Pastoral Power: Perspectives on the Present

This introduction to this special section of Theory, Culture & Society focuses on the formation of power that Michel Foucault – in a number of texts and lectures from the late 1970s and early 1980s – analyzed under the label of ‘the pastorate’. Stressing the ongoing socio-political relevance of pastoral power, the article outlines some of the ways in which it continues to directly influence and animate an array of secular governmental techniques in manners that other critical paradigms can only partially account for. In this, it takes as its focal point two interrelated problematiques : (1) the relation between truth and subjectivity as a constitutive element of modern power relations and (2) the theological subtexts of modern governmentality – demonstrating how they are elaborated upon by the articles comprising the special section.