Much attention has been paid to the growing level of polarization at both the party level and within the American public, particularly since the late 1970's. Many scholars will either argue that elite polarization is representative of pre-existing, strongly felt political beliefs in the electorate, or that voters act on the basis of the elite cues they observe in politicians. Scholarship has been lacking, however, a microlevel analysis of the polarization of elite discourse, its motivations, and its effects on the American voter. This study quantifies the divergence in party discourse on particular issues through an analysis of published platforms and presidential candidate convention speeches. By employing Foucauldian theories of micropolitics and biopower, a qualitative case study, critical discourse analyses, and ANES polling data, this study finds that not only have the parties been deploying drastically diverging discourses on issues of biopolitical administration, but this also tends to engender political saliency on issues in which voters were not significantly concerned. There are certainly insidious implications for a representative system of government when parties utilize discourse to manufacture political opinions for their own self-interest. The data herein show that both parties have been guilty of such mobilization tactics within the last forty years. / Master of Arts / Even the most casual observer of the American political system will note the adversarial and polarized relationship between Republicans and Democrats. Rather than focusing on the general differences between the two parties, this project looks at how the language and dialogue of political elites affects the average American voter. What I found is that, as the two parties discussed certain issues more frequently and in distinct ways, these issues became increasingly important to the American electorate. In other words, politicians tell voters which issues are important to them through their choice of rhetoric. This is quite different than common assumptions of democratic societies where legislators merely represent the interests of their constituents, rather than manufacture them.

According to Michel Foucault, life has become the focus of an infinite amount of both micro and macro management strategies, the point of which being to optimize health and to prolong life. Foucault labeled such strategies as " bio-power." While bio-power exists on many levels of society, my focus has been on certain medical technologies that have helped to expose the political nature of death by calling into question the time of death and who decides it. As the line between life and death has become more and more indistinct, Giorgio Agamben has argued that bio-politics turns into "thanatopolitics" — a politics of death. As Agamben argues, death is not a biological moment but a political decision. In this study I will focus specifically on reconsidering the relations of power surrounding the decision to stop preserving life in the particular space of the hospital room. I will then attempt to consider how our exposure to death in this space of power might be resisted using both the insights of Foucault and Agamben. / Master of Arts

Crisis situations have the power to restructure knowledge, norms, rules and discourse. The status quo can be changed, transformed, and revolutionized through shocks to a system. These events often lead to chaos and reordering. Deflecting blame, assigning praise and guilt, transcending the situation, and corrective actions are secondary concerns when an organization is trying to change its core identity and epistemic reality. These shocks to the system provide a momentary break in time in which new discursive spaces open and become available. In particular, crisis situations that become marked by high probability/high consequence events enable organizations to establish new meaning. In these moments, a Foucauldian framework that focuses on power as production is able to illuminate certain aspects about crisis situations and crisis response. This thesis delves into the process of how external shocks created opportunities for an organization like the Secret Service to mold a crisis moment through the production of knowledge and meaning. To examine how the Secret Service responded to these shocks, this thesis examines a series of case studies ranging from the attempted assassination of Roland Reagan to the Oklahoma City bombing. In these moments, the Secret Service relied on its ability to create authoritative meaning, discipline the president, and make declarative statements about potential threats and safety precautions. In its ability to formulate these concepts, the president becomes tied to the Secret Service's apparatus of truth production. This allows the Secret Service to produce new meaning that disciplines presidential movement and action. Due to these conditions, the Service pivots on an unstable foundation, which allows it to reformulate and create new protective measures to protect the president in an ever changing environment. / Master of Arts

L’œuvre de Michel Foucault est vaste et éclectique. Il n'est donc pas surprenant que les spécialistes de divers horizons des sciences sociales l'utilisent à la pièce, en fonction du domaine dans lequel ils exercent. Pensons, par exemple, à l'utilisation du concept de pouvoir-savoir dans les études post-coloniales ou dans les études féministes. Une telle manière d'employer les concepts foucaldiens peut produire des résultats intéressants. Cependant, elle semble limitative à l'égard de l'ensemble de l'ouvrage de Michel Foucault. En effet, tel que le montre ce mémoire, il se dégage de l'œuvre de Foucault une tripartition thématique qui rassemble l’entièreté de sa théorie selon trois moments théoriques, soit un cycle sur le thème de la vérité, un cycle sur le thème du pouvoir et un cycle sur le thème de la subjectivation. Ces différents moments théoriques procèdent à chaque fois par un réinvestissement des concepts élaborés précédemment, à l’aune des implications du nouveau thème traité. La vérité requiert du pouvoir et vice-versa, la subjectivation fait appel tant à la vérité qu’au pouvoir et, à l’évidence, il n’y aurait ni vérité ni pouvoir sans sujet. Dès lors, nous affirmons que Michel Foucault a laissé derrière lui un système théorique rendant compte de l’expérience du monde tel qu’il se présente dans toute son historicité (du moins pour l’Occident), ainsi que des modalités de la connaissance telles qu’elles s’établissent normativement et encadrent de manière holistique les normes de la sociabilité.

