Definition in Foucault
âDisciplineâ may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a âphysicsâ or an âanatomyâ of power, a technology (Foucault, 1975, p. 215).
Let us say that discipline is the unitary technique by which the body is reduced as a âpoliticalâ force at the least cost and maximized as a useful force. The growth of a capitalist economy gave rise to the specific modality of disciplinary power, whose general formulas, techniques of submitting forces and bodies, in short, âpolitical anatomyâ, could be operated in the most diverse political regimes, apparatuses or institutions (Foucault, 1975, p. 221)