The self-organization of swarms – their opaque and nonlinear global effects, which are created by the local interactions of numerous agents – has both zoopolitical and zootechnological implications. Would it not be nice if human social processes and political decisions could take place as simply and quickly as the decisions of swarming collectives to change direction? And what would be more appealing than no longer having to rely on old analogies with colonies of ants and hives of bees as positive or negative examples of collective organization, but instead being able to describe the dynamics of ‘human swarms’ with reference to technical interfaces for communicating and making connections? Since the 1990s, swarms have been reformed into technologized, rationally implementable, and effectively visualizable zootechnologies, and thus it is easy to see why they have been applied as a powerful metaphor to describe various processes of “social swarming.” The condition of possibility for such metaphorical transferences, which differ from previous zoopolitical or anthropomorphic comparisons, was the reevaluation of swarms as figures of knowledge. Reference is no longer made to the biological ‘life form’ of various swarms but rather to their media-technological control logic and their available technical applications.

Any critical description of such transferences, however, should closely examine the extent to which swarms have been equated with networks, for instance, and where they are cited for their emancipatory potential despite the fact that human beings are fundamentally different ‘agents’ from those in swarm simulations, flocks of birds, and schools of fish. Perhaps it can be said that swarms should not be regarded as the most advanced form of older collectives – such as crowds or social groups – but rather as structures of organization and coordination that, in light of our media-technologically charged culture of intransparency and the ever-changing nature of so many areas of life, have become effective optimization strategies in these very areas. Or, better: they have become effective as self-optimization strategies whose specific governmentality is especially worthy of investigation.

“The Leviathan has had its day, and a swarm of hornets has appeared in its place.” With these words, Bernhard Siegert summarized the precarious relationship between polis and nomos and its effects on naval warfare during the twentieth century. The swarms that have since been established as figures of knowledge no longer confront governmental principles of order as something politically uncanny.