Law and Power: Ten Lessons From Foucault

Ten insights into the nature of power and its relationship with law are derived from the work of Michel Foucault: (1) power is not a bad thing; (2) power cannot be abolished; (3) power is not monopolised by the powerful; (4) power is everywhere; (5) power always provokes resistance; (6) power shapes knowledge; (7) power determines truth; (8) law is a strategy of power; (9) law is only one of the many strategies of power; and (10) power and discourse are non-subjective.
The following is an expanded version of my welcome address at the Transnational, International and Comparative Law and Policy Network Interdisciplinary Conference, ‘The Law and Politics of Control and Power’, delivered on 26 May 2017 at Bond University, Australia.