The Demand for Fear: Exploiting fears allows for controlling society in autocracies and leads to polarisation and escalating conflicts in democracies

Fear as a factor of ‘stability’

'It is impossible to guarantee the prevention of danger, but it is possible to eliminate fear', says political scientist and Russia expert Fiona Hill in one of her public lectures. 'You can prepare for danger – insure against it. To counter danger, both individuals and societies need freedom from fear'. However, an important characteristic of many authoritarian and populist regimes is that they exacerbate fears and create dangers – both in domestic and foreign policy – rather than working to reduce social tension or international strain. 'By initiating a war against Ukraine, Putin has heightened fears of the end of the world – not just the biblical Apocalypse, but the literal end of the world due to a nuclear catastrophe', Hill says.

In domestic Russian politics, the pursuit of the so-called 'stability' offered to citizens results in destabilisation and intimidation of society through repression, high-profile trials, colossal 'Stalinist' prison sentences, and unchecked violence, including the beating of detainees. Extrajudicial punishments include forcing public apologies and settling scores with the regime's enemies. The public memory is haunted by a series of unexplained and poorly investigated deaths, whose connection to the state remains unproven but evident. 'Putin is a master of manipulating fear. He understands the value of fear as a political instrument', Hill asserts.

With some caveats, it can be argued that the level of repression achieved by the regime is ‘working’. Since 2023, anti-war protests have virtually ceased. According to OVD-Info, the number of detentions for public displays of anti-war sentiment this year is significantly lower (41 in May 2024) than last year (381) and drastically lower than in 2022 (almost 20,000). Citizens have assessed the risks and refrained from publicly expressing their political views. There is also a general decline in the number of persecutions classified by human rights defenders as politically motivated (→ Re: Russia: Soviet and Non-Soviet). This is a consequence of self-censorship.

According to a survey conducted by Levada Center in January 2024, the proportion of respondents who fear arbitrary actions by the authorities and lawlessness has increased. At the end of 2022, it was 37%, rising to 45% in early 2024. The proportion of those fearing a return of mass repression also grew during the same period, from 32% to 37%. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of respondents fearing criminal attacks (from 28% to 41%), likely linked to numerous episodes of violence by prisoners returned from war.

'Black vans at night were a form of psychological pressure on those left behind. But now it's not necessary to take as many people because, thanks to the media and social networks, the horror that anyone can be taken for anything is created with far fewer examples', says our Moscow source, a former high-ranking official. In general, almost all of our contacts in significant state and large business positions say that they rarely discuss their views on events in Russia and the war with colleagues and fear making any public statements. In any circle, even the most friendly, it is impossible to predict how dangerous these discussions might be.

In terms of the intensity of repression, the Russian authorities have not yet reached Stalinist levels, but they have surpassed the late Soviet level.During the period from 1975 to 1985, the number of criminal cases under political charges was several times lower than it is today. However, the late Soviet system did not need mass repressions and relied on widespread ‘preventive measures’, as it was based on already cultivated fear. The current repressive apparatus is recreating fear from scratch (→ Re: Russia: Soviet and Non-Soviet).

Fear as a tool of mobilisation 

The rhetoric of countering fear is characteristic of Western democratic discourse. One of the 'four fundamental human freedoms' proclaimed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1941 address to Congress was ‘freedom from fear’. This phrase was later incorporated into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Fear is one of the crucial emotional themes in outstanding dystopias of the 20th century, such as Yevgeny Zamyatin's 'We' and George Orwell's '1984'. The all-encompassing state terror leading to the loss of individual autonomy forms the basis of Hannah Arendt's understanding of totalitarianism: according to her, ‘totalitarianism opened a way to dominate and terrorise the individual from within’.

IIn 1978, Pope John Paul II dedicated his inaugural sermon to the confrontation with fear. His slogan 'Do not be afraid!' inspired the societies of Central Europe, primarily Poland, to resist the regimes of the Soviet bloc. The end of the Cold War was envisioned as a farewell to the two main fears: the fear of a clash between the two systems leading to nuclear catastrophe, and the fear of the triumph of totalitarianism. Almost echoing John Paul II, Alexei Navalny sought to make this rhetoric relevant in Russia. 'Be afraid of nothing. This is our country, and we have no other', he said on the anniversary of his arrest after returning from Germany, and he continued to repeat this. 

