The Politics of Body and Health in Contemporary Japanese Health Policy:

From a Range of the “Governmentality” Perspective

Abstract

　Over the past 20 years, people who study the sociology of sport have been inspired by the Foucauldian perspective, especially with regards to “discipline”. In what has been called the “Governmentality” perspective, Foucault advocated that both bio-politics exercised on collective body, or the population, and discipline on the individual body relate not only to the reproduction of normative social relations, or the norm, but also to the construction of normality.
　The aim of this paper is to examine contemporary politics of the body and health from the “Governmentality” perspective. In particular, this paper analyzes the process of the incorporation of the physical activity services for the elderly in the public insurance system.
　New forms of risk technology and new mechanisms of security constitute different ways of enhancing the life of the population, and of shaping institutions for social security according to the calculability of multiple risks. In short, the incorporation of preventive health services in the insurance system means that such mechanisms serve newly-created risk groups based on statistically-created normalities.
　I first argue that preventive health services function as a tool for improving the financial government of insurers. Secondly, I look at how the rate of physical improvements can help rationalize the burdens and benefits. Finally, I point out how we are now confronting a new political rationality that blames not only the individual for one’s health maladies, but also health insurance programs for the financial hardships they cause.
　In the future, I intend to examine empirically whether preventive services are conducive to health insurance beneficiaries or to their professional staffs.