From knowledge as domination to knowledge as governmentality: a theoretical rearticulation of power in late-modern...

The article addresses a central problem in contemporary sociology: the inadequacy of classical approaches to power in explaining how expert knowledge currently organizes forms of domination in societies marked by the expansion of expertocracy, neoliberal rationality, and algorithmic mediation. Although traditions such as critical theory, the sociology of power, and Foucauldian genealogy have analyzed the relationship between knowledge and domination, a conceptual gap persists regarding the mechanisms through which knowledge simultaneously operates as legitimation, normalization, and a technology of governance. The aim of the study is to conceptually rearticulate the nexus of knowledge-power in order to explain how expert knowledge structures authority, organizes conduct, and administers populations in late modernity. The theoretical framework integrates contributions from Weber, Bourdieu, Gramsci, and critical theory with the Foucauldian perspective on power-knowledge and governmentality, while also incorporating insights from the sociology of scientific knowledge and Science and Technology Studies (STS), particularly in relation to expertise, quantification, and sociotechnical infrastructures. Methodologically, the research was conducted as a documentary study with a theoretical-conceptual orientation, based on a genealogical analysis of foundational and contemporary texts. The procedure involved comparative reading, critical problematization, and typological reconstruction of the mechanisms through which knowledge produces effects of power. The results identify three interdependent mechanisms that articulate the power of knowledge: legitimation, through the production of epistemic authority; normalization, through the establishment of metrics, standards, and classifications; and governance, through the integration of these infrastructures into population management devices based on data and algorithms.