Towards a social theory of fear: A phenomenology of negative integration

Abstract

Despite its undisputed importance, fear is yet to become a distinct research area for social theory. However, without a clear conceptualization of fear, the explanation of significant phenomena, such as the risk-related anxiety or the conflict of the global and the local, remains incomplete. This article aims at reintroducing fear at the fundamental level of social integration. First, the social contract theories of Hobbes and Rousseau are reinterpreted in order to identify a negative (based on fear) and a positive (based on hope) motivational basis of self-limiting one’s freedom of pursuing individual goals. These motivations for cooperation are the prerequisite of any society, as their absence results in disintegration. While social contract theories analyse them in detail, social theories forget about this level and focus on the mechanisms of action coordination. From the perspective of the two types of motivation for cooperation, two modalities of integration mechanisms identified by classical (Weber, Durkheim, Habermas) and late modern (Beck, Castells) social theories are elaborated. Based on such a model, the contemporary expansion of fear is explained as a consequence of the upset balance of the two modalities, leading to the predominance of negative integration.