State of Fear in a Liquid World

This book examines the insecurity that besets our lives in the contemporary world, revealing it to be a symptom of the crumbling of the notion of security that modernity had sought to guarantee to its citizens. With the emergence of the ‘liquid’ world, insecurity has become endemic and is accepted as something we must live with, but this acceptance of the risk society does nothing to dispel the fear that accompanies us at all times as a result. An engagement with the thought of Bauman, State of Fear in a Liquid World develops the thesis of liquid modernity and will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory and politics.

This book examines the insecurity that besets our lives in the contemporary world, whether as a result of natural disasters, human negligence or, more recently, threats to security in the form of terrorist activity, which itself gives rise to new fears: fear of travel, agoraphobia, distrust of others and existential anxieties.

Revealing the connection between the two components of our insecurity, as reflecting on and conditioning human existence, and producing social problems, the author brings this to bear on the notion of security that modernity had sought to guarantee to its citizens – a notion that has slowly crumbled with the crisis of modernity and with the emergence of the "liquid" world.

Now insecurity is endemic and has so firmly become part of us as to be accepted as an unpleasant aspect of normality that we must live with. However, the necessity of living in a risk society in which security has emerged as important does nothing to dispel the fear that accompanies us at all times. An engagement with the thought of Bauman that explores fear as an accompaniment to the end of modernity and its assurances, State of Fear in a Liquid World offers developments of the thesis of liquid modernity and will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory and politics with interests in individualisation, social change and (in)security.