is intended to assist in the study of hospitals,armies,schools,churches,businessand politicalorganizations, as well as of the institutionsfor the productionof scientific knowledgeof natureandsociety.Legalorder,bureaucracyc,ompulsory

jurisdictionovera territoryand monopolizationof the legitimateuse of force are the essential characteristicsof the modernstate. This complexof factorsemergedonlygraduallyin Europeandis onlyfully presentwherelegitimacyis locatedin the bodyof bureaucraticrules that determinethe exerciseof politicalauthority.It shouldbe noted that Weber'sconceptof the legitimacyof the modernlegal state is purely formal:laws are legitimateif procedurallycorrectand any correctprocedureis legal.Of course,Weberdid not ignorethe actual value-contextsof politicallegitimacy(Schluchter1981). He saw the historicaldriftmovingfromnaturallaw to legalpositivismbut could notsee thattheeventsof the twentiethcenturywouldleadto attempts to reinstate natural law in an effort to bridle state barbarism. Foucault'sstudiesof the rise of the modernstate apparatusdo not

Thedisciplinarsyocietyf:rom WebertoFoucault

45

alter Weber's conceptionof the legitimationprocess but they are much more graphic.This is meant quite literally.AlthoughWeber sees the documentarygrowthof the legal and bureaucraticadministrativeprocess,he does notjudge its effectsupon the bodypolitic.By contrast,like Marx, Foucaultnever loses sight of the body as the ultimatetext upon which the powerof the state and the economyis inscribed(O'Neill 1972;1985).By thesametoken,Foucaultis ableto go beyondWeber'slegal-rationalconceptoflegitimacyto capturethe medicalizationof powerand the therapeuticmodeof the legitimation functionin the modernstate

In concreteterms,startingin the seventeenthcentury,this power over life evolved in two basic forms; these forms were not antitheticalhowever;they constitutedrathertwo polesof development,linkedtogetherby a wholeintermediaryclusterof relations. One of these poles- the firstto be formed,it seems- centeredon the body as a machine;its disciplining,the optimizationof its capabilities,the extortionof its forces,the parallelincreaseof its usefulnessand its docility,its integrationinto systemsof eflicient and economiccontrols,all this was ensuredby the proceduresof powerthat characterizedthe disciplineas:n anatomopolitoifctshebody. The second,formedsomewhatlater, focusedon the speciesbody, the body as the basis of the biologicalprocesses:propagationand longevity,with all the conditionsthat can cause these to vary. Theirsupervisionwas effectedthroughan entireseriesof interventions and regulatorcyontrolsa: bio-politicosf thepopulation(F. oucault 1980: 139)

Weber'sdiscussionof bureaucracyis largelyframedin termsof the legal and rationalaccountingrequirementsof politicaland economic organizationwhichin turngive to legaldominationits administrative rationalityandadequacy.The formal-analytifceaturesof theWeberian conceptof bureaucracyareto be foundas constitutivepracticesin the operation of the army, church, university, hospital and political party- not to mentiontheveryorganizationof therelevantdiscovering social sciences.AlthoughFoucault(1975; 1979a)does not study the bureaucraticprocessin the Weberianmode,his studiesof the prison, hospitaland schoolgo beyondWeberin groundingthe legal-rational accountingprocessin techniquesforthe administrationof corporeal, attitudinalandbehaviouradl iscipline.Foucaulttherebycomplements Weber'sformal-rationaclonceptof bureaucracyandlegaldomination with a physiologoyf bureaucraacnydpowerwhichis the definitivefeature of the disciplinarysociety. It is for this reason that, despite the difficultiesin his style, Foucault deserves the attention of social scientists.Thereis a tendencyin Weber'saccountof bureaucracyto identify it with a ruling class, dominating the economy and the

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