It seems to me that we must distinguish the relationship of power as strategic games between liberties—strategic games that result in the fact that some people try to determine the conduct of others—and the states of domination, which are what we ordinarily call power. And, between the two, between the games of power and the states of domination, you have governmental technologies. (Bernauer & Rasmussen, 1988: 19)
The first level—strategic games between liberties—is a ubiquitous feature of society and human interaction. From this very broad conception, it follows that there is nothing outside power relations because power conditions the very existence of society. Although Foucault is mostly associated with conceptualizing power as immanent to the modern social productive apparatus, he also maintained a notion of power that acknowledged the asymmetrical relationships of the subordinate position of certain individuals and groups. Yet, domination was never seen as default form of power but rather the exception. The third notion of power relations— government—refers to a more systematized and regulated form of power that follows a specific form of rationality. Foucault’s notion of government demarcates power from domination by seeing power, first and foremost, as a form of guidance and “shaping the field of possible action of subjects” (Lemke, 2012: 17). In many ways, these three levels of power can be seen in the various ways in which the power of algorithms has recently been framed within the literature. While most authors do not explicitly frame their notion of algorithmic power in Foucauldian terms, connecting the discussion back to Foucault might help analytically to distinguish what is at stake in making a claim about the powerful role that algorithms have in society today.
Th e M u l tip l icity of A lgo rith ms
33