The spread of fear in the globalizing world: The case of COVID-19

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, the concept of “globalization” has been one of the main topics of social sciences. Globalization is a controversial topic due to its main features and effects. Debates in this contex generally focuses on the “advantages and disadvantages” of globalization. On one side of these debates, some advocate that with globalization, people's lives have significantly improved and countries have started to develop rapidly, while, on the other side, some argue that nature, culture, and human life have faced grave threats and “global risk society” is being built. Debates on global risk society seem to have accelerated in recent years. With the COVID-19 outbreak, that emerged in China in December 2019 and went global, leading to a pandemic, it is seen that debates on “global risk society” started again in the media and among social scientists. This article aims to explore the effect of globalization on the spread of fear across the world by focusing on the case of COVID-19. Along with the basic characteristics of globalization, such as “widening,” “deepening,” and “acceleration,” fear seems to have spread all over the world and have forced people to discuss the benefits and harms of globalization once more.