The opportunity costs of the politics of division and disinformation in the context of the twenty-first century security deficit

In the context of increasingly dynamic global threats to security, which exceed current institutional capabilities to address them, this paper examines the influence of actors with insular interests who seek to leverage anxieties, grievances and disinformation for their own advantage at the expense of the public. Such actors have a common interest in political dysfunction as a means of reducing institutional controls and oversite and use combinations of divisive messaging and disinformation to advance societally suboptimal goals. We first examine the emergence of a security deficit arising from globalization, climate change, and society’s failure to develop the institutions and norms necessary to address the threats produced by these combined phenomena. We then analyze how the politics of division and disinformation have undermined the ability of political and social systems to adapt to the new global threat landscape, employing a conceptual framework that integrates perspectives from sociology and political studies with advances in the cognitive sciences and psychology. Included in the analysis is an examination of the psychological and cognitive foundations of divisive politics and disinformation strategies employed by opportunistic actors to manipulate existing cultural biases and disinform the public of the genuine threats to their well-being. Finally, we provide examples of the interaction of the aforementioned dynamics and concomitant societal opportunity costs resulting from politically fueled division and disinformation. The paper intends to integrate insights from distinct disciplines (sociology, political science, political economy, psychology and cognitive science) to construct a new conceptual framework for understanding obstacles to addressing twenty-first century global threats, and identify gaps in the capacity of dominant security paradigms to fully recognize and assess such threats.