{"id":3585,"date":"2026-11-03T23:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T23:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/?p=3585"},"modified":"2026-11-03T23:30:01","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T23:30:01","slug":"book-psychopolitics-neoliberalism-and-the-new-technologies-of-power-byung-chul-han-1959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/?p=3585","title":{"rendered":"Book: Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and the New Technologies of Power (Byung-Chul Han, 1959\u2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Byung-Chul Han\u2019s Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power<\/em> argues that contemporary power works less through overt repression and more through the shaping of desire, self-perception and behaviour. His central claim is that neoliberal societies govern people by encouraging them to experience themselves as free, autonomous projects while they internalise the demands of productivity, competition and self-optimisation.<\/p>\n

Han contrasts this with Michel Foucault\u2019s account of disciplinary power. Foucault focused on institutions such as prisons, schools, hospitals and factories, where behaviour is regulated through surveillance, classification and normalisation. Han argues that this model no longer captures the dominant form of control. Today, power often works through apparent freedom rather than constraint. People are encouraged to improve themselves, manage themselves, market themselves and constantly perform. The result is a form of self-exploitation because the individual becomes both master and worker, supervisor and supervised.<\/p>\n

This is why Han speaks of the \u201cachievement subject\u201d. The modern subject no longer hears only \u201cyou must\u201d; they hear \u201cyou can\u201d. Yet the pressure to achieve, optimise and remain visible can become more demanding than direct command. Failure then appears as personal inadequacy rather than as the result of social or economic structures. Depression, burnout and anxiety therefore become politically significant for Han because they are tied to a social order that turns structural pressure into self-blame.<\/p>\n

Digital technology deepens this process. Social media, data collection and predictive analytics allow power to move inside everyday acts of communication. People disclose preferences, moods, habits and relationships while believing they are acting freely. Han calls this \u201cpsychopolitics\u201d because governance now reaches into the psyche. Rather than forcing behaviour from outside, it works through motivation, desire and affect.<\/p>\n

A key concept is \u201cBig Data\u201d. Han argues that data-driven systems promise to know people better than they know themselves. This allows behaviour to be predicted and nudged without the user feeling coerced. Political power can therefore become subtle and pre-emptive. Citizens do not simply obey rules; their choices are shaped before they become fully conscious choices.<\/p>\n

Han also criticises the culture of transparency. Transparency sounds democratic, but he argues that a society that demands constant visibility can erode privacy, ambiguity and inwardness. When everything must be exposed, measured and shared, people lose spaces in which thought and resistance can form. This links closely to my own interest in solitude and autonomy. For Han, withdrawal, silence and opacity can have political value because they interrupt systems that depend on continuous disclosure and self-presentation.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s core thesis can be reduced to this: neoliberal power is effective because it does not mainly suppress freedom. It recruits freedom as a tool of control.<\/p>\n

That gives Psychopolitics<\/em> a clear place in critical theory. It extends Foucault into the digital age and asks how power changes when people willingly participate in their own surveillance and self-discipline.<\/p>\n

References<\/h3>\n

Han, B.-C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and new technologies of power<\/em> (E. Butler, Trans.). Verso. Original work published 2014.<\/p>\n

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison<\/em> (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Byung-Chul Han\u2019s Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power argues that contemporary power works less through overt repression and more through the shaping of desire, self-perception and behaviour. His central claim is that neoliberal societies govern people by encouraging them to experience themselves as free, autonomous projects while they internalise the demands of productivity, competition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-posts-split-image","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,35,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-photo-journey","category-my-teaching-journey","category-sophistication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3587,"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3585\/revisions\/3587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tobelikethis.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}