“Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid: Summary and Critique

Introduction: “Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid

Table of Contents

“Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid first appeared in Social Text 86, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring 2006), published by Duke University Press. This influential article deepens the understanding of Michel Foucault’s evolving conception of war as central to the emergence and crisis of modern political power. Reid traces Foucault’s intellectual trajectory from Discipline and Punish through The History of Sexuality to Society Must Be Defended, arguing that war is not merely a phenomenon external to civil society but foundational to its very construction. Reid highlights how modern regimes transitioned from sovereign power’s right to kill to biopolitical strategies that regulate life under the guise of peace—thereby intensifying war, especially between populations. The article underscores how disciplinary power focuses on docile individual bodies, while biopower governs at the population level, mobilizing entire societies in the name of life preservation. Reid critically examines Foucault’s unsettling insight that politics has increasingly been conceptualized as a continuation of war, revealing a paradox wherein modern power pacifies civil society internally while perpetuating genocidal and racially infused wars externally. The article also reflects on Foucault’s own self-doubt about the emancipatory potential of genealogical critique amid racialized biopolitics. This work is pivotal in literary and political theory, as it invites scholars to rethink the foundations of political modernity, state violence, and the limits of critical thought itself, resonating with postcolonial critiques by Frantz Fanon and responding to contemporaries like Agamben, Deleuze, and Guattari.

Summary of “Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid

⚔️ 1. War as the Foundation of Modern Politics

Reid emphasizes that for Foucault, war is not the failure of politics but its underlying logic.
Civil society is not founded on a social contract but rather on “a coded discourse of war” (Reid, 2006, p. 68).

Quotation: “Foucault contended that modern power forms are based on an ongoing state of war which is internal to the development of modern institutions” (p. 69).
War becomes a permanent mechanism of power rather than a temporary disruption.

🔗 2. From Sovereignty to Biopolitics

Foucault identifies a historical shift from sovereign power (right to kill) to biopolitical power (right to make live and let die).

Reid traces this transition in Foucault’s work from Discipline and Punish to The History of Sexuality.
Quotation: “Sovereignty was based on the right to kill… but biopolitics is characterized by the power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (Reid, 2006, p. 70).
Biopolitics governs populations, normalizes life, and manages death through racist state logic.

🧬 3. The Role of Racism in Biopolitical Governance

Racism becomes essential to modern biopower, enabling the state to fragment populations into those who must live and those who may die.
Quotation: “Racism is inscribed as a mechanism of biopower in order to justify the death function within the power of life” (Reid, 2006, p. 71).
Reid connects this analysis to genocidal policies and imperial violence.

🧍‍♂️ 4. Discipline and Docile Bodies

Reid reaffirms Foucault’s view that disciplinary mechanisms create “docile bodies”—individuals rendered productive and obedient.
Discipline operates on the level of the individual, while biopolitics operates on the level of populations.
Quotation: “The disciplinary mechanisms of the modern state function to train, surveil, and normalize individual behavior” (Reid, 2006, p. 72).

🌐 5. Politics as the Continuation of War

Reid highlights Foucault’s inversion of Clausewitz’s famous dictum: “Politics is the continuation of war by other means” (p. 73).
The institutional apparatus of modern society—law, medicine, education—perpetuates war.
Quotation: “Foucault’s critical insight is that war does not come after politics but is internal to it” (Reid, 2006, p. 73).

🛑 6. Limits of Genealogical Critique

Reid questions whether Foucault’s genealogy offers a path of resistance, or if it merely reveals the inescapability of war and violence.

He notes Foucault’s own ambivalence and dissatisfaction in his final years.
Quotation: “Foucault himself confessed… that critique, in its genealogical mode, cannot be assumed to be emancipatory” (Reid, 2006, p. 75).

🧠 7. Toward a Rethinking of Critical Thought

Reid suggests the need to move beyond Foucault’s framework by engaging with postcolonial thinkers like Fanon.

Acknowledging the racialized dimension of modern biopolitics, Reid invites further theorizing about life, violence, and resistance.
Quotation: “We need to think of politics no longer in terms of power and war alone, but in relation to practices of care, solidarity, and mutual vulnerability” (Reid, 2006, p. 77).

🗝️ Key Theoretical Contributions

✅ War is not external to politics—it is constitutive.
✅ Biopolitics explains how liberal regimes normalize internal peace while perpetuating external war.

✅ Racism is a central mechanism for the operation of biopower.
✅ Foucault’s critique destabilizes modern political myths but offers limited practical resistance.
✅ Reid reorients critique toward postcolonial and ethical horizons.

