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Turning the state inside out? Exploring 'left governmentality', participatory-democratic governance, and the transformation of deflated consciousness

彻底颠覆国家？

基本信息

批准号：
ES/T006900/1
负责人：
Carys Hughes
金额：
$ 11.94万
依托单位：
University of East London
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2019
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2019 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FT006900%2F1
关键词：
Turning state inside out Exploring

项目摘要

Policies change people's lives, but they also change people. Despite their rhetoric of 'choice' and limited state intervention, Conservative party strategy has been shaped by this insight. As Margaret Thatcher put it: 'Economics are the method: the object is to change the heart and soul'. From Right-to-Buy, to performance-related-pay, to WorkFare, policies have been used to change peoples' material circumstances and experiences, and thereby influence their priorities, behaviours, and identities.Michel Foucault's concept of 'governmentality' is helpful to describe this process. Whilst states have the power to compel citizens, governmentality describes a subtler power, involving the construction of willing consent. Through policies, practices and other 'techniques of governance', the state encourages subjectivities - ways to understand oneself and one's agency in the world - which support its desired ends (2007). A significant body of research now shows how neoliberal state policies and other governance techniques have resulted in atomised populations, with a 'deflated' form of consciousness and limited sense of collective identity or agency (Hall, 2017; Brown, 2015). As Jeremy Gilbert (2014) has argued, this has had disastrous consequences for our ability to address the multiple crises facing society. Citizens are left without the skills or proclivities to form diverse collective agents necessary for a functioning democracy, nor the ability to collaborate to harness collective intelligence and creativity. This underlies a powerful sense of political impotence, which manifests as resigned 'disaffected consent' to the status quo, however undesirable it may be.My research vision is to contribute to overcoming this problem, through exploring how state policies and processes can be used to reverse the atomising and disempowering effects of neoliberalism, enabling new subjectivities which afford greater individual and collective agency. Specifically, I will explore thelimits and the potential of participatory-democracy as a tool to transform citizen consciousness. This will make a key contribution to the emerging agenda, 'left governmentality'. Inspired by the problems of the Syriza government in Greece, scholars have argued we need to explore what a non neoliberal, 'left governmentality' would look like (Gourgouris, 2018; Karitzis, 2017). A common idea in these accounts is the supposed desirability of participatory-democracy. Assumed are its transformative effects on citizens. Indeed, proponents of participatory-democracy often claim such wider effects as community cohesion, empathy, and raised confidence (Local Government Association, 2018). However, we actually know very little about how participation in governance interacts with processes of subject-formation: most research has explored different kinds of questions (Norval, 2007). Where this is thefocus, there is evidence of divergent effects. Sometimes, it appears to foster individual and collective agency, the idealised 'citizen-agent'; other times, apathy and disempowerment (Montambeault, 2016). In the longer term, I will research selected government initiatives, using ethnographic observation, depth interviews and surveys, to explore how participation influences citizen subjectivities. The ESRC fellowship will provide the vital stepping stone to this. During the fellowship I will:i) transform two papers into published articles, building my track-record in relevant and underdeveloped areas (including the physical, affective dimension to deliberative democracy (c.f. Machin, 2015) and the relationship between 'constituent power' and discourse);ii) conduct new research to enable me to scope out case studies and publish on this subject, establishing its scholarly merit;iii) undertake quantitative training;iv) publish online and present at conferences, to build networks for future collaboration and promote this agenda;v) develop applications to fund this research.

政策改变人们的生活，但也改变人。尽管他们的“选择”和有限的国家干预的言论，保守党的战略已经形成了这一见解。正如玛格丽特·撒切尔所说：“经济学是一种方法：目标是改变心灵和灵魂。”从购买权到绩效工资，再到工作福利，政策被用来改变人们的物质环境和经历，从而影响他们的优先事项、行为和身份。虽然国家有权力强迫公民，但治理描述了一种更微妙的权力，涉及自愿同意的构建。通过政策，实践和其他“治理技术”，国家鼓励主观性-了解自己和自己在世界上的代理机构的方式-支持其预期的目的（2007）。一项重要的研究表明，新自由主义的国家政策和其他治理技术如何导致人口原子化，意识的“紧缩”形式和集体认同感或代理感有限（霍尔，2017;布朗，2015）。正如杰里米·吉尔伯特（Jeremy Gilbert，2014）所指出的那样，这对我们解决社会面临的多重危机的能力产生了灾难性的后果。公民缺乏形成民主运作所需的多元化集体代理人的技能或倾向，也没有合作利用集体智慧和创造力的能力。这是一种强大的政治无能感的基础，表现为对现状的听天由命的“不满的同意”，无论它是多么不可取。我的研究愿景是通过探索如何使用国家政策和程序来扭转新自由主义的原子化和剥夺权力的影响，使新的主体性能够提供更大的个人和集体机构，从而有助于克服这个问题。具体来说，我将探讨参与式民主的局限性和潜力，作为一种工具，以改变公民意识。这将为新兴议程“左翼政府”做出关键贡献。受到希腊激进左翼联盟政府问题的启发，学者们认为我们需要探索非新自由主义的“左翼政府主义”会是什么样子（Gourgouris，2018年; Karitzis，2017年）。这些描述中的一个共同观点是参与式民主的假定可取性。假设是其对公民的变革性影响。事实上，参与式民主的支持者经常声称社区凝聚力，同理心和提高信心等更广泛的影响（地方政府协会，2018）。然而，我们实际上对参与治理如何与主体形成过程相互作用知之甚少：大多数研究探索了不同类型的问题（Norval，2007）。如果这是焦点，有证据表明会产生不同的影响。有时，它似乎促进了个人和集体的代理，理想化的“公民代理”;其他时候，冷漠和剥夺权力（Montambeault，2016）。从长远来看，我将研究选定的政府举措，使用民族志观察，深度访谈和调查，探讨参与如何影响公民的主体性。ESRC奖学金将为此提供重要的垫脚石。在奖学金期间，我将：i）将两篇论文转化为发表的文章，在相关和欠发达的领域建立我的跟踪记录（包括协商民主的物理，情感维度）。Machin，2015年）和“组成力量”和话语之间的关系）;ii）进行新的研究，使我能够范围内的案例研究，并在这个问题上发表，建立其学术价值;iii）进行定量培训;iv）在线发布并出席会议，为未来的合作建立网络，促进这一议程;v）开发应用程序，以资助这项研究。