Contemporary American political life abounds with crises and worry. Terrorist attacks, a warming planet, and flu pandemics all trigger the public's anxieties. Meanwhile, politicians use fears of economic downturns and cultural changes to evoke the public's worries about immigration. Given that politics often involves anxiety, in this book, we ask how and when is anxiety successful at causing citizens to engage with politics? In addition, we ask what is the substance of that political engagement?

Political thinkers and democratic theorists express concern that anxiety may undercut citizens’ abilities to make rational political choices, yet recent research from political science and psychology paints a more hopeful picture of anxiety, suggesting that political fears may lead to more knowledgeable and trusting citizens. Our theoretical contribution reconciles the normatively attractive portrait of anxiety in recent political science literature with the uses of fear in contemporary politics. We use four policy areas to test how anxiety shapes citizens’ engagement with political information and political trust. Together, these components paint a fuller picture of the ways that anxiety shapes political life than accounts that either simply vilify or praise the role of emotion in politics. Anxiety does not preclude man or nation from acting or thinking sanely, but “under the influence of great fear” the public is likely to support protective policies that may undercut democracy.

Throughout the course of the book, we find that political anxiety systematically shapes citizen engagement by encouraging attention to politics and increasing acceptance of leaders and policies framed as able to protect the public. Political anxiety leads citizens to learn more about politics, but anxious citizens are systematically drawn to threatening news. Political anxiety increases trust in political actors, but trust is confined to those actors seen as useful for handling the source of the anxiety. Political anxiety makes people more likely to take protective policy positions, and the dominant protective policies are shaped both by partisanship of individuals and the partisan politics around the issues. An anxious politics both helps citizens to reach a democratic ideal of an informed, interested polity and leaves the public open to manipulation. In this chapter, we consider what this book contributes to the study of political psychology and emotion in public life. We also reflect on when anxiety strengthens democracy and when it may undermine democracy.