GOVERNMENTALITY AND THE POLITICS OF RESISTANCE IN UK AGRICULTURE - THE CASE OF THE FARMERS UNION OF WALES

This paper suggests that Foucault's perspective on governmentality is a particularly useful approach for the analysis of agricultural policy because it focuses upon the ensemble of institutions and the variety of procedures that govern economic life. Agricultural policy, it is ar gued, provides a particularly graphic illustration governmentality in action. Thus it is shown how, in the pre- and post-Second World War pe riod, the institutions of governance and the procedures of governmenta lity were brought to bear on agriculture in the UK. Crucial to this mo de of governance were the farmers' unions who helped to 'deliver' the policy to farmers. However, this raises the problem of resistance: if the processes of governmentality work beyond the confines of the state , how can it be opposed? This question is discussed by reference to th e Farmers' Union of Wales, a group that emerged to contest the dominan t policy framework. It is argued that this Union could have employed a nationalist discourse to successfully resist the prevailing rationali ties of government but its concern to achieve a corporatist relationsh ip with the state meant that it merely became another agent of governm entality.