Necropower, governmentality and desire, based on Foucauldian analytics

Abstract

Achille Mbembe displaces and reformulates the Foucaultian hypothesis that diagnoses the present according to the governmental veridiction mode that has been directed towards life since the 19th century, by contrasting the idea of a sovereign necropower that produces death. If Foucault notices that a certain idea of “desire” serves as a support and impulse to the understanding of biopower, could we say that there is something similar in the case of necropower, but directed towards death? Through a review of both proposals, the desiring specificity of necropower and its ethical-political effects will be critically examined.