Biopolitics in M. Foucault's concept: the body as a tool for managing society

The article reveals the study of the phenomenon of biopolitics in the theory of the founder - M. Foucault. This term was introduced by him into scientific circulation in the second half of the XX century and refers to the second stage of scientific creativity of the French thinker. Biopolitics appears as state interference in the biological life of citizens and is directly related to physicality; the body actually becomes its object. The study of the historical transformation of biopolitical issues, institutions and tools for the implementation of bio-power is necessary both for the branch of body sociology and for sociological science as a whole. The paper analyzes the historical epoch of the Enlightenment, since, according to M. Foucault, it was it that became the key prerequisite and basis for the formation of biopolitics. A new regime of political rationality is emerging - liberalism, which occupies a large place in this article. Biopolitics touches on the problems of health, hygiene, fertility, life expectancy and offspring and, as M. Foucault himself asserts, is inseparable from the framework of political rationality (liberalism), in which they were formed and gained the possibility of full manifestation.