The produced moral panic far exceeds the actual terrorist threat

Evidence

In Policing the Crisis, Hall et. al. argued that “folk devils” are produced by state actors whose repeated homogeneous statements typically present the menace as “out of all proportion to the actual threat offered.” Police officials, juridical actors, and politicians who are the “primary definers” formulate the rhetoric. The media, who are dependent on these official sources, then amplify the moral panic as secondary definers. As I have argued elsewhere and outlined in Chapter 2, the economic, social, and political crisis in the United States created the conditions for the genesis of the racialized Arab terrorist. However, there was no moral panic around the “Islamic terrorist” until after the events of 9/11. Since then a similar dynamic can be observed in the construction of the racialized terrorist threat by the primary definers in the top four boxes of the chart, although academics critical of racism and empire have far less access to the corporate media. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 762

Categorization

• XREF: Directly names Hall’s Policing the Crisis framework (primary/secondary definers, folk devils, moral panic) already in the reader’s curated collection per my knowledge. — connects to: Economic crises of the 1960s-70s produced the Arab terrorist figure as a moral panic. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 93; Liberal discomfort with piety movements exceeds their actual threat level — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 266; Moral panic theory explains how state actors manufacture outsized threats (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Pre-existing narratives, not actual events, primed the moral panic over Sharia #exemplifies (0.85) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 346
• Moral panic over Muslims persists even where no Muslims live #exemplifies (0.85)
• The radicalized Muslim threat narrative is a fear instrument rather than a safety measure #exemplifies (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 32
• Moral panic theory explains how state actors manufacture outsized threats #expands (0.80)
• Terrorism’s political impact exceeds its physical destructiveness via media amplification. #corroborates (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4163
• British fear of Wahhabis vastly exceeded the real threat they posed #exemplifies (0.80) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 141
• Liberal discomfort with piety movements exceeds their actual threat level #corroborates (0.75) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 266
• Terrorism incites outsized public fear through unpredictability, lethality, and uncontrollability #expands (0.75)
• Terrorist tropes absorb every anxiety that disrupts liberal routine #expands (0.75) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 614
• Domesticating the Muslim threat made it feel closer and more dangerous #expands (0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 236
• Moral panics substitute law-and-order fear for addressing economic crises #qualifies (0.72)