Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century. Mark Leonard
This kind of power is inefficient because it is always imposed on unwilling subjects from outside, rather than changing the wiring of society from the inside. This is what led modern societies to move from ‘power as spectacle’ towards ‘power as surveillance’.
Power as Surveillance
The French philosopher Michel Foucault showed how, from the nineteenth century, advanced societies moved from relying largely on the deterrence of visible expressions of might to discipline enforced by making potential subjects of power visible, through regulation, official papers, CCTV and prisons. Foucault argues that the shift from spectacle to surveillance allowed modern societies to be policed at a fraction of the cost of the ‘Ancien Régime’. The key was finding ways to record and monitor the behaviour of citizens in a systematic way through the development of timetables, identity cards, photographs, medical records, and laws.
The United Nation’s weapons inspections were developed because military power is expensive and short-lived in its effects. By getting the international community to insist that Iraq complied with treaties that Saddam himself had signed, the UN felt that it would have the legitimacy to change Iraq. And by sending Hans Blix and Mohammed Al Baradei to triple-check every single Iraqi claim, they knew they would not have to take Saddam at his word. Weapons inspections are the direct opposite of power as spectacle: it is not the strength of Blix and his team that needs to be on show, but the behaviour of the Iraq regime and sites they are inspecting. This was power as surveillance.
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