To understand the way social relations are structured, in particular the unequal relations of obedience and domination which justify both autority and the nature of of political obligation, has been one of the constant efforts of human thought. In this paper we sustain that Michel Foucault has offered a decisive contribuition to a better understanding of these social phenomena. In the first part, we examine some characteristics of Foucault's concept of power. In the second, we followed the transformations which this concept suffered along the seventies in his work.
Foucault; concept of power; bio-power; governmentability