Terror fear is politically exploitable because it is ubiquitous, opaque, and deep-rooted

Evidence

Richard Jackson describes how states deliberately construct extreme threats from the outside in order to justify disciplining the domestic populace. Moral panics and folk devils provide a ready means to achieve this construction. Moreover, “some fears are better than others for politicians, because some fears—such as the fear of being without health care or employment—are not amenable to quick-fix solutions and carry the risk of policy failure. The fear of terrorism, on the other hand, is perfect for the authorities because it is ubiquitous, catastrophic, opaque (reliant on government control of secret information) and rooted in deep cultural anxieties” (Writing the War on Terrorism, 117). — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 854

Categorization

• QUESTION: This mechanism — which fears politicians can exploit — connects to the reader’s moral-panic vocabulary and the question of which panics get traction.
• XREF: Ties to the reader’s earlier library concept of moral panics and folk devils; the quote explains why terrorism specifically, among fears, serves state discipline.
• SHARE: The Jackson quote — ‘some fears are better than others for politicians’ — is a sharp formulation to send to someone working on state securitization.