This article seeks to demonstrate that chronic illness is increasingly being viewed as culpability in the face of known risks, an instance of moral failure that requires the intervention of a range of political technologies. I argue that, in many western nations, it is becoming less acceptable to enter and remain in a physically incapacitated state: it clashes too uncomfortably with the image of the ‘good citizen’ as someone who actively participates in social and economic life, makes rational choices and is independent, self-reliant and responsible. By engaging in a genealogical analysis of chronic illness and individual responsibility, exploring how they are placed within the framework of contemporary ‘risk-society’, employing the insights derived from recent governmentality studies and developing a case study based on the current Australian experience with health promotion and welfare reform, I investigate the ways in which the concepts of health and illness are currently being deployed as tools of ‘government’.
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