My only friend, the end. Urgency politics and the blackout

Experts and politicians warn that a power outage affecting all of Europe will push society to the verge of collapse due to failures in transportation, communications, supply, and other areas. Austrian state agencies and emergency services make efforts to mobilize the public to prepare for what will happen “when the lights go out.” The article analyzes one Blackout campaign as an instance of urgency politics that uses the affective power of urgency as a tool of mobilization. Urgency politics posits the Blackout as the ultimate endpoint of a flawed present, ending the current urban-industrial hubris but leading to a potentially better post-disaster future if citizens invoke an ideal community that will be able to overcome the crisis. It argues that the campaign urges the public to protect what is valuable while simultaneously creating and defining the nature of that valued good. Analyzing Blackout precaution thus sheds light on the significance of the valued good as the referent object of urgency politics. • The Blackout as an endpoint is an extended temporality that extends between a present and a post-disaster future. • Urgency politics harnesses the affective power of a sense of urgency for mobilization by emotionally engaging the public. • Urgency claims have an affective effect that disciplines actors. • Analyzing urgency politics from the vantage point of its reference object sheds light on the legitimacy of urgency claims.