ESRC Seminar Series 'Government and Freedom: Histories and Prospects'
A seminar series hosted by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at the Open University and the University of Manchester, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Seminar convenors
- Tony Bennett, Professor of Sociology, The Open University, CRESC Director
- Francis Dodsworth, Research Fellow, CRESC
- Patrick Joyce, Professor of History, University of Manchester, visiting Professor of Sociology, LSE, CRESC research convenor
- Nikolas Rose, Martin White Professor of Sociology, LSE
Seminar aims
Questions concerning the relations between government and freedom have assumed a renewed importance in the social sciences and history in recent years in view of a number of connected developments. Some of these have been political, and some have been related to new historical and theoretical perspectives in the social sciences. Contemporary concerns with security have foregrounded concerns regarding the balance of security and freedom, and there is also an evident need to consider the relationship between government and freedom within religions (including Christianity). The decline of communism has prompted a new interest in liberalism and freedom in Europe and elsewhere. The political ascendancy of neoliberalism has been of major significance, prompting historical and social science inquiry into the long-term history of liberalism, including its relationship to different traditions of freedom, as these have been expressed in religion, political thought, organised politics, and in changing relationships between states and markets.
In the social sciences and history post-Foucauldian understandings of power and governance have opened up new perspectives on the relations between government and freedom. For example, governmentality studies has understood liberal government not as a negative restriction on the scope of government but as a distinctive set of practical techniques for governing which assumes, orders and works through the freedom of those whom it governs. Work derived from the traditions of science studies and actor-network-theory and related traditions in material culture studies has also thrown significant light on the connections between power, governance, and the material world, especially in relation to the organisation of the relations between freedom and the state. In the history of political thought, the work the Cambridge School has similarly complicated the history of freedom. The same deepening of understanding has been true of the work of social and cultural historians who have been concerned with the history of liberal rationalities and technologies of governance, and the complex forms that these have taken in a variety of national and colonial settings.
In pursuing these concerns, we have become increasingly aware of the need for a broadly-based interdisciplinary dialogue between scholars, both those already engaged in this work and those who we hope would be brought into discussion with it. We have also become aware of the need for transnational and trans-imperial comparative work, in the present and over the long historical term.
Academic Outputs
All the papers given by the keynote speakers and panellists will be made publicly available on the CRESC website. Selected papers will be revised and compiled as edited collections / journal special issues.
Academic Futures
The seminar series will have wider strategic outcomes, continuing and extending existing co-operation between The Open University and the University of Manchester, leading into the establishment of a programme of work for the second stage of CRESC, the possibility of collaboration between the LSE and the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG) at the Open University, and to a grant application for a larger project by the seminar organisers.