Denna uppsats är utbildningsfilosofisk studie i Foucaults anda om lärare och elevers uppfattning om vilka egenskaper, kompetenser och befogenheter som lärare behöver i sitt arbete för att skapa ordning och reda i klassrummet.Syfte är att undersöka vilka faktorer som, enligt lärare och elever, bidrar till upprätthållandet av ordning i skolan. Jag har undersökt två skolor, både lärare och elever och ställt frågor om hur läraren uppnår ordning i klassrummet. Frågeställningen som undersökts har varit: 1. Vilka personliga egenskaper anser a) lärare; b) elever att en lärare behöver för att skapa ordning och reda i klassrummet? 2. Vilka verktyg och kompetenser anser a) lärare; b) elever att en lärare behöver för att skapa ordning och reda i klassrummet? 3. Vilka formella och juridiska befogenheter anser a) lärare; b) elever att en lärare behöver för att skapa ordning och reda i klassrummet? 4. Vilka är, enligt lärare och elever, de vanligaste störande momenten i klassrummet? 5. Hur bör, enligt lärarna, skolledningen agera/stödja för att tillgodose lärarna i dess olika egenskaper, kompetenser och befogenheter?Metoden har varit att bearbeta enkätfrågorna i ett statistikprogram (SPSS) och där ta fram univariat-/ bivaria- & multivariat analyser, först och främst i form av independent - samples t-test, Korrelationer (Spearman r), samt Cronbach´s Alpha i form av reliabilitetstester.Resultatet visar på lärare anser att egenskaper som: rättvis, tydlig, ärlig, kunnig, inspirerande och erfaren är centrala i arbetet med ordningsfrågan, medans elever föredrar egenskaper som: tydlig, kreativ, entusiastisk, kunnig, inspirerande och karismatiska egenskaper som är allra viktigast hos läraren. Enligt både lärare och elever är skolans största störningsmoment i klassrummet: sena ankomster, ogiltig mobiltelefonanvändning, ej inlämnade prov/läxor, samt elever som gör annat under lektionen. Enligt lärarna vill man att skolledningen stödjer genom att integrera och förtydliga ordningsreglerna i samverkan med lärarna. Även vill lärarna att man än mer får stöd i form av elevhälsoteam och ges möjlighet till kompetensutveckling. / This paper is an educational philosophical study of Foucault's spirit of teachers and students' perception of the qualities, skills and competences that teachers need in their work to create order in the classroom.The study examines the factors that, according to teachers and students, contribute to the maintenance of order in the school. By using survey questionnaires I examined two schools, both teachers and students, and raised questions about how the teacher attains order in the classroom. The research questions are: 1.What personal qualities do teacher needs to create order in the classroom? 2. Which tools and skills do teacher needs to create order in the classroom? 3. What are the formal and legal powers teachers needs to create order in the classroom? 4. What are, according to teachers and students, the most common disturbing moments in the classroom? 5. How should, according to the teachers, the school management action / support the teachers in its various characteristics, skills and competences?The method has been to process the survey questions in a statistical software (SPSS) and which produce univariat- / bivaria- & multivariate analysis, primarily in the form of independent - samples t-test, correlations (Spearman r), and Alpha in Cronbach's form of reliability tests.The results show that teachers feel that features such as: fair, clear, honest, knowledgeable, inspiring and experienced are central in the work of order, while students prefer properties: clear, creative, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, inspiring and charismatic qualities that are most important in the teacher.According to both teachers and students is the school's biggest distraction in the classroom: late arrivals, invalid mobile phone use, not submitting the test / homework, and students who do other things during the lesson. Teachers want the school management support them by integrating and clarify the standards of conduct in cooperation with teachers. Even the teachers want to get more support in the form of student health team and the opportunity for professional development.

