On the basis: Ritzer, 2009: 344.
He does not make a theoretical insight into modernity ”from the position
of trust in civic ideals”, but in the book Discipline and Punish(1976) he makes a turn that best reflects the triad
”hospital-madhouse-prison” in the geoepistemological sense. Through this
metaphor, Foucault strongly articulated a new political and intellectual
interest in the history of the state disciplinary system, which
established a new methodological framework for defining modernity.
Foucault builds this framework through two synchronous processes that
lead to a ”disciplinary society” and different expressions of power. One
is shaped through a new spatial expression of power11Establishment
of treatment institutions (hospital and madhouse) and control of
persons (prison)., while the other is characterized by the decline of
the power of European monarchies. Because of this, Foucault’s work can
be considered doubly important, for philosophy (power theory) and
geography (spatial turn), with the former determining the origin and the
latter the end of modernity.