Securitization converts civic collapse into depoliticized paranoia that feeds policing and surveillance.

Evidence

The other side of securitization is the increasing concern over securing space in societies where notions of the public sphere and civic participation have collapsed into isolated consumer individualism and a culture of fear (Giroux 2006, 1–18; see also Puar 2007). Securitization here refers to the imperative to pre-empt and avoid threats to perceived normality, and to ensure that people can go about their business and conduct their commerce without interruption. Securitization, then, takes the form of increased policing, surveillance and (racialized) suspicion. Securitization both intimates and thrives on a sort of generalized, depoliticized paranoia driven by media representations of crime and chaos that distort audiences’ sense of the world beyond their immediate circumstances and prey upon a generalized state of increasing material insecurity wrought by neoliberalism (Bauman 2006) – identified in Chapter 2 as the liquidation of society into speculative wealth. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 259

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the doubled meaning of ‘securitization’ — the financial-engineering meaning and the security-state meaning — a definitional hinge the chapter pivots on.
• XREF: The move from ‘securitization’ as financial instrument to ‘securitization’ as policing/fear echoes David Harvey’s and Bauman’s writing on liquid fear and the post-9/11 securitization of capital; connects to deWaard’s cultural-argument project directly. — connects to: Securitization names a mindset that abandons actual security for risk-juggling virtuosity — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 258; Instrumentarian power turns people into means toward surveillance capitalists’ market ends. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1118
• ADDENDUM: The ‘liquidation of society into speculative wealth’ framing resonates with the infrastructure article’s theme of systems operating beyond individual scale or intention.

Broader Connections

• Securitization names a mindset that abandons actual security for risk-juggling virtuosity #expands (0.78) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 258
• Instrumentarian power turns people into means toward surveillance capitalists’ market ends. #complicates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1118