Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The article discusses the governmental rationality of the EU Green Deal. Even though it shares some of the distinguishing features of liberal and neoliberal security apparatuses described by Michel Foucault, the Green Deal involves a new mode of risk calculation, a different concept of crisis and a modulated mechanism of control: danger is evaluated by the distance from normative targets rather than as a deviation from the normal probability distribution; the potential crisis is inscribed as a reference point in any economic or social calculation; the threat is mitigated by creating a market on which the economic actors exchange reduced risks for funding. The article argues that the concepts of crisis, security and market developed by Michel Foucault provide a coherent description of the rationality of present-day climate governance. Moreover, in contrast to rationalchoice or system theories, the Foucauldian concepts are able to account for the hidden cost of the green transition: the dissemination of the global threat into a series of local economic, financial, political or everyday-life crises. The latter are illustrated by the unintended consequences of a recent attempt by the Bulgarian government to translate the EU climate goals into national regulations.
Source: Sociologija
DOI: 10.2298/soc2404534h
Author: Todor Hristov
Institution: Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"
Language: English
Topic: Foucault, Power, and Ethics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4406478747