Imperialism as Government of the Masses. On Foucault's History of Governmentality

The article presents an explorative account of Foucault's history of governmentality in the age of imperialism. Primarily it discusses Foucault's lectures on classical 18th- and newer 20th-century forms of liberalism. Thereby the historic transformation of a self-regulating population into new forms of interventionist government is outlined. Beyond Foucault this transformation is traced back to the need for regulation of socially disintegrated masses in the writings of Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, founder of the German Volkskunde (folklife studies). What Foucault holds to be the liberal paradigm of free circulation of interests is transformed during the imperialistic epoch by Riehl's concept of state-conducted integration through corporate and national customs.