Public administration concepts and practices

¶ … Foucault's views on power and governmentality: How do institutions and organizations create people and their behavior? If we accept the premise that the situation creates us and partially determines our actions, how should this affect how we think about how we act in organizational and institutional contexts?

In Foucault's eyes, power is not something an individual possesses over another individual: power is disseminated through institutions. Institutions create certain frameworks or expectations for the actions of their inhabitants, and whether an individual resists or is compliant, he or she is still locked within the terms set by the institution. A good example of this might be a rebellious teen who spends most of his time doing exactly what his parents do not want him to do. In Foucault's terms, the teen's parents are still powerful, as the boy has internalized their values and voice. They are omnipresent, and in his mind all the time. He tries to resist them, but he is just as much their subjects as his overly diligent sister.

Institutional power has created the modern character, breaking ties with local communities and binding the individual to the state, the military, or to a corporate institution. The wielding of power is not always experienced as negative by the subject: for example, many employees of Google enjoy the omnipresent nature of 'Camp Google,' a workplace culture that is dependant the company's on-site free restaurants, fitness classes, and dry-cleaning. Workers' needs are completely met by the institution, so they have no need to leave company headquarters, except to sleep. The company creates such a positive atmosphere it utterly absorbs its employees: the employees are even encouraged to do independent research on projects of personal interest, which minimizes individuals' drive to create new companies to explore their own ideas. All new ideas are funneled back to the company.