Neal Andrew on Foucault in Guantanamo:
Foucaultian methods can be used to analyse power in exactly the sites and practices that Schmitt clearly depends on, but only alludes to. In «Society Must Be Defended»Foucault gives an account of his methodology that reads like a step-by-step refutation of the Schmittian approach. First, not to look at power as if it has a single centre, but at its extremities, at its material means of intervention and actual apparatuses of violence. Second, not to analyse power at the level of intentions or decisions; not the ‘internal face’ of power, but the external points of exercise and application. Third, not to regard power as a homogenous mass of domination divided between the haves and have-nots. Power circulates in networks and is never terminal; individuals both submit to and exercise power. Fourth, not to begin analysis at the centre of power circulation downwards but from its infinitesimal mechanisms upwards. How are these micro-mechanisms colonized and annexed by more global mechanisms of domination? Fifth and finally, not to analyse mechanisms as mere appendages of ideology, but rather to explore how mechanisms get formed into ideologies and knowledges. Foucault summarises his general intention as to analyse not the juridical edifice of sovereignty, but its material operations, local systems and apparatuses of knowledge. [7]