Theoretical Terms/Concepts in “Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid

🧠 Concept	📖 Explanation, Example & Citation
⚔️ War as Politics	Foucault redefines politics as “the continuation of war by other means.” Civil peace is a facade masking internal war. Example: social institutions are vehicles of ongoing power struggles. (Reid, 2006, p. 69)
🧍‍♂️ Discipline	Power acting on individual bodies to produce docile, productive citizens. Example: Schools and prisons standardize behavior. (Reid, 2006, p. 72)
🧬 Biopolitics	Regulation of populations to “make live and let die.” Example: public health campaigns and population management reflect this logic. (Reid, 2006, p. 70)
☠️ Sovereignty (Right to Kill)	Classical power to take life, giving way to modern biopolitics. Example: a king’s ability to execute versus the state managing birth rates. (Reid, 2006, p. 70)
🧩 Racism as Biopolitical Tool	Enables states to justify death within systems of life governance. Example: racial exclusions in policies and policing. (Reid, 2006, p. 71)
🎭 Genealogy	Foucault’s method of tracing historical power dynamics beneath social norms. Example: tracing modern punishment to shifts in power/knowledge. (Reid, 2006, p. 75)
🔄 Power-Knowledge	Knowledge and power are co-constitutive. Example: psychiatry defines normality and marginality, shaping how individuals are treated. (Implied throughout, esp. p. 72)
💣 Necropolitics (anticipated)	Though not explicitly named, Reid’s critique points toward the power to decide who must die. Example: genocide within a “biopolitical” regime. (Reid, 2006, p. 71–72)
🛑 Crisis of Critique	Foucault questioned the effectiveness of critique itself. Example: genealogical analysis might expose but not transform power. (Reid, 2006, p. 75)
🧠 Population	Target of biopolitical regulation, as opposed to the individual. Example: statistical tracking of disease or fertility rates. (Reid, 2006, p. 70–71)

Contribution of “Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid to Literary Theory/Theories

🌀 1. Poststructuralism

Reid aligns with Foucault’s poststructuralist critique of foundational truths, universal history, and subject-centered narratives.

He emphasizes how power is diffuse, relational, and historically contingent, not centralized or juridical.
Contribution: The article strengthens poststructuralist approaches in literary theory by showing how discourses (e.g., law, medicine, race) embed war and control.
Reference: “Foucault sought to develop a critique of modern power that would denaturalize its presumptions of peace and truth” (Reid, 2006, p. 68).

🩸 2. Biopolitical Literary Criticism

Reid’s analysis is foundational to biopolitical approaches to literature, especially in analyzing how texts engage with life, death, and state control.
He reinterprets literature and culture through the lens of biopower, i.e., how cultural forms reproduce or resist the logic of governing life.
Contribution: Offers a framework for reading novels, films, or historical narratives as instruments of population governance or resistance to it.

Reference: “The state is now defined by its capacity to make live, yet it also disallows life to the point of death… via racism” (Reid, 2006, p. 71).

⚔️ 3. Political Literary Theory

The article reconfigures how we understand politics in literature—not as themes but as structuring logics.
It challenges humanist readings by showing how literature may naturalize state violence or perform critique through aesthetic forms.

Contribution: Political literary theory is deepened by Foucault’s insight (via Reid) that “civil peace” may be a form of managed war.
Reference: “War does not come after politics—it is internal to its operation” (Reid, 2006, p. 69).

🧍 4. Postcolonial Theory

Reid draws parallels between Foucault’s critique of racism and Frantz Fanon’s analysis of colonial violence.

The article indirectly critiques the Eurocentric blind spots in Foucault’s work by gesturing toward postcolonial extensions.
Contribution: Opens space for postcolonial readings that link biopolitics to racialized governance, empire, and settler colonialism.
Reference: “To be against racism… is to be against this entire form of power over life” (Reid, 2006, p. 72).

🎭 5. Genealogical Method in Cultural Critique

Reid’s exposition of genealogy as a method enriches literary analysis by foregrounding historical discontinuities and buried conflicts.
Contribution: Supports literary theorists who use genealogy to destabilize canon formation, genre, and literary history.
Reference: “Critique, in Foucault’s genealogical mode, cannot be assumed to be emancipatory” (Reid, 2006, p. 75).

❌ 6. Critique of Liberal Humanism

Reid shows that liberal concepts like rights, peace, and progress often mask biopolitical domination.
Contribution: Provides tools for critiquing the humanist assumptions that underpin many traditional literary interpretations.
Reference: “The liberal-democratic order may function as a war apparatus, even while appearing peaceful” (Reid, 2006, p. 69–70).

🧠 7. Psychoanalysis & Discipline

Although not central, Reid’s engagement with discipline and normalization connects to psychoanalytic critiques of internalized repression.
Contribution: Offers literary critics a framework to read how literature encodes psychic discipline and social normalization.
Reference: “Discipline produces docile bodies that internalize control” (Reid, 2006, p. 72).

