CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Kusic, Katarina |
|---|---|
| Title | Limits of neoliberal governmentality: Successful exportation and less successful application in Serbia |
| Summary | This research will contribute to the ongoing debate about the appropriateness of using Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality in IR. It will do so by grounding the research in non-positivist empirics by using ethnographic fieldwork in Serbia, a space that has been trapped in a post-socialist transition for more than 20 years, and, despite being the target of exogenous neoliberal reforms, fails to function with a neoliberal rationality of government. Furthermore, this thesis will differentiate between exporting governmentality and actually applying it within specific territories. The first part will introduce the concept of governmentality and review the objections to its usage in IR. The second part will focus on the creation of Serbia as the ‘backward’ state, a prerequisite to external influence on the Serbian society, and address the problem of individual subjectivation usually associated with Foucauldian analyses of power. The last part will focus on Serbian civil society as a platform through which the new rationalities are introduced, but which simultaneously serves a site of resistance to those same rationalities. More than providing theoretical clarity, I hope to make this a starting point in investigating forms of government outside the developed West and their global relations without falling into the trap of linear development which unavoidably carries the normalizing gaze with it. |
| Supervisor | Akçali, Emel |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/kusic_katarina.pdf |
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