Pandemic Biopower: Freedom and Discipline in Sweden’s COVID-19 Response
2020 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
Sweden’s response to the Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic is dominated by the general advice issued by its Public Health Agency. This appears to be a technical, rational, and apolitical approach that preserves individual freedoms in a world of quarantines and overt control, suggesting that less power is exercised in Sweden than elsewhere. This paper challenges this assumption, as well as the technical rationality behind the Swedish response. Drawing from Foucault’s lectures on biopower and engaging empirically with discourse, it argues that the general advice should instead be read as a distinct technology of biopower. Additionally, this paper makes an analytical contribution to the literature on Foucauldian biopower by demonstrating that the biopolitical securing of populations is inextricably linked with individualized discipline.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. , p. 38
Keywords [en]
Sweden, security, Foucault, biopower, COVID-19, biopolitics, discipline, freedom, pandemics, coronavirus
Keywords [sv]
Sverige, säkerhet, biomakt, COVID-19, biopolitik, disciplin, frihet, pandemi, coronavirus, Foucault
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-9184OAI: oai:DiVA.org:fhs-9184DiVA, id: diva2:1437023
Subject / course
Political Science with focus on crisis management and security
Educational program
Master's programme in Politics and War
2020-06-302020-06-082020-06-30Bibliographically approved