Why did Michel Foucault connect biopolitics with the development of the welfare state?

Michel Foucault connected biopolitics to the development of the welfare state by identifying a shift in how modern states manage their populations. While disciplinary power focused on manipulating individual bodies, biopolitics emerged as a complementary current of reformism that targeted human populations as its primary object.1

This approach was characterized by a medicalized sensibility, where reformers scrutinized social organization and human behavior—ranging from sexual habits to general health—to identify and manage "pathology" versus "health." Rather than seeking to eradicate "deviant" behavior entirely, this biopolitical framework aimed to keep it within acceptable limits. Foucault argued that these practices, which sought to maintain an optimally productive citizenry through the management of life, contain the fundamental principles of the modern welfare state.1