Citation

Debrix F, Barder AD. Int. Polit. Sociol. 2009; 3(4): 398-413.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, International Studies Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1749-5687.2009.00083.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Moving beyond the political framework of both Hobbes and Schmitt that privileges a centralization of power as a way of dealing with the fear of violent death, this article turns to Foucault’s discourses of war, power over life, and governmentality to illuminate the contemporary reproductive potential of fear in exercises of preservation of life in society. The decentralization of fear and power in governmentalized modernity encourages various public agents/agencies to mobilize the specter of danger, threat, insecurity, or enmity to normalize populations. This article reflects on the effects of this (re)productive mobilization of fear and emphasizes the proliferation of dispositifs of terror that engender a fear of not being able to live one’s normal life.