1.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we aim to put the occurrence and role of emotions in the political arena in a broader sociological and psychological perspective. In the first part, we argue that the increasing manifestation of emotions in political contexts is part of a broader societal trend, which we describe as the emotionalisation of society. During the Victorian era up to the first half of the twentieth century, emotional life took place in the private realm of the family, and emotional restraint was the societal norm, at least in the Western world. However, since World War II, personal emotions have become an integral part of the public arena. Our feelings are explicitly and publicly expressed and talked about, for example in work settings (emotional competence training), in schools (learning about emotions), in protest movements, at sport events (crying when you lose) or in science (see Dukes et al. Reference Dukes, Abrams, Adolphs, Ahmed, Beatty, Berridge and Sander2021). In addition, or maybe consequently, we also increasingly learn to regulate others’ emotions, especially when they are disruptive, for example countering public aggression at service desks, in public transport, in shops or bars or against ambulance personnel. Emotions have been emancipated from irrational dark forces to valued elements of the human mind, forming justified sources for decisions and actions. This emotionalisation has often been judged as appropriate and positive, as emotions would show one’s authentic and sincere self.
This general trend can, as we will argue in Section 1.2, also be observed in politics: emotions are worldwide increasingly manifest and recognised as a salient part of the political arena. Especially populist leaders show antagonistic emotions in debates, and their statements, speeches and public behaviours incorporate emotional appeals and strategically elicit negative emotions about other groups (Mudde Reference Mudde2004; Mudde & Kaltwasser Reference Mudde and Kaltwasser2017). Political discussions in which viewpoints are exchanged in a rational and balanced way seem sparser than polarised discussions. The private sphere of affective relations has thus been transported to the political realm (see Sennett Reference Sennett1978). This trend is reinforced by the widespread use of social media, where private and public blur. The display rules that, once governed, both the private and public expression of emotions have become opaque on social media. In addition, the absence of any social implications of one’s emotional expressions, due to the relative anonymity, speed and indirectness of the medium,Footnote 1 has resulted in an outburst of self-focused intolerance accompanied by hate speech.
The central question of this chapter, as dealt with in Section 1.3, is which roles emotions serve in political contexts. We provide a theoretical framework on political emotions in the context of increasingly entangled private and public spheres, the growing emphasis on emotions in current society and the group-based and enduring nature of political emotions. We argue that emotions have not only become a strategic tool in parliamentary politics but that emotions more generally have become important in politics at large, serving a moral function in political identities, judgements and actions, which further reinforces the emotionalisation of society.
1.2 The Emotionalisation of Society and Politics
Obviously, emotions have always been part of social life in general and more specifically of politics. The classic work of LeBon (Reference LeBon1895) already reflects the presence of emotions at the heart of political movements, though his description of emotional masses as primitive and impulsive is distinct from how we conceive of collective emotions nowadays (cf., Bruder et al. Reference Bruder, Fischer, Manstead, von Scheve and Salmela2014; Borch Reference Borch2002; Goldenberg et al. Reference Goldenberg, Garcia, Halperin and Gross2020; Thonhauser Reference Thonhauser2022). After the failures of the fascist and communist movements in the first half of the twentieth century, the trust in ‘emotional politics’ did not increase either: passions had to be banned from the political realm because they formed a threat to democracy as such. Passionate politics often culminated in the rise of authoritarian politicians and charismatic leaders who successfully built on and orchestrated the emotions of the masses (Jasper Reference Jasper1998, Reference Jasper, Alexander, Marx and Williams2004).
This was also the risk in a highly divided country such as the Netherlands. In the context of a polarised and ‘pillarised’ society, there was a shared goal among the Dutch elites to ‘pacify’ these tensions. ‘Pacification’ became the bread-and-butter of Dutch politicians, intentionally blocking ‘the masses’ to engage in meaningful forms of political participation. Active participation of citizens was perceived with distrust, particularly when ‘ordinary’ people organised themselves collectively in social movements. Whereas the study of social movements that started after World War II disqualified mass mobilisations as being overly emotional, the next generation of scholars – the so-called Resource Mobilisation Approach (RMA) – took a more positive stance towards mobilisations by citizens, without explicitly appreciating the role of emotions however (Duyvendak & Jasper Reference Duyvendak and Jasper2015). The RMA mostly emphasised the ‘rational’ character of mobilisation (depending on ‘resources’), as did the Political Process Approach (Duyvendak Reference Duyvendak1995), that highlighted the opportunity-side of mobilisation: rational actors would mobilise when success chances increased. However, since the 1960s, paradigms developed that assessed the constitutive role of emotions in mobilisations of civil society and in politics at large (e.g., the so-called New Social Movement Approach) as far more positive. These changes occurred during the ‘long 1960s’ in many Western countries as part of a process called the ‘informalisation’ (Wouters, Reference Wouters2007) of social relations, which meant that formal rules to regulate interactions became less important, while informal ways of dealing with one another became more important. In these informal interactions the role of emotions was explicitly acknowledged and valued.
