Nicholas Kiersey

Bio: Nicholas Kiersey is an academic researcher from Ohio University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Governmentality & Neoliberalism (international relations). The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 21 publications receiving 189 citations. Previous affiliations of Nicholas Kiersey include Ohio University – Chillicothe & Florida State University College of Arts and Sciences.

Neoliberal Political Economy and the Subjectivity of Crisis: Why Governmentality is Not Hollow

Abstract: This paper revisits Foucault's understanding of the importance of subjectivity for politics, focusing in particular on his claims concerning the sorts of demands placed on the subject by contemporary capitalism. Moves to extend the application of Foucault's analysis of liberal modernity to the realm of world politics have met with heavy criticism lately. According to David Chandler, for example, the idea of a “global governmentality” rests on the fundamentally unreliable premise that contemporary globalisation is driven by a kind of hyperbolic or imperial cosmopolitanism. Such arguments, he suggests, fail to recognise the progressive hollowing out or “attenuation” of the political that in fact makes liberalism impossible in the late modern era. In response to this argument, and recent similar arguments made by Marxists, this paper attends to what Foucault referred to as the “consciousness of crisis” that grounds the project of neoliberal governmentality. It is Foucault's contention that neoliberal capital...

Battlestar Galactica and International Relations

Abstract: Looking at a television franchise like Battlestar Galactica (BSG) is no longer news within the discipline of International Relations. A growing number of scholars in and out of IR are studying the importance of cultural artifacts – popular or otherwise – for the phenomena that make up the core of our discipline. The genre of science fiction offers the analyst an opportunity that cannot be matched by more mimetic genres, namely the chance to look at how sets of widely-circulating expectations of the social serve to constrain authors as they work to introduce as yet unexplored problematiques, the fantasy aspect in much of science fiction storytelling is premised simply on a material difference. As such, while the physical setting of a science fiction tale might appear novel, its imaginative life world will likely retain many elements of the world we already live in and which we can readily recognize as similar to our own. For Critical IR scholarship then, BSG presents an opportunity to examine how these purported homologies or elements of redundancy between the fantastic and the real have been drawn and perhaps to consider, too, whether the show can teach us things about world politics, its various logics and structures, which we might not otherwise be sensitive to. Tackling some of the key contemporary issues in IR, the writers of BSG have taken on a range of important political themes and issues, including the legitimacy of military government, the tactical utility of genocide, and even the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence technologies for the very category of what it means to be 'human'. The contributors in this book explore in depth the argument that one of the most important aspects of popular culture is to naturalize or normalise a certain social order by further entrenching the expectations of social behaviour upon which our mentalities of rule are founded. This work will be of interest to student and scholars of international relations, popular culture and security studies.

Violent neoliberalism: development, discourse and dispossession in Cambodia

Abstract: While the 2008 financial crisis may have been the first time European critics of neoliberalism were ever confronted in any immediate sense with an experience of the authoritarian consensuality of c...

Foucault and international relations : new critical engagements

Abstract: 1. Editorial Introduction Nicholas J. Kiersey and Jason R. Weidner 2. Neoliberal Political Economy and the Subjectivity of Crisis: Why Governmentality is Not Hollow Nicholas J. Kiersey 3. Governmentality, Capitalism, and Subjectivity Jason R. Weidner 4. Governmentality of What? Populations, States and International Organisations Jonathan Joseph 5. Foucault's Concept of Power and the Global Discourse of Human Rights Ivan Manokha 6. Hobbes, War, Movement Leonie Ansems De Vries and Jorg Spieker 7. Taking Foucault beyond Foucault: Inter-state Governmentality in Early Modern Europe Halvard Leira 8. Decentring Global Power: The Merits of a Foucauldian Approach to International Relations Doerthe Rosenow 9. "... we are being left to burn because we do not count": Biopolitics, Abandonment, and Resistance Anna Selmeczi 10. Rethinking Foucault in International Relations: Promiscuity and Unfaithfulness Andrew W. Neal

Scale, Security, and Political Economy: Debating the Biopolitics of the Global War on Terror1

Abstract: Critical scholarship in Political Science and International Relations (IR) theory is turning increasingly to Michel Foucault's writings on governmentality and biopolitics to explore the complex discursive interdependencies between transnational governance and the War on Terror. Marxist critics have assailed this effort recently, however, for its premature assumption that the practices of governmental power can simply be “scaled” without the interventions of specific state-imperial powers. Yet both sides in this “debate about biopolitics” seem to rest their arguments on readings of Foucault which ignore his views on the importance of developments in the discourses of political economy for the emergence of modern governmental relations. Inspired by Foucault's recently published lectures on importance of the concept of “economic man” for neoliberal governmentality in particular, this article suggests that Foucault attributed to governmentality an explicit impulse toward economic globalization. Moreover, base...

