Moral panic theory explains how state actors manufacture outsized threats

Evidence

In this logic, moral panics are necessary to the production of a larger peril that constructs a racial object of vilification. As a technology of terror prevention, racial panic manufactures an enemy for the state to mobilize against in the name of security. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 311 (#expands, via linked claim)

In coping with terrorism, societies are faced with a dual task. The first is how to reduce the number of terrorist acts. The second is how to combat the fear of terrorism. The likelihood of becoming a victim of a terrorist attack is infinitesimal, but fearfulness is high. Events that are relatively unlikely but that have grave consequences heighten the perception of personal vulnerability and fear. A number of factors can amplify fear arousal. As we noted earlier, people have a low sense of efficacy that they can personally reduce their risk. News broadcasts repeatedly portray the carnage of terrorist strikes worldwide. Debates about national security underscore the vulnerability of the nation’s infrastructure and vital utilities, and a lack of faith in the government’s ability to protect its citizens against terrorist attacks. The Department of Homeland Security’s frequent color-coded alerts of imminent terrorist threats added salience to the threats. Frightened, angry citizens can be easily talked into supporting extreme and misdirected countermeasures, because they do not spend much time agonizing over the morality of lethal modes of self-defense. Later, we will see how politicians have manipulated Americans’ fear to gain support for the war on terrorism. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2115 (#expands, via linked claim)

And remember that in this period they began to be afraid about all sorts of other things—afraid about young people, about hedonism, about the explosion of sexuality on the streets, about drugs and “turn on, tune in, and drop out,” about student riots, about the anti–Vietnam war protests, you know—the hydra-headed other was stalking the fields of Britain. … We think it’s just one thing, but it’s not. Everything is sort of out of control, and you can move from one thing to another. It’s a kind of symptomatic reading of the crisis, because the race problem is only symptomatic of the violence problem, which is only symptomatic of the drug problem … You know, everything is symptomatic of something else. That is why in Policing the Crisis we felt justified in calling it a crisis because it was experienced as a crisis, that’s a breakdown of the whole society and you don’t really … you don’t understand Powell’s speech until you understand that it comes out of that vision. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1116 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Occupying states use engineered chaos and panic as an intelligence-gathering device — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 673; Outbidders weaponize fear narratives while discounting deferred peace benefits. — Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Roger Macginty, Ethnic Outbidding and Party…, 32; The produced moral panic far exceeds the actual terrorist threat — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 762 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Moral panics recruit state agencies of social control to contain perceived threats #corroborates (1.00) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1045
• Moral panics link disparate fears into one ‘hydra-headed other’ #expands (1.00) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1116
• Racial panic actively manufactures enemies the state can mobilize against #expands (1.00) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 311
• Low-probability high-consequence risks inflate fear and enable extreme policies #expands (1.00) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2115