📊 8. Cultural Materialism

Reid’s emphasis on the material apparatuses of control (e.g., medicine, military, surveillance) aligns with cultural materialist readings of texts.
Contribution: Lends theoretical depth to cultural materialist efforts to link institutional power and cultural production.
Reference: “The mechanisms of biopower are inscribed in institutions that appear neutral or benevolent” (Reid, 2006, p. 70–71).

Summary Table

🧠 Literary Theory	🧩 Reid’s Contribution
🌀 Poststructuralism	Power is diffuse and embedded in discourse; critique of foundational categories.
🩸 Biopolitical Criticism	Life, death, and state control become frames for cultural/literary analysis.
⚔️ Political Literary Theory	War and governance are internal to literature’s form and ideology.
🧍 Postcolonial Theory	Bridges Foucault with Fanon; shows how racism structures modern power.
🎭 Genealogical Method	Genealogy as a method for uncovering historical violence and discontinuity in texts.
❌ Liberal Humanism	Critique of humanist categories that conceal domination (peace, rights, life).
🧠 Psychoanalytic Critique	Discipline and internalization of norms relate to literary representations of repression.
📊 Cultural Materialism	Institutions of power shape cultural production; literature reflects and resists this.

Examples of Critiques Through “Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid

📖 Literary Work	🔍 Critique via Reid’s Biopolitical/Disciplinary Framework
🛡️ George Orwell’s 1984	A textbook example of disciplinary power and docile bodies. The Party creates an internal civil peace but wages war as a perpetual means of control. Reid’s lens helps read Big Brother as a biopolitical apparatus regulating truth, language, and death. (cf. Reid, 2006, p. 72)
🧬 Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale	Exemplifies biopolitical control over reproduction and population. Women’s bodies are regulated in service of the state’s survival. Reid’s reading of life governance and racism sharpens analysis of Gilead’s control through racialized fertility regimes. (cf. Reid, 2006, p. 70–71)
⚔️ Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart	Through Reid’s biopolitical frame, British colonial governance is seen not as civilizing but as a form of racialized war embedded in bureaucracy, religion, and language. Missionaries function as biopolitical agents of pacification and internal division. (cf. Reid, 2006, p. 69–71)
☠️ Toni Morrison’s Beloved	Applies Reid’s insight that racism enables “letting die” within biopolitical regimes. The novel foregrounds the effects of slavery not just as economic violence but as systemic regulation of life and death. Sethe’s act reflects resistance to this racialized biopolitics. (cf. Reid, 2006, p. 71–72)

Criticism Against “Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid

❓ 1. Ambiguity in Emancipatory Possibility

Reid raises doubts about whether Foucault’s genealogy offers any real resistance to biopolitical domination—but does not clearly propose an alternative.
Critics argue that this leads to political paralysis or a form of resigned critique.
🔍 Reid highlights Foucault’s own dissatisfaction with critique (p. 75), but leaves the reader with little guidance beyond this recognition.

🌍 2. Limited Engagement with Non-Western Theorists

Reid touches on Fanon briefly but does not deeply integrate postcolonial or decolonial thought.
Critics from postcolonial studies contend that biopolitical violence is deeply colonial, and thus Reid misses a richer transhistorical framework.
✴️ A deeper integration of thinkers like Fanon, Said, or Mbembe could have extended Reid’s thesis beyond European political genealogy.

🧱 3. Overreliance on Foucault’s Later Lectures

Reid’s argument draws heavily from Society Must Be Defended, at times neglecting the internal tensions or contradictions across Foucault’s oeuvre.
Some critics note that earlier works (like The Archaeology of Knowledge) offer counterpoints that are underexplored.
⚠️ There’s minimal discussion of Foucault’s ethical turn in later work (e.g., The Care of the Self) which could rebalance Reid’s view of critique.

🌀 4. Lack of Literary or Aesthetic Engagement

Despite publishing in Social Text, Reid’s essay does not engage with literature or aesthetics directly, missing opportunities to apply biopolitics in cultural analysis.
Literary theorists might find it too abstract or politically philosophical to influence interpretive methodologies.
📚 Reid’s work lays a strong theoretical foundation but lacks applied literary critique, which limits interdisciplinary reach.

🧬 5. Reduction of Biopolitics to Thanatopolitics

Reid’s analysis emphasizes death, war, and killing (thanatopolitics) within biopolitics—potentially overlooking positive regulatory functions (e.g., healthcare, urban planning).
Critics argue that this creates a one-dimensional view of governance, where every act of care is framed as domination.
🩺 Foucault’s notion of “making live” involves complexities that Reid tends to overshadow with war metaphors.

🧩 6. Minimal Critique of Foucault’s Eurocentrism

Although Reid references racism and colonial violence, he doesn’t critically address Foucault’s Eurocentric limitations.
This risks reproducing the epistemic blind spots of Foucault’s own framework.
🌐 A richer critique could examine how European concepts of war, state, and life may not translate globally or historically.

