The French philosopher Michel Foucault has developed a view of power that is diametrically opposed to traditional political philosophy.

He refuses to define power in terms of law. According to him, power is not exercised within a specific legal framework—the rule of law—but rather the opposite. The threat posed by power is never intended to bring everything within such a specific framework but rather to remain outside it and/or to create a new legal framework.

Anyone who continues to defend that legal framework as a source of power is stuck in an outdated model of a sovereign monarchy against feudal rulers, according to Foucault, whereas we must instead look at what the mechanisms of power are and what effect they have. The law is not constitutive of sovereignty but stands in direct opposition to it and can even be used against power politics as a form of resistance.

To see how power is exercised, we must not start from a general concept of the state but from the techniques of governance on which it is based. The State then becomes nothing more than the sum of all those actions.

In concrete terms, power does not lie in a legal framework but in a set of control techniques, subtle procedures of domination, rules, and norms that are drummed into people until the entire population has internalized them. It is less about binding rules than about techniques of persuasion.

The stated objectives are always the general welfare of the population, which is why social policy is very often used to keep the population under control. This is, of course, by no means the only sector; one might just as easily refer to environmental regulations, taxation, traffic regulations, surveillance cameras, property law, and many others, each with its own specific way of applying these measures. In other words, an analysis of all mechanisms of power is required in order to understand that power itself.

Hence Foucault’s conclusion: we must behead the King but it will not be sufficient, for he is by no means the sole source of power. Power exists and seeps into all strata of society and is exercised in all manner of subtle ways where one least expects it.

This lengthy introduction is necessary to say something about the futility of the ‘politics of spectacle’ we were confronted with at the start of this year. The president of Venezuela being dragged from his bed and abducted to the United States; a drug lord in Mexico lured out of his love nest and shot dead; a precision strike in Tehran to send the Supreme Leader to the eternal hunting grounds, with or without 72 virgins.

These are three incidents that resemble ‘beheading the king' but which, in fact, do not. Because simply eliminating the top of an organization, a government, or any other structure can never, ever succeed unless all the governing mechanisms beneath it are also eliminated. Just as the King was beheaded during the French Revolution, this by no means instantly created a new society. Mechanisms of power persist; people continue to think and act within the old framework, even if they perhaps wanted that old framework gone. But in their minds and in their consciousness, the King still lives, and that is precisely why literal decapitation is never enough, as the three examples will show.

Venezuela

On 3 January this year, a special commando unit from the United States invaded Venezuela and abducted President Maduro and his wife. It was a swift, efficient operation following weeks of tension caused by the presence of a naval fleet off the coast of Venezuela.

It soon became clear that not much else would change. An agreement was reached with the vice president, who strongly condemned the raid and the abduction but otherwise said she hoped for good cooperation with President Trump’s government. Meanwhile, a few months later, new legislation was passed on oil extraction and mining. There is no privatization, but private sector companies are allowed to participate in the extraction.

This is no bad move on President Trump’s part, given that he is primarily interested in oil and minerals. Dismantling Venezuela’s power structures would undoubtedly have led to a civil war.

President Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, more than twenty years ago. He sought to build a ‘socialism for the 21st century’ with all that this entailed. This involved not only the powerful oil company PDVSA but also the gradual replacement of the entire administrative apparatus and the streamlining of the army and the intelligence services. ‘Colectivos’ were formed—groups comparable to the ‘revolutionary committees’ in Cuba—to control the daily lives of Venezuelans. At the local level, the ‘comunas’ (local communities) were given the means to practice self-governance, ensuring food security and regulating water use. Social support was provided in the form of food parcels for the poorest.

In short, power was embedded in all strata of society, and the opposition has never been able to break that hold. Even in the last disputed elections, they were unable to force through reforms.

Nicolas Maduro is now in a prison in the United States. Will anything really change in Venezuela?

El Mencho

On Sunday 22 February, a Mexican army unit raided the holiday resort where drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, nicknamed El Mencho, had his chalet. His hideout was discovered by following the trail of his lover, who occasionally came to keep him company. El Mencho managed to escape but was shot down a few minutes later and died on the way to hospital. El Mencho was the leader of the notorious Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel.

Will fewer drugs and fentanyl now flow into the US? That chance is extremely slim, and if it were possible, it would certainly have been evident following the arrests of two other drug lords in recent years, El Chapo Guzman and El Mayo Zambado.

Everyone knows it: drug trafficking is only possible if there is a finely woven network from top to bottom. From young adults doing the street work to high-ranking figures in government and the civil service. Anyone who cannot or will not tackle that network—undoubtedly a long-term endeavor—will lose out mercilessly.

Moreover, the other problems associated with drug trafficking are well known. First and foremost is the demand for drugs, in this case from the United States. For the time being, nothing is being done about that.

Secondly, the clandestine arms shipments from the US to the cartels in Mexico. Here too, hardly any action is being taken.

And thirdly, the proceeds—the money that is laundered in the United States. If the financial system is allowed to continue unchecked, nothing will change.

Moreover, when a boss disappears, he must be replaced. That means an internal struggle involving even more violence.

In short, while El Mencho’s disappearance may be celebrated, both in Mexico and in the US, for the time being it simply changes nothing. In the US, there are now dozens of Mexicans in prison who can provide information—whether accurate or not—in the major trials in exchange for reduced sentences.

The Ayatollahs

A war fleet had also been present off the coast of Iran for weeks. On Saturday 28 February, Tehran was bombed for the first time, and it hit its target. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed along with other leaders. At the time of writing, the war had been raging for one month; how it will end remains to be seen.

Has the Iranian regime been ‘decapitated’ as a result? Certainly not. A few days later, Khamenei’s son was named as his father’s successor. He has not yet appeared in public, but he does hold the proverbial reins of power.

The story of Venezuela could well be repeated here were it not for the fact that Israel is also involved. The mullahs have been in power for 46 years and naturally have a very broad power structure, ranging from the army to the Revolutionary Guards and a Council of Experts. The elites are multi-layered and Iran is a multi-ethnic country in which Persians make up barely a good half of the population. Both religious and civil institutions play a role.

So far, despite the brutal and frequent bombings, the US and Israel have failed to break through those power structures or spark a popular uprising.

Everything suggests—at this moment—that it will once again become apparent that killing a supreme leader serves little or no purpose.

Power

The new geopolitical relationships currently taking shape clearly indicate that power is always temporary and cannot be sustained without a compliant society that has internalized the ideas of those in power. US President Trump must take his MAGA supporters into account. Even removing Trump from power would do little to change the convictions of those people.

We live today in an age in which power is increasingly exercised as the right of the strongest—might is right. However, the strongest can never win permanently without setting aside the existing legal framework. The multilateral institutions and rules that have shaped our collective life over the past decades now appear to be irrelevant. However, as long as democracy exists, however imperfect or limited it may be, there is still a chance for resistance and countervailing power, because faith in those institutions and rules persists.

It seems more difficult today than ever, with the artificial intelligence and data analysis being used by those in power. Yet this will never be enough to break people’s resilience.

Power is and must always be present in all strata of society. That is why it is actually a reassuring idea that, however cruel it may be, the elimination of a ‘boss’ will never be enough.