Smart power names a mode of domination characteristic of neoliberal societies that operates through seduction rather than repression. Unlike disciplinary power that commanded obedience through prohibition, smart power guides desire through affirmation. It makes subjugation feel like liberation.
The concept marks a fundamental mutation in how power functions. Traditional analyses understood power as primarily prohibitive. Sovereign power exercised the right to kill. Disciplinary power normalised behaviour through surveillance and correction. Both operated through negativity.
The logic of affirmation
Smart power operates through positivity. It does not say “you must not.” It says “you can.” This shift from prohibition to permission proves crucial. Negative commands generate resentment and resistance. Positive enablement generates compliance and gratitude.
The mechanism works by expanding rather than restricting possibilities. Subjects experience unlimited options. Every desire can supposedly be fulfilled. This apparent freedom masks systematic channelling of behaviour toward outcomes serving capital accumulation.
Corporations present themselves as enablers of authentic self-expression. Technology companies promise to help users “be yourself” and “share your story.” This rhetoric obscures how platforms are designed to extract data and maximise engagement. The friendly interface conceals extractive infrastructure.
Distinction from disciplinary power
Foucault analysed disciplinary power as characteristic of industrial capitalism. Discipline operated through constant surveillance, normalising judgment and hierarchical observation. The panopticon served as architectural model. Inmates knew they might be watched and internalised the gaze.
Disciplinary institutions confined bodies in space. Factories, schools, prisons and hospitals organised subjects within rigid temporal and spatial grids. Bodies were trained through repetitive exercises. Deviation was corrected through punishment.
Smart power operates through apparently free circulation. Subjects move through open networks, not enclosed institutions. Surveillance occurs through voluntary self-exposure. Control functions through preemptive seduction.
The transition reflects changing economic conditions. Industrial production required docile bodies performing repetitive tasks. Immaterial production requires creative, communicative and emotionally engaged subjects. These capacities cannot be mechanically extracted. They require voluntary investment.
Preemptive anticipation
Smart power operates before conscious decision. It does not wait for subjects to form intentions and then prohibit or permit them. It shapes the formation of desires and preferences at pre-reflexive levels.
This constitutes psychopolitics proper. Power targets not behaviour but consciousness itself. Digital systems track behavioural patterns and predict future actions. Algorithmic recommendation shapes what subjects encounter. Micro-targeted messaging addresses psychological profiles.
The subject experiences choices as freely made. The infrastructure ensuring those choices serve systemic functions remains invisible, proving far more effective than overt manipulation. Subjects resist when they perceive coercion. They comply when they believe they are choosing autonomously.
Marketing exemplifies the mechanism. Early advertising simply informed consumers about products. Contemporary marketing researches psychological motivations, identifies emotional triggers, and designs messages that preemptively fulfil desires subjects did not know they had. The purchase feels like authentic expression.
Friendliness as technique
Smart power presents itself as friendly. Platforms invite users to join communities. Employers cultivate workplace cultures emphasising collaboration and creativity. Political campaigns promise to give voice to citizens. This friendliness constitutes a technique rather than genuine relation.
The friendly facade serves several functions. It lowers psychological resistance. People comply more readily with friendly requests than hostile demands. It generates emotional investment. Subjects become attached to systems that appear to care about them. It obscures structural violence. Friendly power seems incompatible with domination.
Tech corporations exemplify this approach. Offices feature recreational facilities, free meals and casual dress codes. This cultivates appearance that work is play and corporation is community. The reality remains extraction of surplus value. Friendly aesthetics mask exploitative substance.
The mechanism extends to governance. Neoliberal states no longer present themselves as stern authorities. They brand themselves as service providers helping citizens achieve aspirations. Austerity policies are framed as empowering individuals to take responsibility. Structural violence is repackaged as friendly assistance.
Seduction versus shock
Smart power operates through seduction, not shock. This distinguishes it from techniques analysed by critics like Naomi Klein. The shock doctrine thesis argues that neoliberalism advances through traumatic crises that paralyse populations.
