The instrumentalization of social fear as a practice of state power

When fear or collective panic takes hold of a community, restoring calm and reconnecting with the basics of the social contract becomes a perilous exercise for the power, which can then move forward along several operational implementations. Crisis management is rooted in the mores of the inhabitants, their culture, their ability to support the remedy put in place by the authority. Through the study of some famous historical examples, let us try to understand how the supernatural and fear are treated in this way but also sometimes instrumentalized by struggling powers in search of restoration.