Political philosophy and organization studies (431014B6)
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QUESTION 1
What does Michel Foucault mean when he presents philosophy as a form of ‘critique’?
A) Philosophy has to show what is going wrong in the world and propose solutions.
B) Philosophy has to construct moral principles for a just society and evaluate the real
world accordingly.
C) Philosophy has to show the historical conditions of possibility for a particular society
such that it becomes visible how this society can be changed.
D) Philosophy has to speak for the powerless in order to foster a more just society.
QUESTION 2
Which of the following examples does NOT indicate an interweaving of power and
knowledge as described by Michel Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge?
A) Psychiatric data acquired through the testing of medication on patients locked up in
psychiatric clinics.
B) Medical data on the positive effects of tobacco on human health acquired by
researchers sponsored by the tobacco industry.
C) Medical data on the blood values and mental state of patients in a hospital acquired
under the watchful eye of the nurses.
D) Economic data on the geographical distribution of poverty in the Netherlands
acquired by checks the tax returns of all Dutch citizens.
QUESTION 3
Which of the following assumptions about power does Michel Foucault agree with?
A) A power-free society is impossible.
B) The possessive theory of power.
C) The juridical theory of power.
D) The prohibitive theory of power.
QUESTION 4
Which of the following assumptions about power does Michel Foucault disagree with?
A) The claim that power is primarily exercised by the State.
B) The claim that power always implies the possibility of resistance.
C) The claim that power is a relation rather than a resource.
D) The claim that power is everywhere.
QUESTION 5
A company manager wants to increase the productivity of her employees. She has read
about the American company Enron (one of the largest American corporations in the 2000s)
and about the rank-and-yank system in their HR policy. The productivity of all employees is
measured. Each year, the best 5% of employees receive a bonus and the worst 10% are
fired. By imitating this system, the company manager tries to increase productivity among
her own employees as well. Employees receive positive and negative incentives to perform
better. Which element of disciplinary power, as described by Michel Foucault, is at play in
this situation?
A) The moment of decomposition.
B) The moment of recomposition.
C) The power to make die or let live.
, D) The synopticon.
QUESTION 6
Evaluate the following two statements about disciplinary power.
1. Disciplinary power imposes pre-established norms on individual human beings to render
their behaviour more productive and docile.
2. The panopticon can, according to Foucault only function if there is a human guard actually
sitting in the control tower at the center of the prison.
A) Both statements are correct.
B) Both statements are false.
C) Statement 1 is correct, statement 2 is false.
D) Statement 1 is false, statement 2 is correct.
QUESTION 7
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people often had to wear a mouth cap in public places. At
Tilburg University, for instance, students sometimes had to wear a mouth cap in order to
access lectures or the library. An unintended side-effect of these mouth caps is, however,
that the facial recognition software of some security cameras no longer detected particular
faces. In this way, people often escaped detection where they would have been put under
surveillance before the mouth cap duty. How would Michel Foucault have morally evaluated
this?
A) He would argue that it is good to obfuscate facial recognition software in security
cameras, because they are used to impose disciplinary power and disciplinary power
is morally bad.
B) He would argue that it is good to obfuscate facial recognition software in security
cameras, because people have a right to privacy.
C) He would argue that it is bad to obfuscate facial recognition software, because if you
have nothing to hide, you should not worry about being monitored by the
government.
D) He would remain morally neutral toward the obfuscation of facial recognition software
because the task of the critical theorist is not to formulate moral principles to judge
society by, but to reveal the power-relations at play in these situations and how they
are open to change.
QUESTION 8
What phenomenon did Gary Becker and Theodore Schultz want to explain by introducing
the concept of 'human capital'?
A) The emergence of the 'entrepreneur of self'.
B) The rise of economic imperialism.
C) The rise of the utility-maximising homo oeconomicus.
D) Rapid economic growth in the US and Western Europe after World War II.
QUESTION 9
Suppose that, after the municipal elections in 2022, the municipal government of Tilburg
decides to privatise the municipal library. From now on, the library will no longer receive
income from the government and will have to make a profit on its own. Which of the following
reasons for this privatisation would Michel Foucault call 'neoliberal'?
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