Affective Labor and Governmental Policy: George W. Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

• Authors: Kristin Swenson
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

As affective labor is becoming more dominant in contemporary capitalism, the affect of the body politic is increasingly important. This article argues for a theory of the affective state apparatus to account for the state's role in governing the affect of the population. An analysis of George W. Bush's Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America reveals that an affective state apparatus functions to capture, constitute, and circulate the affects of the population. This article contends that an affective state apparatus operates through the very intimacies of our bodies in order to produce ever more efficient and productive capitalist subjects.

Keywords

EN

Affective labor; mental health; George W. Bush; affective state apparatus

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Baltic Journal of Law & Politics
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 1-23

Dates

published

2011-01-01

online

2011-12-21

Contributors

author

Kristin Swenson

• College of Communication, Butler University, USA

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10076-011-0010-7