Neoliberal psychopolitics does not primarily rely on shock. It operates through pleasure and gratification. Subjects are seduced by promises of fulfilment, not paralysed by trauma. This proves more stable and sustainable than shock-based domination.
Shock generates resistance once populations recover. Seduction generates compliance that subjects experience as freedom. The seduced subject defends the system that dominates it, creating far more durable hegemony than trauma-based control.
Consumer capitalism illustrates the difference. It does not traumatise consumers into purchasing. It cultivates desires and promises satisfaction. The endless cycle of craving and temporary gratification keeps subjects engaged without generating resistance.
Capture of critique
Smart power absorbs and neutralises critique. When resistance emerges, the system incorporates oppositional energy. This proves more effective than suppression.
Countercultures become marketing demographics. Rebellious aesthetics sell products. Calls for authenticity and self-expression get channelled into consumer choices. The desire for alternative modes of existence is redirected toward purchasing different commodities.
Tech platforms exemplify this dynamic. Early internet culture celebrated freedom from corporate control. Contemporary platforms present themselves as realising those liberatory promises. They invoke countercultural rhetoric whilst operating as extractive monopolies. Users who consider themselves critical of capitalism defend their favourite platforms.
The mechanism operates through what appears as responsiveness. Corporations adjust products based on user feedback. Governments implement reforms addressing popular demands. This appearance of responsiveness obscures structural continuity. Surface changes prevent deeper transformation.
Relation to biopolitics
Biopolitics managed populations through statistical knowledge of birth, death, health and reproduction. It operated at the level of biological species. Smart power operates at the level of individual consciousness.
Foucault identified biopower as the power to make live and let die, contrasting it with sovereign power to take life or let live. Biopolitics aimed at optimising population health and productivity. It intervened in aggregate processes rather than individual cases.
Smart power extends beyond biological processes to psychological and affective dimensions, exploiting individual emotions, desires and subjective capacities. The shift from biopolitics to psychopolitics marks this transition.
Big Data enables this mutation. Rather than population statistics, psychopolitics employs individual psychographic profiles. Rather than managing aggregate trends, it targets specific subjects with personalised interventions. The granularity of control increases dramatically.
The Like button as exemplar
The Facebook Like button exemplifies smart power’s operating logic. Users experience clicking Like as expressing authentic appreciation. The technical reality is different. Each Like generates data used for behavioural profiling and predictive modelling.
The button is designed to maximise engagement. It requires minimal effort. It offers immediate gratification through social validation. It creates feedback loops encouraging continued platform use. These design features serve corporate interests whilst appearing to serve users.
The Like button never says no. It operates through pure affirmation. This makes it paradigmatic of smart power’s positive modality. Users actively participate in surveillance whilst experiencing it as social connection.
The mechanism extends beyond individual platforms. Gamification colonises social interaction through metrics of likes, followers and shares. Subjects monitor their quantified social performance. This converts communication into competitive achievement whilst maintaining appearance of authentic expression.
Political implications
Smart power poses challenges for political resistance. Traditional models of opposition assumed identifiable oppressors. When power operates through seduction and subjects experience domination as freedom, resistance becomes conceptually difficult.
The friendly face of smart power makes it hard to identify as domination. Subjects defend systems that exploit them because those systems appear to enable freedom. Critique gets dismissed as misunderstanding or pessimism.
The preemptive character of smart power short-circuits political deliberation. When algorithms shape desires before consciousness, the space for autonomous decision collapses. Democracy requires citizens capable of forming independent judgments. Smart power undermines this capacity whilst maintaining democratic aesthetics.
New forms of political analysis and practice become necessary. Exposing the infrastructure beneath friendly interfaces. Refusing seduction whilst avoiding moralism. Building collective consciousness despite individuating pressures. These tasks lack established models. Whether adequate responses can develop remains uncertain.