Directive Power

This chapter deals with the form of power which Foucault called ‘juridical’, and for which the label ‘directive’ is here suggested, referring to a power exercised by communicating rules to achieve compliance, and whose paradigm form lies in the imposition of duties on others, backed by the threat of coercive sanctions. We look at directive power in comparison with the other forms of power considered by Foucault—namely, disciplinary and governmentalist power—and see that the crucial difference between the two comes down to their microphysical structure, i.e., to the kind of psychological processes they leverage in subjects. Directive power, more to the point, is a form of power that counts on and operates through the subjects’ capacity for (at least minimal) rationality and self-control. This aspect of the structure and functioning of directive power is reconstructed by relying on models drawn from both contemporary legal theory and the psychology of rule-based decision-making.