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Overcoming Resistance to Surveillance: A Genealogy of the EAP Discourse

University of Delaware, USA, weissr{at}udel.edu

Through an examination of employee assistance programs we address Foucault’s contention that the pervasive surveillance characteristic of disciplinary control is facilitated by a discourse claiming therapeutic rather than punitive aims. By characterizing poor job performance as evidence of substance abuse or other ‘behavioral-medical’ illness, the EAP discourse endeavors to overcome the reluctance of supervisors to identify poor performers, for whom job loss is the frequent consequence of failure to improve. Following Foucault’s view that power effects occur without express intention to exercise power, we analyze the web of institutional and professional disciplinary mechanisms that effect heightened supervisory surveillance.

Key Words: discourse • Foucault • employee assistance programs • genealogy • surveillance

Organization Studies, Vol. 26, No. 7, 973-997 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840605054600


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