ABSTRACT
In this chapter the authors turn our attention to the question of political responsibility and to the relationship between the cognitive and political dimensions. Gusfield points out that there is no necessary logical link between the cognitive and political dimensions, that is, a problem may be caused by factors that are independent of the political responsibility for its solution. They argue that in the case of fear of crime, the link between the cognitive and political dimensions is made by the various criminal justice interest groups that tie the two dimensions together in theory as well as practice. The authors are speaking here of the "competing public position," not the almost infinite variety of private opinions, personal preferences, and academic musings that surround the social problem debate. The victimization perspective played an important role in surfacing the fear problem and in assigning the cognitive responsibility for fear upon the experience of the victimization event and the individual reaction to it.
