The virus and the vessel, or: how we learned to stop worrying and love surveillance

Abstract This Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) Presidential address was given (virtually) at the annual SASE conference in July 2020. It is an early analysis of governments’ response to COVID-19, specifically governments’ attempt to reduce the spread of the virus by modifying people’s behaviors. Some of these attempts followed familiar models of power, such as discipline and governmentality. In addition, I show that a new practice of power emerged, addressing subjects who are considered ‘ungovernable’. In the first part of the lecture, I look at how states see their subjects and argue that COVID-19 reveals and normalizes a state’s view of subjects as ‘unresponsive’ and therefore ‘ungovernable’. In the second part, I look at how social media companies constitute us as ‘ungovernable’ and help reshape how states govern. Finally, I discuss instances of resistance, which might save our political agency after all.