In the introduction, Mbembe explains that he wants to make the subject of his work clear but that the difficulty and violence of the topic make it extremely complex. He compares postcolonial governments to bodies and argues that the skeleton of these entities are made of terror and violence. Comparing democracy to Plato’s pharmakon (referring to a remedy or to a means of producing something), Mbembe explains that modernity has structured governments in such a way that they are both medicine and poison, benefiting some while harming others. Mbembe draws from the work of French psychiatrist Frantz Fanon to develop his thesis that violence and war are the hallmark of democracy.

Just as fear was the catalyst for colonialism’s violence and racism, Mbembe explains that it continues to drive brutality in the modern age. Mbembe intends to use the politics of space—how groups of humans move and how democracies move and group populations—to show how colonialism’s violence functions in a modern context. People live in fear that others’ experiences and ideologies might threaten their lives and identities, so they enclose themselves from the outside world and create false narratives about others to justify violence, removing themselves from guilt.