Governmentality, practice and liberal interventionism in the Arab world
This paper analyses recent practices of liberal interventionism in the Arab world with a particular emphasis on practices of democracy-promotion in the Middle East. Combining Foucault’s concept of liberal governmentality with Hedley Bull’s and Stanley Hoffmanns understanding of intervention, the paper argues that interventions today mainly rest on liberal concepts of self-regulation, freedom and local co-ownership, concepts which all paradoxically presume that intervention must take place with as little intervention and coercion as possible. However, as the paper shows, liberal practices of intervention in the Arab world are indeed enmeshed in relations of power which articulate specific subject positions and identities for Arab actors and try to steer the conduct of local actors most effectively through various techniques of New Public Management and self-confession.
