The author, following Michel Foucault, describes how the art of governing presupposes the interests of the State are more and more imposed on the populace in the management of existences and private matters. To do this, Power sets up security systems by manipulating public opinion and making a tool of the sciences. “Experts” become the scribes of these new market economy servitudes, which gently and insidiously standardize individuals and populations. Medicine, psychiatry and psychology are, in this article, considered as social practices and the author shows that the re-composition of their knowledge and practices has more to do with an ideological position than with a scientific one.

Adolescence, 2009, T. 27, n°2, pp. 271-295.