A government can manufacture crisis to construct its own people as enemy

Evidence

Saramago’s sequel imagines an election in which most voters cast blank ballots; the government interprets this as conspiracy and besieges the city. Newspapers, manifestos, surveillance, and rumor all figure. — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 111

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the chapter’s algorithmic-amplification literature on in-group/out-group rhetoric and polarization; also recalls Arendt on the state manufacturing threats. — connects to: Crisis-time scapegoating of religious out-groups masks political and economic causes; Attacks on out-groups divert attention from real crises and expand state power — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 43; Fear of an internal enemy is manufactured to secure consent for empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 491 (+23 more)

Related

• Crisis techniques turn manageable crises into calculated instruments of power (similarity 0.81)
• The state recovered lost social direction by constructing a unified internal enemy (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The state recovered lost social direction by constructing a unified internal enemy #exemplifies (0.80)
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #expands (0.78)
• Attacks on out-groups divert attention from real crises and expand state power #corroborates (0.70) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 43
• Fear of an internal enemy is manufactured to secure consent for empire #exemplifies (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 491
• Manufactured terrorist threats serve governance by keeping citizens fearful and quiescent #exemplifies (0.70)
• The terrorism threat is a manufactured crisis useful for justifying war and curtailing liberties. #corroborates (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 508
• Politicians gain power by promising protection against imagined threats #exemplifies (0.70) — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 329
• Crisis-time scapegoating of religious out-groups masks political and economic causes #exemplifies (0.65)
• Christian institutions constructed the Muslim enemy to maintain their own power. #exemplifies (0.60)