Jörg Spieker - Defending the open society: Foucault, Hayek, and the problem of biopolitical order @ Economy and Society Volume 42, Issue 2, 2013

Jörg Spieker 
Defending the open society: Foucault, Hayek, and the problem of biopolitical order 
 @ Economy and Society Volume 42, Issue 2, 2013 

Abstract 
The aim of this paper is to throw new light on a previously neglected aspect of Hayek's political theory. In order to show the significance of Hayek's evolutionary argument, the paper draws on Foucault's thesis about the relationship between political order, life and war. Focusing on Hayek's conception of the open society and, in particular, on the evolutionary ontology that grounds it, the paper shows how his liberalism reflects the problematic that Foucault began to elucidate in his 1976 lecture course Society must be defended. The paper concludes by showing how the biopolitical dimension of Hayek's liberalism might affect our understanding of his political project. 

Jörg Spieker is currently Lecturer in Political Theory at Birkbeck College, University of London. His research focuses on how the relationship between order and struggle has been conceptualized in modern political discourse.

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