Samenvatting

The main question of this article is why the existing diverse populist movements have at least one feature in common: Crime, security and harsher punishments are high on their political agenda. The author points out that the rise of criminality in the last 20 years is a real basis for the growing anxiety among the population about insecurity. This anxiety is reinforced by the blown up media attention for crime issues. The dominance of the security issue is further explained and enhanced by cultural factors like individualisation, migration and the rise of a vitalist culture characterised by a geografical and normative boundlessness. In this context norm violations are always lurking and contributing to an insecure, complex and chaotic society. (In)security has become the common denominator to which all grievances can be reduced. The creation of new structures giving reassurance could provide a democratic alternative for the unevitable authoritarian tendency in state policy caused by the rise of populism. This type of social order should be understood in terms of arrangements of institutions and of tuning stakeholders to one another. Taking this longing for security among the population seriously means also to stop addressing civilians as consumers and start urging them to act like co-responsibles.