DESPOTISM AND ETHICAL LIBERAL GOVERNANCE

Recent Foucauldian theorizations of liberal practices of self, while i nnovative in avoiding ontological presuppositions either about individ uals or about collectivities, run the danger of ontologizing liberal e thical governance itself, of envisaging it as internally consistent an d self-identical. This article seeks to demonstrate that liberal ethic al governance can never be identical to itself through an analysis of the persistent coexistence of liberal and illiberal modes of moral/eth ical governance. Such coexistence occurs at two levels: externally, va rious types of subjects and various aspects of human experience contin ue to be governed through practices J. S. Mill would have called 'desp otic'; internally, the paradigmatic liberal subject often continues to govern his 'passions' through non-liberal means even as both he and h is authorities seek to maximize self-rule and other liberal rationalit ies. It is argued that the coexistence of contradictory modes of gover nance is a feature of governance generally. This is briefly illustrate d by a discussion of two common mechanisms for articulating contradict ory regimes of governance: the naturalization of distinct 'kinds' or t ypes of humans and the geographicalization of distinct spaces supposed ly requiring distinct modes of governance.