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.

中文翻译：

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走向恐惧的社会理论：消极整合的现象学

尽管其重要性无可争议，但恐惧尚未成为社会理论的一个独特研究领域。但是，如果没有清晰的恐惧概念，对重大现象的解释，例如与风险相关的焦虑或全球与当地的冲突，仍然是不完整的。本文旨在在社会融合的基本层面上重新引入恐惧。首先，对霍布斯和卢梭的社会契约理论进行了重新解释，以发现消极（基于恐惧）和积极（基于希望）动机，这些动机自我限制了人们追求个人目标的自由。这些合作动机是任何社会的先决条件，因为它们的缺席导致瓦解。尽管社会契约理论对它们进行了详细分析，社会理论忘记了这一层次，而将重点放在了行动协调机制上。从两种合作动机的角度出发，阐述了经典（韦伯，杜克海姆，哈贝马斯）和近现代（贝克，卡斯特尔）社会理论所确定的两种整合机制模式。在这种模型的基础上，解释了当代恐惧的扩展是由于两种方式的不平衡，导致负整合占主导地位。