Every person is subjected to a governmental power in varying degrees. But the fact of being governed cannot be analyzed in its generality and complexity if only the recipients of public action are looked at. The ways of governing and the many ways that public policies are defined and used engage different relations among those governed and those who govern. Both exist in the closed field of the State whose place in social relations always has to be reexamined again. In what ways can these men and women who are governed be grasped? How are they governed? Are they really governable? Should the state be held at bay, reinvested, gone beyond? These are the questions addressed in this book.