A Normative Foucauldian

Mark Olssen is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences (FACSS) and Emeritus Professor of Political Theory and Education Policy in the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey. His most recent book is Constructing Foucault's Ethics: A Poststructuralist Moral Theory for the Twenty-First Century (Manchester University Press, 2021).

Foreword: Critique, Ethics, Learning
 Stephen J. Ball
Series Editor's Foreword: Mark Olssen: Foucauldian Social Democrat
 Michael A. Peters
Preface

PART 1: Michel Foucault

1 Foucault and the Imperatives of Education
 1 Introduction
 2 Foucault and Kant
 3 Rejecting Kantian Foundationalism
 4 Critique as a Historicophilosphical Practice
 5 Critique as How Not to Be Governed
 6 Criticism as Practical Politics
 7 Foucault and Critique in Education: Some Illustrations
 8 Critique in a Non-Foundational World: A Question of Method

2 Discourse, Complexity, Normativity: Tracing the Elaboration of Foucault’s Materialist Concept of Discourse
 1 A Brief Introduction to Foucault’s Methods
 2 From the Early to the Late Foucault
 3 An Incorporeal Materialism
 4 Resisting Hegelian Assumptions of Unity
 5 Foucault’s Poststructuralism
 6 Foucault Contra Habermas: Overcoming Relativism by Adding the Concept of Life

PART 2: Foucault, Marx, Hegel

3 Foucault and Marxism: Rewriting the Theory of Historical Materialism
 1 Introduction
 2 Marxist Preliminaries: A Brief Summation
 3 Reconceptualising Determination
 4 Change and Determination
 5 Monism and Pluralism
 6 Complexity, Chance, Pluralism: Appropriating Nietzsche to Correct Marx
 7 Complexity and Openness
 8 The Nature of Identity
 9 Diffference and Community
 10 Conclusion

4 Marx, Education and the Possibilities of a Fairer World: Reviving Radical Political Economy through Foucault
 Mark Olssen and Michael A. Peters
 1 Introduction
 2 Marx’s Radical Political Economy
 3 Foucault’s Radical Political Economy
 4 Governmentality Studies
 5 Neoliberalism and the Birth of Biopolitics
 6 Towards a Possible Foucauldian Politics
 7 From Governmentality to the Hermeneutics of the Self as Education

5 In Conversation with Mark Olssen: On Foucault with Marx and Hegel
 Rille Raaper and Mark Olssen

PART 3: Social Democracy in the 21st Century

6 From the Crick Report to the Parekh Report: Multiculturalism, Cultural Difference and Democracy: The Re-visioning of Citizenship Education
 1 Introduction: The Crick Report
 2 Iris Marion Young and the Politics of Cultural Diffference
 3 The Crick Report and the Politics of Cultural Diffference
 4 The Parekh Report on the Future of Multi-ethnic Britain: Multi-Ethnic Citizenship
 5 Adding the Parekh Report to the Crick Report

7 In Defence of the Welfare State and Publicly Provided Education: A New Zealand Perspective
 1 Neoliberalism and New Zealand Education
 2 The Failure of Market Theories
 3 Alternatives
 4 Conclusion

8 Education Policy, the Cold War and the “Liberal–Communitarian” Debate
 1 Introduction
 2 Classical Liberalism
 3 Classical Economic Liberalism
 4 Utilitarianism
 5 The Moment of Equality in Liberal Theory: John Rawls
 6 The Unsatisfactory Basis of Rawls’s Theory
 7 The Communitarian Response to Liberal Frameworks
 8 Communitarianism and the Philosophers of the Cold War
 9 Communitarianism and School Choice
 10 Conclusion

9 Social Democracy, Complexity and Education: Perspectives from the Writings of John Atkinson Hobson and John Maynard Keynes
 1 The Philosophy of John Atkinson Hobson
 2 Complexity Theories
 3 Hobson and Keynes
 4 Complexity and Education

PART 4: Neoliberal Governmentality

10 Neoliberalism and Laissez-Faire: The Retreat from Naturalism
 1 The Problem of Laissez-Faire in Neoliberal Thought
 2 Foucault, Röpke and Neoliberalism
 3 Hayek and Neoliberalism
 4 Planning and the Rule of Law
 5 A Critique of Hayek’s Concept of Planning
 6 Knowledge and Planning
 7 Lars Cornelissen on Hayek and Democracy
 8 Education

11 Neoliberal Competition in Higher Education Today: Research, Accountability and Impact
 1 Introduction
 2 Research and Accountability
 3 From Bad to Worse: The REF and the Impact of Research
 4 Neoliberalism and Democracy

12 Foucault and Neoliberalism: A Response to Recent Critics and a New Resolution
 1 Introduction
 2 Criticisms of Foucault
 3 Rescuing Foucault
 4 Neoliberal “Biopower” as a Form of “Positive” State Power
 5 A Possible Resolution: Adam Ferguson and the Concept of Civil Society as a Category in Governmentality
 6 Conclusion

PART 5: Complexity, Democracy, Ethics

13 Foucault as Complexity Theorist: Overcoming the Problems of Classical Philosophical Analysis
 1 Introduction
 2 Complexity and Openness
 3 The Nature of Identity
 4 Holism–Particularism, Uniqueness and Creativity

14 Exploring Complexity through Literature: Reframing Foucault’s Research Project with Hindsight

15 Complexity and Learning: Implications for Teacher Education
 1 An Introduction to the Science of Complexity
 2 The Normative Consequences of Complexity for Learning and Teacher Education
 3 A Possible Ethical Theory for a Complex Global Society

PART 6: Political Theory in the 21st Century

16 Globalisation, the Third Way and Education Post-9/11: Building Democratic Citizenship
 1 Introduction
 2 Neoliberalism, Globalisation and the Move to the “Third Way”
 3 What Is Globalisation?
 4 A New Political Settlement?
 5 Totalitarianism
 6 Rights Talk
 7 A New Multicultural Cosmopolitanism
 8 Democracy
 9 Deepening Democracy through Education

17 Totalitarianism and the “Repressed” Utopia of the Present: Moving beyond Hayek and Popper with Foucault
 1 Introduction
 2 Hayek and Popper: Utopianism, Planning and Holistic Engineering
 3 Karl Popper: “Utopian” and “Piecemeal” Engineering
 4 Utopianism and the Totalitarian State
 5 The Poverty of the Liberal Critique of Totalitarianism
 6 Foucault and Totality
 7 Reconceptualising Utopianism Post-9/11
 8 Conclusion

18 Wittgenstein and Foucault: The Limits and Possibilities of Constructivism
 1 Introduction
 2 Social and Individual Constructions
 3 Idealism
 4 Objectivity, Truth and Relativism
 5 The Centrality of Language and Discourse
 6 Foucault as Constructivist
 7 Conclusion

19 Invoking Democracy: Foucault’s Conception (with insights from Hobbes)
 1 Introduction
 2 Liberty, Ethics and Domination
 3 Rights as a Historico-Political Discourse
 4 Contestation and Deliberation
 5 Extending Foucault and Democracy Post-9/11

All students interested in Education, Philosophy, and Sociology, Postructuralism, and Michel Foucault.