The research project focuses on the interrelation of institutionalized forms of authority, political power, and modes of regulation in European settlements of colonial North America. The project investigates the various forms of governance that evolved or were created in order to provide the material conditions for the settlement and the economic stabilization of the colony by comparing selected political spaces in two French and two British colonies (Nouvelle France/Canada and Louisiana; Massachusetts and South Carolina) during the period of crown rule. Our research concentrates on modes of political rule which do not primarily and exclusively rest on government action but also involve the manifold forms of self-government and self-regulation by the settler communities. The examination of “microtechniques of power” will shed light on the private dimension of political rule and forms of governance that rely on norms and institutions provided by the church, the school, the family, and the individual.