Giovanni Botero’s Biopolitical Populationism: Rethinking the History of Biopower

The Italian political thinker and polymath Giovanni Botero (1544–1617) was a famous proponent of what is known today as populationism, the idea of maximizing the number of people within a political community. In this article, I claim that Botero’s populationism and his other population political arguments act as early examples of what Michel Foucault calls biopolitics—the wide-ranging set of interventions used to optimize and maximize the population. At first glance, it is evident that populationism is reminiscent of biopolitics. However, to establish a solid connection between Botero’s political thought and the discussion regarding this life-affirming power, one must also partake in the current debate on the history of biopolitics. This is because the phenomenon has traditionally been seen as something that was not yet at play during Botero’s era of early modernity and started to emerge only later, during the 18th century.