La divulgation dans les médias de masse des atrocités commises dans les camps de concentration nazis et soviétiques n’a pas ébranlé que les milieux politiques. Plusieurs chercheurs en sciences humaines (on pense immédiatement à l’expérience de Milgram) et en philosophie ont cherché à comprendre le fonctionnement des régimes totalitaires. Hannah Arendt, en plus d’avoir contribué à la popularisation du concept de totalitarisme, a été l’une des premières à en rechercher les origines. Bien qu’il n’ait jamais abordé de front la question du nazisme et du stalinisme, Michel Foucault a, lui aussi, ancré ses recherches sur le pouvoir dans une démarche généalogique. Plus précisément, c’est lors de ses travaux sur la gouvernementalité et la biopolitique qu’il a étudié les rationalités gouvernementales, leurs technologies et leur effet subjectivant. Les objectifs de cette recherche sont de présenter un exposé critique de ces deux approches des phénomènes de pouvoir en Occident et de produire une étude comparative du phénomène totalitaire. / The revelation to light of the atrocities committed in Nazi and Soviet concentration camps has not only shaken the political circles. Several researchers in the humanities (one thinks immediately of the Milgram experiment) and philosophy have sought to understand the functioning of totalitarian regimes. Hannah Arendt, in addition to having contributed to the popularization of the concept of totalitarianism, was one of the first to look for the origins. Although he never tackled head on the issue of Nazism and Stalinism, Michel Foucault, too, grounded his research on power in a genealogical approach. Specifically, it was during his work on governmentality and biopolitics that he studied governmental rationalities, technologies and their subjectification effect. The objectives of this research are to present a critical discussion of these two approaches of the phenomena of power in the West and to produce a comparative study of the totalitarian phenomenon.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

A partir de 1982 Foucault attribue une place centrale à l’expérience qui noue transformation de soi et accès à la vérité. Dans cette perspective la vérité devient une expérience dans laquelle nous devons transformer notre existence pour accéder au vrai. C’est toute la problématique de la spiritualité et de sa relation à la philosophie qui est ainsi ouverte, redéfinissant la philosophie comme une expérience de transformation de soi à l’épreuve de la vérité. Notre objectif sera ici de montrer comment à travers le concept de parrêsia Foucault propose une nouvelle manière de problématiser la relation entre discours vrai et transformation de soi. Ce travail sur soi implique une remise en question constante, mais surtout elle implique une vigilance permanente à l’égard du monde, des autres et de soi-même. Il ne s’agit plus seulement là de s’inventer soi-même en réponse à l’assujettissement, mais d’avoir le courage de devenir autre, dans un monde autre. Cette relation entre vie et vérité implique de se mettre constamment en jeu, risquant toujours une déprise de soi nécessaire à l’émergence d’une vie autre : il s’agira donc pour nous de tracer les déclinaisons éthiques prises par ce courage de la vérité. La parrêsia comme une autre forme de penser le nouage entre subjectivité et vérité, une forme de subjectivation dans laquelle le sujet ne s’attache pas à la vérité de forme identitaire, mais par laquelle le sujet se met perpétuellement en jeu. Nous examinerons pour cela cinq formes, ou plutôt cinq moments de problématisation historique de la parrêsia analysés par Foucault dans ses deux derniers cours au Collège de France : la parrêsia dans les pratiques de soi antiques, la parrêsia et ses origines démocratiques, le moment de transition d’une parrêsia politique à une parrêsia éthique, la parrêsia socratique et finalement la parrêsia cynique. Ce parcours nous permet en même temps de montrer la relation établie par Foucault entre le concept de critique et celui de parrêsia. Nous verrons également comment par ce nouage s’ouvre en même temps la question du rôle de l’intellectuel ainsi que celle de la tâche de la philosophie, question sous-jacente et présente tout au long de ces derniers cours. / Starting in 1982, Foucault gave a central place to the experience that knots transformation of the self and access to truth. In this perspective, truth becomes an experience in which we should transform our existence to reach what is true. It is the question of spirituality and its relation to philosophy that emerges, redefining philosophy as an experience of transformation of the self as witness to the truth. Our objective will be to show how through the concept of parrêsia Foucault proposes a new way to think about the relationship between truth telling and transformation of the self. This transformation implies a constant questioning, but most of all, it implies a permanent vigilance with regard to the world, others and oneself. It is no longer only a question of inventing oneself in response to subjection, but to have the courage to become another, in another world. This relationship between life and truth implies constantly being at stake, necessarily risking a loss of self for the emergence of another life. Our aim will thus be to trace the ethical variations taken by this courage for truth. Parrêsia is another way of thinking about the knot between subjectivity and truth, a form of subjectification in which the subject does not attach to identity but by which the subject is has to continually reinvent itself. We will examine five forms, or rather, five moments of historical consideration of this concept of parrêsia analyzed by Foucault in his last two courses at the Collège de France: parrêsia in the ancient practices of the self, parrêsia and its democratic origins, the moment of transition from political to ethical parrêsia, socratic parrêsia and finally, cynical parrêsia. These five forms will also allow us to show the relationship established by Foucault between the concept of critique and that of parrêsia. We shall also see how this knotting reveals the questions of the role of the intellectual and the task of philosophy, two underlying questions present throughout his last courses.

