Psychologization, constituent power and autonomy: Rethinking subjectivity construction in post-modernity

Abstract

According to influential  theories of identity in post-modernity,  as community bonds loosen, individuals  have increasing discretion in the construction of their own identity.  In this article we argue for seeing modernization as the progressive psychologization of subjectivity. That reveals the mechanisms of what we can call, following Foucault, "constituent power": a power that turns the psychological subject's conflicts  away from external objects and towards an inner world. It is that inner conflict that promotes the modern preoccupation with identity.