The Politics Of Fear: Fear Of Migrants As An Instrument Shaping The Political Environment

Abstract

Fear; throughout history, it has been a powerful tool used by authorities, governments and leaders to shape social reactions, manipulate public opinion, influence the masses and shape the political environment. Today, the common feature of the politics of fear on a global scale is that it is directed at immigrants. Leaders and political parties are instrumentalizing the fear of immigrants in order to gain legitimacy and support for their policies and to gain the support of the voters in the election processes. Fear on immigration is used in ways that reflect immigrants as a threat to economic stability, national security, nation-state and cultural identity through a process that emphasizes political communication methods. As a result of the manipulation of the public with the fear of immigrants, travel bans, border walls, mass deportation and restrictions that make citizenship processes difficult are accepted by the societies; political attitudes and preferences of individuals and masses are shaped. Therefore, fear as an effective emotion in political decision-making processes and politics towards this emotion can shape the political conjuncture of countries. In this study, the feeling of fear; it has been tried to determine the psychosocial factors in the channeling of immigrants to immigrants, and how it is instrumentalized in order to shape political policies and elections in a psychopolitical framework is embodied with examples. In this context, the study analyzes the effect of fear on political policy and elections by revealing the historical and current situation of fear of immigrants in the United States, European countries and Türkiye.