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In the second half of the 1970s, Michel Foucault gave his archaeological-genealogical methodology the name “Analytics of Power”: power, rather than an essence or attribute, rather than a unitary element condensed in institutions, is an exercise. Political theory, on the other hand, hypostatises power, understanding it as a unique reality and an object of possession or cession. In this latter sense, the institution of power in economic terms unites conservative thinkers and an unspecified Marxist thought. Foucault traces the tendency to subordinate power relations to the economy, to finalise and functionalise them to economic rationality. This article will discuss the appropriateness of attributing the economic model to Rousseauian contractualism. In order to do so, I will first clarify the critical tenor of the Foucauldian analytics of power. In particular, I will clarify the critical objectives in the political theory of sovereignty, as well as the elements that, having overcome these theoretical problems, the French philosopher aspires to highlight. Having then acknowledged the notion of sovereignty that Foucault considers problematic within Rousseau’s thought, I will discuss the actual applicability of the economic model to the way in which the Genevan understands the constitution of power.