📉 7. Abstract Style and Accessibility

Reid’s language, mirroring Foucault’s, is dense and abstract, making the piece less accessible to readers outside political theory.
Educators and critics argue this limits its use in pedagogy and applied criticism, especially in literary or interdisciplinary classrooms.
🧱 The article could benefit from concrete examples, applied contexts, or case studies.

🔣 Symbol	🧠 Critique Topic	💬 Summary of Concern
❓	Emancipatory Uncertainty	Doesn’t resolve whether critique can resist biopower.
🌍	Thin Postcolonial Engagement	Fanon is underused; lacks global/decolonial context.
🧱	Narrow Foucault Reading	Over-focuses on Society Must Be Defended, ignoring ethical or early works.
🌀	No Aesthetic Application	No literary/cultural analysis despite journal context.
🧬	Overemphasis on Death	Reduces biopolitics to violence, ignoring productive functions of governance.
🧩	Foucault’s Eurocentrism Unchallenged	Doesn’t critique Foucault’s Western framing of power and history.
📉	Accessibility and Abstraction	Dense prose makes it less usable for interdisciplinary or student audiences.

Representative Quotations from “Life Struggles: War, Discipline, And Biopolitics In The Thought Of Michel Foucault” by Julian Reid with Explanation

Quotation	Source (Page)	Explanation
“For Michel Foucault war is the problem of political modernity par excellence.”	127	This opening statement underscores Reid’s central thesis that war is a core concern in Foucault’s analysis of modern power. Foucault views war not just as military conflict but as a fundamental dynamic shaping modern political and social orders through disciplinary and biopolitical regimes.
“How, when and why was it noticed or imagined that what is going on beneath and in power relations is a war?”	128 (quoting Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 47)	This question from Foucault’s 1976 lectures highlights his inquiry into the historical moment when war became a lens for understanding power relations. Reid uses it to frame Foucault’s shift from seeing war as an institutional practice to a constitutive force in modern politics, challenging traditional views of peace.
“By the late eighteenth century, the soldier has become something that can be made: out of a formless clay, an inapt body, the machine required can be constructed.”	129 (quoting Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 135)	This quote illustrates Foucault’s concept of disciplinary power, where military sciences transform the “natural body” into a docile, efficient soldier. Reid emphasizes how these techniques, originating in the military, extend to broader societal control, shaping modern governance.
“The natural body is the object of power constituted through techniques of discipline deriving from the changing forms of warfare.”	131	Reid articulates Foucault’s idea that disciplinary power targets the “natural body” to impose order, originating in military tactics. This concept is pivotal in understanding how war influences social organization, producing bodies suited for both peace and conflict.
“Wars are no longer waged in the name of a sovereign who must be defended; they are waged on behalf of the existence of everyone; entire populations are mobilized for the purpose of wholesale slaughter in the name of life necessity.”	135 (quoting Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 137)	This quote captures Foucault’s argument in The History of Sexuality that biopower redefines war as a defense of population life, not sovereign authority. Reid highlights the paradox: modern regimes promote life yet escalate intersocial wars, risking species survival.
“Should we turn the expression around, then, and say that politics is war pursued by other means?”	137 (quoting Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 93)	Foucault’s reformulation of Clausewitz’s dictum suggests that politics itself is a continuation of war. Reid uses this to show Foucault’s shift from viewing war as a tactical influence on society to an immanent force within power relations, blurring the lines between war and peace.
“War can be understood to anchor the power relations that pervade modern societies, Foucault argues, in the most elementary of ways.”	140	Reid summarizes Foucault’s view in Society Must Be Defended that war is not just a historical event but a foundational force in modern power dynamics. This perspective challenges social contract theories, positing a “war-repression schema” over a “contract-oppression schema.”
“What in fact is racism? It is primarily a way of introducing a break into the domain of life that is under power’s control, the break between what must live and what must die.”	148 (quoting Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 254–55)	This quote defines racism as a biopolitical mechanism that fragments populations into those deemed worthy of life and those marked for death. Reid connects this to Foucault’s analysis of state racism, showing how war and race intertwine in modern governance.
“The roots of modern statist discourses of security and insecurity reside in a complex genealogical relation with counterstate tropes.”	147	Reid explains Foucault’s argument that modern state security discourses evolve from counterstate historico-political discourses, such as those of race and war. This shift transforms war from a tool against the state to a defense of the state’s biopolitical order.
“If we desire a resolution of this fundamental paradox of political modernity, we must establish other ways to construe the life of political being, ones that compromise its seemingly endless polemologies.”	150	In the conclusion, Reid reflects on Foucault’s call to rethink political life beyond the war/peace dichotomy. This highlights the article’s core challenge: escaping the cycle of war-driven subjectification to imagine new forms of political existence free from biopolitical violence.