Desire, Connectivity, and Transparency: The Evolution of Foucauldian Governmentality in Dystopian Science Fiction

초록

This article examines how dystopian science fiction narrates the historical transformation of technological power through Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality. While previous studies of dystopian fiction have focused primarily on totalitarianism, surveillance, and repressive power, this study argues that contemporary power increasingly operates through the organization of desire, voluntary participation, and self-management rather than external coercion. To explore this shift, the article comparatively analyzes Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, and Dave Eggers’s The Circle. The three novels represent distinct stages in the evolution of governmentality: biopolitical governance, information-network governance, and platform-based self-governance. Brave New World depicts a society in which desire and emotion are regulated through pleasure, consumption, and psychological conditioning. Neuromancer presents cyberspace and data networks as new structures of governance in a late-capitalist information society. The Circle portrays a platform society in which transparency and participation become internalized ethical values, leading individuals to voluntarily perform self-surveillance. Rather than treating these works merely as technological dystopias, this article interprets them as genealogical texts tracing the movement of modern power from external discipline to self-governance.

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