Today, the rhetoric of freedom from fear is again being displaced by the rhetoric of fear, not only in the world of autocracies. In the dramatic confrontation between the two largest US parties, the theme of fear for the future of the country is paramount. Each side portrays its opponents as an existential threat. According to Republicans, Democrats, if they retain power, will completely destroy American society by flooding the country with migrants and focusing on conflicts far beyond the US borders, including military support for Ukraine. According to Democrats, the rise of Trumpist Republicans to power will lead to the dismantling of American democratic institutions and a loss of US influence globally. In competitive politics, 'fear mongering' becomes a tool for polarisation and the exacerbation of public conflicts.

'Although most contemporary Western politicians and commentators oppose political fear as the antithesis of freedom, reason, and other Enlightenment values, they often seek to invoke it in people, seeing it as a source of political vitality', writes Corey Robin in ‘Fear: The History of a Political Idea’. Robin reminds readers that Western political thought in the modern era essentially began with the cultivation of fear – the fear of a 'war of all against all', as formulated by Thomas Hobbes. 'Hobbes argued that fear must be cultivated. Fear not as a primitive passion, but as a rational, moral emotion, about which influential people should speak in churches and universities’, writes Robin.

Fear possesses mobilising energy, and it is this aspect of the human psyche that political managers exploit. Amplifying fear can help sway voters in favour of a particular candidate or party. It is commonly believed that such political technology is primarily employed by authoritarian leaders and populists. 'At the core of populism and authoritarianism is fear: fear of loss, fear of the future, fear of 'others', that is, refugees, migrants, people who deviate from the majority, and those who are not 'normal'', says Fiona Hill.

However, the mobilising potential of fear is exploited by a wide range of politicians and activists. 'Politicians must first demonstrate that they are best equipped to solve a specific problem. Then, by escalating fear of this problem, they can convince citizens to seek protection by joining their party', says Christopher Federico, Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Minnesota. Meta-analyses of studies on whether fear influences political behaviour show that fear appeals are on average 30% more effective than neutral messages. 'Fear appeals are more effective when they emphasise the severity of the threat, contain statements on how effectively to avoid it, and recommend one-time actions (which work better than repeated ones)', the study authors write. ‘Overall, fear appeals are effective under most conditions’.

Fear as a source of legitimacy

In a certain sense, today’s most active exploiters of fear are those addressing the climate crisis, mass migration, dangers attributed to artificial intelligence, and other phenomena that can be framed as global threats. The rhetoric often includes vivid apocalyptic visions of the future, predicting the end of life on Earth. Alarmist activists and intellectuals portray human activity itself as the source of existential threat. Over two centuries of industrial development, they argue, have significantly increased the threats to life and civilization posed by human activity. According to philosopher Toby Ord's calculations in his book 'The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity', human-caused threats are roughly a thousand times more dangerous than the most likely natural risks, including volcanic and seismic catastrophes, collisions with celestial bodies, and deadly pandemics.

In this context, the 'politics of fear' employed by the current Russian authorities appears to be a part of a global trend rather than an anomaly. The exploitation of fears is a universal political technology. The difference between authoritarian and democratic alarmism is that authoritarian leaders use the escalation of external and internal threats to consolidate control over society. In the Russian case, the authorities insist that they are uniquely capable of protecting society from future crises and political catastrophes ('colour revolutions'), essentially rooting their legitimacy in the fears they themselves stoke. In democratic countries, fear is used as a tool of political struggle, aimed at mobilising voters and strengthening party loyalty. The danger of this trend, according to political scientists Piotr Dutkiewicz and Daria Kazarinova, is that fear may lose its instrumental character and transform from a well-tested political technology into a source of legitimacy for power (as it does in autocracies), replacing traditional sources of legitimacy in democratic systems.