Care Coordination/Home Telehealth: The Systematic Implementation of Health Informatics, Home Telehealth, and Disease Management to Support the Care of Veteran Patients with Chronic Conditions

Abstract: Between July 2003 and December 2007, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) introduced a national home telehealth program, Care Coordination/Home Telehealth (CCHT). Its purpose was to coordinate the care of veteran patients with chronic conditions and avoid their unnecessary admission to long-term institutional care. Demographic changes in the veteran population necessitate VHA increase its noninstitutional care (NIC) services 100% above its 2007 level to provide care for 110,000 NIC patients by 2011. By 2011, CCHT will meet 50% of VHA's anticipated NIC provision. CCHT involves the systematic implementation of health informatics, home telehealth, and disease management technologies. It helps patients live independently at home. Between 2003 and 2007, the census figure (point prevalence) for VHA CCHT patients increased from 2,000 to 31,570 (1,500% growth). CCHT is now a routine NIC service provided by VHA to support veteran patients with chronic conditions as they age. CCHT patients are predominantly male (95%) and aged 65 years or older. Strict criteria determine patient eligibility for enrollment into the program and VHA internally assesses how well its CCHT programs meet standardized clinical, technology, and managerial requirements. VHA has trained 5,000 staff to provide CCHT. Routine analysis of data obtained for quality and performance purposes from a cohort of 17,025 CCHT patients shows the benefits of a 25% reduction in numbers of bed days of care, 19% reduction in numbers of hospital admissions, and mean satisfaction score rating of 86% after enrolment into the program. The cost of CCHT is $1,600 per patient per annum, substantially less than other NIC programs and nursing home care. VHA's experience is that an enterprise-wide home telehealth implementation is an appropriate and cost-effective way of managing chronic care patients in both urban and rural settings.

What Is Enlightenment

Abstract: This is not a comprehensive article about what enlightenment is. I actually question what the enlightened state might be, and might not be, or in what context one might view it. For too long we have accepted a general definition of enlightenment as it was traditionally passed on. When one starts to ask questions, it becomes much more complicated, but also more interesting. I think it is high time to start a discussion of what enlightenment really is.

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown

Abstract: Review of Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, New York, Verso, 1st edition, 2013, ISBN: 978-1-781-68079-7, 384 pagesPhilip Mirowski's work is an important contribution to the post-2008 crisis economic literature. The book aims to show how Neoliberalism (or the Neoliberal Thought Collective - NTC, as it is referred to here) took over aspects of society beyond the economy and became integrated in everyday societal life, to the degree to which neoliberal thinkers were able to manipulate evidence and realities.One of the great themes of the book is the concept of 'Russian dolls'. In order to explain how Neoliberalism became so influential, Mirowski introduces the 'Russian dolls' as a concept, essentially agents of influence in favor of Neoliberalism that operate at the societal level in the United States, from think-tanks, to politicians to the media. The doll in the very core of this interlocking system is represented by the Mont Pelerin Society, a Neoliberal laboratory of ideas.This innermost doll was subsequently wrapped in a favorable rhetorical campaign aimed to promote Neoliberalism. The theory and ideas were there, the next phase, as Mirowski shows, was to make them acceptable for the masses as a mainstream current. To Mirowski, the acceptance and embrace of Neoliberalism came as a result of its resonance with basic American principles, such as the laissez-faire. Neoliberalism relied on ideas such as promoting entrepreneurship and reduced government to resonate with many of the Americans for whom all these were principles of successful leadership. To the degree to which this was initially an economic current and a public policy approach, it is now today a cultural and societal expression. This is the primary reason for which Neoliberalism remains so successful today, despite the economic and financial crisis it has passed through.After presenting some general considerations on the crisis in chapter 1, Mirowski goes down history lane in Chapter 2 ('Shock Block Doctrine') in order to present to the reader key incipient figures of Neoliberalism (primarily Friedrich von Hayek) who shared a common belief: all economic issues could be solved by further encouraging the development of free markets.The acceptance of Neoliberalism at the societal level is a result of the interlocking relationship between different entities, from corporations to the government to the individual and academic institutions. The informational society in which we live today is fundamentally and culturally Neoliberal, it favors the free flow of information, increased communication through new forms and platforms of interaction and so on. Mirowski's belief is that Neoliberalism has become an everyday activity for the masses, redefining today's society, and he argues this throughout chapter 3 ('Everyday Neoliberalism'), using an analysis of French philosopher Michel Foucault and various views on today's American society.It is also, in Mirowski's view, a gross manipulation of realities by the Neoliberals, as emphasized in chapter 5 of the book. The manipulation is done perfectly, because reality is not only altered, but new realities are actually created for the individual. The author resumes his argument from chapter 2, per which 'the relation of the control of knowledge to political power has been a neoliberal specialty' (p. 242). He quotes a Bush administration official saying, in 2002, that, embracing its new quality as a global empire, when the US acts, 'we create our own reality' and that 'while you are studying that reality, we'll act again, creating other new realities. …

Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education

Abstract: Henry A. Giroux Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 20143Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyI was a little disappointed by Henry A. Giroux's most recent book, and I heartily recommend it.Let me explain.Henry A. Giroux is a working-class kid from the United States of America. He got into college on a basketball scholarship. He is probably the most prolific author among those educators that align themselves with what's called "critical pedagogy." He could justifiably claim the mantle of Paulo Freire. He holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University in Toronto. His curriculum vitae could pass for a small town's telephone book. He is 70-years-old. He looks more than half but not quite three-quarters of his age. He looks like he'd still make a formidable point guard. He still has the spirit of a working- class kid from the United States of America.Giroux has plenty of detractors. He has the air of a self-promoter. He can be admired for his stage presence in any of the many performances he gives as a certified "public intellectual," but his critics might label his performances no more than a few hyperbolic shorts of demagoguery. He can also be very, very funny.Education is not the objective pursuit and dissemination of value-free knowledge and it is certainly not or (rather ought not to be) an anaesthetizing and depoliticizing process in which marketable "skill sets" are dispensed to uncritical student "customers."Most obviously, Henry A. Giroux can be dismissed as an "ideologue." I know a number of educational administrators who would do and have done everything they could to squelch an invitation for him to speak on campus. They are afraid of him. Worse, I know an enormous number of educational administrators who have never even heard of him-a testament only to the vast gap between them and anything important going on in education and the academic world.I have been privileged to share some air with him at a number of public lectures and I have had the opportunity to speak with him briefly on occasion. He would not, I think, publicly or privately reject the labels that others attempt to stick on him. It's not worth the trouble. He is, by choice, a very busy man. He will talk to any audience worth his time-at professional conferences, faculty meetings, trade union gatherings or any others with a spark of life and a sense of outrage. When he does talk, they will leave well served and all the better for the experience. He is political and he is political for the very reason that he can't help it. None of us can.Giroux has no interest in creating a certified population of supine citizens, compliant consumers and efficient producers. He presses for critical education that is intended to emancipate people from the ideological constraints...From Henry Giroux's perspective, education from pre-school to post-graduate studies is under attack. It is being eviscerated by the same forces that dominate the toxic wasteland of popular entertainment, the "school-to-prison pipeline" that siphons off discontent in the racialized urban American centres, that conduct perpetual foreign wars and that ruthlessly exploit people regardless of age, gender and colour.It is one of Henry Giroux's mantras that education is not the objective pursuit and dissemination of value-free knowledge and it is certainly not or (rather ought not to be) an anaesthetizing and depoliticizing process in which marketable "skill sets" are dispensed to uncritical student "customers" who are desperate to find employment in postmodern economies where satisfying, secure and well-paying jobs are quickly disappearing where they have not already vanished.In the alternative, Giroux believes that the educational project is many things, but it is at least this: regardless of whether students are studying architecture or zoology, engineering, economics, ethics or English literature, there is always a moral and a political essence to the enterprise. …