Informalisation thus implied the collapse of rigid boundaries between the private and the public sphere. Authority was questioned everywhere: at home, at the workplace, in politics, at universities (Duyvendak et al. Reference Duyvendak, van der Heiden and Koopmans1992). However, the strict demarcation between the private and the public realm not only blurred because informalisation slowly shifted to new ways of interacting, it was also intentionally ‘produced’ by active citizens who claimed that ‘the personal was political’, a slogan particularly popular in the feminist movement (Hochschild Reference Hochschild1989). This implied in the first place a more sociological perspective on the causes of individual, ‘personal’ misery. Inequality was not ‘a given’ but could be changed by social and political action. Secondly, the feminist movement created the space to talk about emotions collectively, and to bring these emotions into the public realm. In the words of sociologist Arlie Hochschild (Reference Hochschild1979): social movements and the market together changed the display rules of emotions. As a result, a more positive appreciation of publicly displayed emotions became the new norm; Hurenkamp, Tonkens and Duyvendak (Reference Hurenkamp, Tonkens and Duyvendak2012, 134) even concluded that one could speak of the ‘collapsing of the private and the public and the requirement that everyone should publicly reveal the most intimate feelings, thoughts and behaviors’. Yet, Hochschild’s (Reference Hochschild1979) early work on display rules also showed that public emotion expression is not boundless. For example, flight attendants are required to smile and hide their negative feelings, irrespective of the sometimes hostile or inappropriate behaviour of passengers on a plane. Recent research on service workers shows that emotional labour is characteristic for many professions, from service workers to teachers and nurses (Humphrey Reference Humphrey2023).
Despite the working of public emotion display rules in specific professions or in specific circumstances (e.g., funerals or weddings), it is clear that emotions have become increasingly important as guiding principles of one’s life. Popular magazines propagate the sharing of emotions; whether at home, at work or online, psychology or management books advise us to be authentic in our emotion expressions and to follow our heart rather than our ratio when taking difficult decisions. The message of these popular books and magazines is straightforward: we should listen to our emotions and stop trying to hide or suppress them. We also witness many emotions in public life: footballers openly cry in the stadium when an important match is lost, pupils at school act out their anger at their teachers, people on the street become increasingly aggressive against policemen, firemen or ambulance personnel, employees (not only women) cry at their boss’ desks when they feel treated unfairly, and so on.
This general trend towards emotionalisation can also be observed in politics: emotions have become increasingly manifest in the political arena worldwide. Various studies have shown that especially populist leaders express antagonistic emotions, such as anger and contempt. In their statements, speeches or public behaviours they incorporate emotional appeals and strategically elicit negative emotions about other groups (Mols & Jetten Reference Mols and Jetten2016; Rico et al. Reference Rico, Guinjoan and Anduiza2017; Salmela & von Scheve Reference Salmela and von Scheve2018; Gerstlé & Nai Reference Gerstlé and Nai2019; Morisi & Wagner Reference Morisi and Wagner2021). The use of emotions, however, is not only restricted to populist parties or leaders, but emerges in mainstream politics as well. The growing opposition between the Democrats and Republicans in the United States, for example, has become a source of hate-based identities, leading not only to fierce opposition in parliament but also to broken family ties and friendships. The rise of populism has been explained by the fact that people feel threatened by the fast changes in society (e.g., climate change, pandemic, wars, asylum seekers and immigrants), over which they lack control (Hogg Reference Hogg2014; Stephan Reference Stephan2014; Abadi et al. Reference Abadi, Willem van Prooijen, Krouwel and Fischer2024). Populist leaders underline these concerns and explain this presumed state of alarm by blaming the elites, current governments, or immigrants, in which an ‘us versus them’ ideology is articulated. This strengthens people’s worries, but also their anger, resulting in a support of this narrative.
The private sphere of affective relations has thus been transported to the political realm (cf. Sennett Reference Sennett1978). The development of the welfare state played an important role in the ‘emotionalisation of citizenship’: ever-increasing ‘circles of emotional identification’ developed among citizens (de Swaan Reference de Swaan1995). Whereas in the study of citizenship most attention was historically paid to the juridical, political and social aspects (Marshall Reference Marshall1950), the emotional side of citizenship has also been recognised recently. Relations among citizens and between citizens and the (welfare) state can be considered as affective, because welfare states require solidarity between groups of people. Without solidarity, welfare states will never develop (Tonkens et al. Reference Tonkens, Kampen, de Wilde, Gabriëls, Koenis and Swierstra2018).
Finally, the emotionalisation of public and political life originated in the blurring of the private and the public but is now further reinforced by the widespread use of social media, where private and public can hardly be distinguished anymore. It is often unclear whether heated opinions and emotion expressions on social platforms are posted as individuals, employees, experts or politicians. In addition, the posted emotional expressions are often raw and extreme, without considering the effects they may have on the receiver (see also Tanesini Reference Tanesini2022). Boring and balanced videos are not effective. Analyses of emotions in social media show that messages containing emotions are more often commented on or re-tweeted (Hyvärinen & Beck Reference Hyvärinen and Beck2018). Whereas it is not clear whether positive or negative messages go viral more often, emotional messages win from non-emotional messages in getting attention. Thus, the display rules that once governed both the private and public expression of emotions have become opaque in the digital world. The absence of any social implications of one’s emotional expressions, which seems partly due to the anonymity of the medium, has resulted in an outburst of self-focused intolerance accompanied by hate speech (Fischer et al. Reference Fischer, Halperin, Canetti and Jasini2018).
