Limits to Liberal Government: An Alternative History of Governmentality

In contrast to the widely voiced notion about a current neoliberal hegemony, the article seeks to demonstrate that the distinctly liberal form of governmental rationality and practice is neither neoliberal, at least not in the conventional sense of the word, nor hegemonic. Rather than a minimal government pursuing laissez-faire politics, liberal government is an omnipresent' form of government aiming to widen and deepen a particular regulatory game of freedom and security. Important as this form of omnipresent government may currently be, however, it is also limited by the persistence and pervasiveness of the key historical alternatives to liberal government: domination, democracy, and discipline.