Foucault, Totalitarianism and State Racism

The objective of this article is to examine to what extent Foucault’s genealogy of power illuminates some aspects of the totalitarian phenomenon, particularly, its racism. For this, it will be necessary to focus on the lectures given by Foucault at the Collège de France in 1976, entitled Society must be defended. In this lectures, Foucault carries out a genealogy of State racism that makes it possible to understand totalitarian regimes as the paroxysmal form of disciplinary power and biopower; at the same time, Foucault show us how in these regimes sovereignty and biopolitics are fused