Digital governmentality: biopolitics Vs. participartory governance

To analyze and interpret the features of platform interaction, typical for the modern stage of society’s development and public administration, we attract the concept of governmentality proposed by M. Foucault. Using this concept, it is possible to assess whether advances in biopolitics are applied in the algorithms of digital platforms or whether the population and state bodies interact as equals in solving political and social issues. The analysis also provides classifications the platforms for solving urban and regional problems that exist in Russia. The possibility of using M. Foucault's concept in relation to the digitalization of the political sphere allows us to talk about its modification into the concept of "Digital Governmentality". The advent of the digital age is changing the nature of the object of control. It is changing from a rational subject to one driven by impulses and desires. Some researchers believe that in the digital space population activity is stimulated by elements of gamification, and compliance with the norm is reinforced not by punishment, but by pleasure, which differs from the original concept of disciplinary power and governmentality of M. Foucault. Elements of gamification with the assignment of appropriate points and statuses to participants, as well as the possibility of receiving valuable prizes and gifts for creative activity have been tested and incorporated in the "Active Citizen" digital platform for solving urban problems in Moscow. But is the strategy of gamification a manipulative strategy or is it still a way to stimulate civic engagement, in which the population is free to choose its actions? We propose to answer this question by turning to the analysis of algorithms embedded in the portal of urban problems "Our Saint Petersburg". It is possible that portals and platforms for solving urban problems are built in a more or less neutral context, although there are also platforms that perform the tasks of pushing the population to certain actions and tracking them. The governmentality, understood according to one formulation as the art of government, has concentrated in the digital sphere. Knowledge of the social sciences and humanities (political science, sociology, psychology, management) has now come to be used in programming the logic of communication on digital platforms. Here we are talking both about the ways to engage the population on urban communication platforms through nudging and gamification, and to shape their behavior, which is mainly expressed in an informational type of discourse. Customers, in order to implement the user’s behavior they need on the platform, turn to the epistemic (scientific) community, and then implement the user mental and behavioral patterns they need through the developers of the software product. One of the important characteristics of governmentality as an art of government (but not the only one) is the government of user motivation. At the same time, knowledge of mental patterns and behavioral strategies of the population is a manifestation of governmentality as an art of government using sociohumanitarian knowledge (biopolitics).