The Edifice of the Legal Theory of Sovereignty and the Webs of Power in Michael Foucault’s Philosophy of Law

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the legal conception of power based on Michel Foucault’s thought—specifically a 1981 lecture at the Federal University of Bahia titled "The Mesh of Power" (*As Malhas do Poder*). It seeks to problematize the exercise of power as a network, the rules governing its functionality, and the system of laws established by power over the social body. Without disregarding Marx’s legacy as a theoretical reference, the author attempts to establish a dialogue between Rousseau’s representative democracy and Marxism—moving beyond class struggle—by focusing on a structural perspective and the reflection of economic power within society. The study centers on individuals as agents of power and examines the multiple forms of subjection and domination within the social body. The central issue concerns the constitution of power not merely through the division between dominant and dominated classes; rather, from a Foucauldian perspective, power operates in a circular manner—through institutions and entities such as schools, workplaces, clinics, prisons, armies, and the legal system. Consequently, power relations are not constituted by the use of brute force in a direct relationship of domination, but rather through the exercise of the productive capital cycle (the circulation of power). This involves a plurality of powers—not solely State power—characterized not by a dynamic of unity, but by a mode of operation in which society functions as an archipelago of powers.