Mediante o fenômeno das visitações massivas aos espaços expositivo-institucionais de arte na atualidade, compreendido como uma das ocorrências que atestariam a propagada noção de democratização do acesso aos bens artístico-culturais, o presente estudo, ao mesmo tempo em que mantém a referida noção sob suspenso, move-se em direção ao questionamento da associação veridictiva entre as práticas museais e a arte, trazendo à baila a hipótese de que a vitalidade de tal associação teria a ver menos com a factualidade, ou não, da missão edificante que a anima, e mais com a apreensão generalizada da necessidade que se deveria ter dela. Tendo em vista, igualmente, o alastramento das investidas museais desde, pelo menos, a década de 1980, entende-se que o que aí se assiste é, antes, à eficácia de um governamento de feições pedagogizantes que tem no encontro arte-museu-educação um de seus braços fortes. Nesse diapasão, caberia à arte, historicamente vista como uma prática transcendente à processualidade das relações cotidianas, garantir ao intento educativo certo contrabalanceamento, contribuindo sobremaneira para o alcance de sua estratégia nuclear: a funcionalização de condutas que, na medida mesma de seu franco assujeitamento à ordem, se autoimputam a pecha de contraconduta. Por conseguinte, uma fina atenção do olhar dirige-se à pedagogização da arte no encontro arte-museu-educação, tendo em vista a inelutável eficácia que este assume ao operar, em um mundo crivado por um acentuado ensejo de musealização, a sustentação de uma incompatibilidade que, afinal, lhe é fundamental: a de manter crível um ideal de liberdade enquanto o faz em nome de mais governo. Assim, a arqueogenealogia foucaultiana foi eleita como balizamento teórico-metodológico do presente estudo, de maneira que o gesto arquivístico por ela acionado abarcou um conjunto de periódicos acadêmicos dos campos da arte, da museologia e da educação, bem como catálogos de exposições, revistas e jornais de época. Tratou-se de viabilizar um tipo específico de análise dos discursos de artistas, curadores, críticos de arte, museólogos, educadores etc. englobando um arco temporal necessariamente amplo, com vistas a inventariar, à luz da concepção foucaultiana de governamentalidade, os deslocamentos históricos pertinentes ao processo de pedagogização da arte, eminentemente identificados no que despontava como conflito, problema, descaminho etc. O saldo da imersão analítica do estudo aponta para a contramão da hegemonia das narrativas concernentes ao encontro arte-museu-educação ao demonstrar ser possível decompor a semantização corrente de alguns enunciados que lhes são basilares como liberdade, revolução, participação, resistência e inclusão em favor da visibilização da processualidade histórica que os permitiu se constituírem como nexos veridictivos de práticas a serviço de um aguerrido governamento de si e do outro. / The phenomenon of massive visitations to expository-institutional art spaces nowadays is understood as one of the events that would attest the diffused notion of democratized access to artistic-cultural items. In view of that, while such notion is kept on hold, this study moves towards questioning the veridictive association between museal practices and art, by considering the hypothesis that the vitality of such connection has to do less with the (non)factuality of the edifying mission that nurtures such association, and to do more with the generalized apprehension of the supposed need for such connection. Regarding, in the same way, the spread of museal initiatives from the 1980s onwards, it is understood that what happens in those iniciatives is rather the effectiveness of a pedagogically-featured governance, which finds great support in the art-museum-education encounter. In this scenario, art, which is historically seen as a practice that transcends the procedurality of everyday relations, would be supposed, instead, to guarantee certain counterbalance to the educational intent, by contributing especially in terms of its nuclear strategy: to functionalize conducts that self-charge themselves to the flaw of counter-conduct, to the same extent as for their subjection (assujettissement) to the order. Therefore, close attention is drawn to the pedagogization of art in the art-museum-education encounter, in view of the ineluctable effectiveness assumed by this encounter when it operates, in a musealization-thirsty world, the sustenance of an incompatibility which is, after all, fundamental for the encounter itself: to keep the ideal of freedom believable, while doing so for the sake of more governance. Thus, the Foucauldian archaeogenealogy is adopted as the underpinning theoretical-methodological approach, so that the archival gesture it activates covered a set of academic works in the field of art, museology and education, as well as exhibitions, magazines, and newspapers. This study carried out a specific type of analysis of the discourses of artists, curators, art critics, museologists, educators etc. This analysis encompassed a necessarily wide time frame, with a view to inventorying, in the light of Foucaults conception of governmentality, the historical displacements relevant to the process of pedagogization of art, eminently identified in what emerged as conflicts, problems, misleading ways, etc. The analytical immersion of this study points to the direction against the hegemony of the narratives concerning the art-museumeducation encounter, so that it was demonstrated that it is possible to decompose the flowing semantization of some statements that underlie this encounter such as freedom, revolution, participation, resistance, and inclusion in favor of the visibility of the historical processuality that allowed them to be constituted as veridictive nexuses of practices at the service of a fierce governance of the self and the other.

