Question

What is Foucault's concept of normalizing power?

Answer 1

Michel Foucault’s theory of bio power is a very influential sociological theory in the understanding of the modern structures and regimes. According to Foucault, Foucault in the contemporary era, power is not wielded by a few people or groups by way of 'episodic' or 'sovereign' acts unlike the ancient and e Middle Ages. Instead, the modern society and politics operates on the mechanism of making this system of power invisible such that there is what he called a new kind of 'disciplinary power' that operates from ‘within’ each individual. Thus, power has become equivalent to a kind of self-surveillance where the earlier more private structures such as family, system such of ‘care’ have been assigned with the deposition of social control and power thus has become a ‘normalised’ force which maintains, restores order and is seen to make life in itself possible rather than as an unnatural, external and threatening force that takes away pleasure.