2025 Theses Doctoral

The Problem of Organization: A Study of Michel Foucault’s Conception of Systemic Power

Garruzzo, Anthony

This dissertation addresses a challenge facing Michel Foucault’s conception of systemic power, a challenge I call ‘the problem of organization.’ Foucault argues that power is exercised through systems (‘dispositifs’) that are made up of various elements, such as institutions, procedures, techniques, and discourses, that co-operate in the execution of strategies of mastery and control.

However, this view gives rise to a question: What accounts for the organization in purpose and function exhibited by systems of power, such as the criminal justice system or the public health apparatus, if the strategies they put into operation are not consciously arranged or centrally coordinated by any specific person or group?

I argue that Foucault answers this challenge by conceiving such systems as technological, drawing on accounts of technology found in the work of Georges Canguilhem, Martin Heidegger, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Foucault holds that this organization emerges not in accordance with a conscious plan, as in a conspiracy, nor through an evolutionary process, as in an organism, but instead, like in a technology, through the decentralized coordination made possible by the production and circulation of knowledge.