\"O que é o Esclarecimento?\" Em mais de uma oportunidade Michel Foucault retoma a célebre questão lançada no século XVIII no intuito de interpelar as imbricações entre formas de racionalidade e efeitos de poder na Modernidade. No cerne dessa conexão, enfatizará o papel das resistências que acompanham, enredam, transformam esse campo de interações múltiplas, com especial destaque à postura que virá a designar, no final dos anos 1970, como uma \"atitude crítica\" em face do presente. Esta tese confronta leituras como a de Axel Honneth que, ao considerar Foucault um \"teórico do poder\", atribui-lhe uma concepção de racionalidade como processo de extensão da dominação individual e coletiva que culminaria por inviabilizar qualquer possibilidade crítica ou de emancipação dos sujeitos. Nosso objetivo central trata de ressaltar que Foucault não promulga em suas análises qualquer concepção de racionalidade como invariante universal - meta-antropológica ou meta-histórica -, mas busca antes ressaltar a história e geografia das racionalidades promovendo uma \"crítica racional da razão\" que compreende igualmente a crítica de seus efeitos concretos de poder. Isso porque Foucault não concebe o poder em termos estritamente repressivos, como privação ou proibição da liberdade, fenômeno puro da dominação, mas como jogos estratégicos com relações de força e de resistência presentes nas configurações e transformações complexas das formas de organização social e subjetiva. A atitude crítica, como modo de pensar, como postura ética e política, como compreensão e questionamento do momento ou do tempo presente constitui-se como um dos motores dessa transformação possível. Ora, seguindo o fio subterrâneo que a liga a Kant, Foucault destaca que a atitude crítica pode tomar formas diversas, a partir de tradições filosóficas distintas e em contextos históricos variados. Em nossa análise, além de Max Weber, privilegiamos a interlocução que o pensador francês estabelece com algumas das tópicas e autores da Teoria Crítica, notadamente com questões colocadas por Adorno e Horkheimer, de modo a explorar suas afinidades, tensões e especificidades. Argumentamos que é nesse diálogo que a postura foucaultiana expressa e afirma sua singularidade ao recolocar a questão do Esclarecimento como questão atual, inconclusa, inadiável. / \"What is Enlightenment?\" Michel Foucault revisited more than once to the prominent question raised in the eighteenth century in order to challenge the imbrication between forms of rationality and effects of power in modernity. At the core of this connection, he emphasizes the role of resistances that follow, enmesh and transform this field of multiple interactions, highlighting what he called, in the late 1970s, a \"critical attitude\" towards the present. This thesis confronts interpretations - like Axel Honneth\'s one - that consider Foucault as a \"theorist of power\" and assign to his work an idea of rationality as a process of the expansion of individual and collective domination that would cause the impossibility of any critique and also of the emancipation of subjects. The main purpose of this thesis is to emphasize that Foucault does not use in his analyses any conception of rationality as an universal invariable - a meta-anthropological and meta-historical one -, instead his analyses aim at highlighting the history and geography of rationalities, encouraging a \"rational critique of reason\" that includes the critique of the actual effects of power. This is because Foucault does not conceive the power on strict repressive terms, such as deprivation or restriction of liberty or a pure phenomenon of domination, but as strategic games of power relations and resistances within the complex of configurations and transformations of the forms of social and subjective organization. The critical attitude - as a way of thinking, a political and ethical attitude, an understanding and a critique of the present - is one of the driving forces of this possible change. Following the underground thread that connect it to Kant, Foucault emphasizes that the critical attitude may assume different forms according to the different philosophical traditions and historical contexts. In addition to the dialogue with Max Weber, this thesis analyses the interlocution of the French philosopher with some authors and issues of the Critical Theory, especially those raised by Adorno and Horkheimer, in order to explore their affinities, tensions and particularities. I argue that it is in this dialogue that the foucauldian attitude manifests and affirms its singularity to reinstall the question of Enlightenment as a current, open and urgent question.