An analysis of informational power transformations: from modern state to the new regime of performativity

Abstract

This paper examines the role and power of the state in modernity and its transformation throughout it and into the present. First, it recognizes the centrality of the role of information control for the modern state constitution, which allows sovereign power to extend to the national level. Secondly, it discusses the shift of state power from a purely informational power to an informational and bargaining power, as well as the gradual transformation of sovereignty into governmentality. Finally, it analyzes the transformations that have led to a critical loss of both powers by the state and have enabled their acquisition by tech corporations. It examines the implications of this shift in power and the consequent disempowerment of the state, defining the mode of operation of the power embodied by tech corporations as a regime of performativity, rephrasing the Foucauldian regime of truth, which presided over the ways in which governmental power was performed. Such a regime bases its power not on the ability to order discourse and knowledge, but on the ability to automate it, and to predict and manipulate human behaviors. In this way, it has disintermediated not only the state in its role as the primary informational agent, but also, to some extent, the ability of individuals to assert rights through their actions.

Full text

Vol.:(0123456789)
AI & SOCIETY (2025) 40:509–520
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01815-w
MAIN PAPER
An analysis ofinformational power transformations: frommodern
state tothenew regime ofperformativity
FrancescoAbbate1
Received: 14 July 2023 / Accepted: 30 October 2023 / Published online: 27 November 2023
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023
Abstract
This paper examines the role and power of the state in modernity and its transformation throughout it and into the present.
First, it recognizes the centrality of the role of information control for the modern state constitution, which allows sovereign
power to extend to the national level. Secondly, it discusses the shift of state power from a purely informational power to
an informational and bargaining power, as well as the gradual transformation of sovereignty into governmentality. Finally,
it analyzes the transformations that have led to a critical loss of both powers by the state and have enabled their acquisition
by tech corporations. It examines the implications of this shift in power and the consequent disempowerment of the state,
defining the mode of operation of the power embodied by tech corporations as a regime of performativity, rephrasing the
Foucauldian regime of truth, which presided over the ways in which governmental power was performed. Such a regime
bases its power not on the ability to order discourse and knowledge, but on the ability to automate it, and to predict and
manipulate human behaviors. In this way, it has disintermediated not only the state in its role as the primary informational
agent, but also, to some extent, the ability of individuals to assert rights through their actions.
Keywords Informational power· Modern state· Governmentality· Regime of truth· Regime of performativity
1 Introduction
“And God said,«Let there be light», and there was light.
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light
from the darkness. God called the light «day», and the dark-
ness he called “night”. And there was evening, and there was
morning—the first day” (Genesis 1, 3–5).
The Jewish tradition recognizes in God the power to do
things with words, that is, to perform them through lan-
guage. This power alone is sufficient to guarantee God's
omnipotence. Performative power1 is the only power God
must have to create and rule the world. Prayertries to rep-
licate this power; it is an attempt through which believers
indirectly try to exercise performative power. Unfortunately,
in the human realm, things are different. The ability to make
things is primarily tied to the hands, to the manipulative
ability that evolution has given humans by freeing their
hands. However, by establishing the law, humans made this
divine power their own. The sovereign power soon appropri-
ated this power, and with it the means to convey the content
of the law, its information. Nevertheless, this was not enough
to make it omnipotent, as there are things that the law cannot
do. Thus, sovereignty soon showed its power limitations and,
in the end, gave way to what Foucaulthas called governmen-
tality, a more effective way of exercising power, a technique
by which the limits of power have been expanded. Its peculi-
arity lies essentially in the fact that it does not exclude any of
the instances of discourse. It does not exclude but welcomes
non-juridical discourses and orders them together with the
latter to produce new power relations or to consolidate old
ones. More concisely, it recognizes the value of the informa-
tion contained in the instances of discourse, a value that is
pre-eminent and, in any case, not secondary to the force of
law that legal discourse possesses.
This very short history of power does not end there. The
digital revolution that we are experiencing is producing new
forms of power, a veritable new paradigm, through which
not only is no discourse or information dropped, but any
minimal and seemingly insignificant data is collected to
extract any possible information that is enforced within the
* Francesco Abbate
francesco.abbate2@gmail.com
1 Department ofPhilosophy, Sapienza University,
00161Rome, Italy 1 For more on performativity power of language, see Austin (1975).
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.