1.3 Political Emotions
1.3.1 What Are Political Emotions?
So far, we have talked about the increasing importance of emotions in societal and political life, without elaborating on how they should be theorised and defined. How can we think of emotions in the political realm?Footnote 2 What kind of emotions are they and what defines them as political? In psychology, emotions have traditionally been defined as short and immediate reactions to a change in one’s environment (Frijda Reference Frijda1986), which dissolves after one’s emotional reaction to this change (Frijda et al. Reference Frijda, Kuipers and Ter Schure1989). Events that are important to the individual can give rise to an emotion. The importance, based on one’s goals and concerns, is referred to as ‘appraisals’. According to appraisal theories, emotions are individual subjective experiences: similar events can elicit emotions in some, but not in all individuals, or not to the same degree, because people have different concerns. Subjective experiences are characterised by appraisals of events, but also by the readiness to act in reaction to the event, such as the tendency to flee, fight, hide, scold, hold on, approach and so on (Frijda et al. Reference Frijda, Kuipers and Ter Schure1989). Distinct emotional experiences, such as anger, sadness, admiration or disappointment, can thus be characterised by specific sets of appraisals and action tendencies. Various classifications of appraisal dimensions have been proposed (Roseman et al. Reference Roseman, Wiest and Swartz1994; Scherer Reference Scherer1997), starting with the rough distinction between positive and negative appraisals, reflected in satisfying or threatening concerns, but also distinguishing a moral dimension, namely whether something is right or wrong. Appraisal dimensions of both negative emotions and positive emotions can be further specified, for example by appraising who is to blame for an event that affects oneself in a negative way: oneself (shame), the other (anger) or the situation (fear or sadness). Further, the question of whether the event is uncertain or not distinguishes hope (not sure what will happen) from amusement (something funny going on) or fear (uncertain what the threat is) from anger (very certain what is threatening and who is to blame).
One important characteristic of emotions is that they always have an object: they are directed at something or someone. This is what differentiates emotions from moods, which are more free-floating (Frijda Reference Frijda, Ekman and Davidson1994). Emotions are intentional (de Sousa Reference de Sousa1990) and a response to certain features of the object. One is afraid of an intimidating colleague, angry at one’s over-reacting supervisor, envious of a rich friend and so on. In psychological emotion research and theories, the object of an emotion has always been assumed to be concrete and, in the present (even though it can be a thought or a fantasy), because emotions are reactions to a change in the environment. The classic psychological perspective on emotions is that they increase the probability of an individual’s survival and/or reproductive success. Emotions are thus considered functional in the sense that they help the individual to address or overcome problems (e.g., Frijda Reference Frijda1986; Levenson Reference Levenson1999): to run away or attack or back off when one’s life is in danger. This is also why emotions prepare our body for an immediate and fast reaction: there is no time to think.
Perhaps surprisingly, but only in recent decades has the attention in psychological research shifted to the idea that emotions also serve social functions: emotions are crucial in social life and guide social relations in multiple ways and at multiple levels (Keltner & Haidt Reference Keltner and Haidt1999; Fischer & Manstead Reference Fischer, Manstead, Feldman Barrett, Lewis and Haviland-Jones2016). Fischer and Manstead (Reference Fischer, Manstead, Feldman Barrett, Lewis and Haviland-Jones2016) have proposed two types of social functions: affiliation and distancing. The affiliation function of emotion refers to the idea that emotions help an individual or group to establish or maintain cooperative and harmonious relations with other individuals or other social groups. For example, positive emotions, but also anger, are important ingredients of enduring relationships, reflecting commitment and care. The distancing function of emotion serves to differentiate or distance oneself or group from others and even to compete with these others for social status or power. This function is often expressed with negative emotions such as contempt or disgust that signal that a relationship has come to an end or that a group falls apart (Fischer & Roseman Reference Fischer and Roseman2007). There simply are no relationships, between individuals or within groups, without emotions.
What does this characterisation of emotions and their social functions tell us about emotions in the political realm? We consider political emotions from an appraisal point of view (see also Roseman et al. Reference Roseman, Wiest and Swartz1994; Roseman & Smith Reference Roseman, Smith, Scherer, Schorr and Johnstone2001; Moors et al. Reference Moors, Ellsworth, Scherer and Frijda2013; Marcus Reference Marcus2017; Scherer Reference Scherer2021), that is, emotional reactions are subjective experiences characterised by appraisals, action tendencies, physiological changes and non-verbal expressions. In addition, discrete emotions can be described on the basis of distinct patterns of appraisals and actions tendencies. But what makes an emotion political in the first place? Emotions can be qualified as political in three ways. First, the object of the emotion is political, that is, the emotion is elicited by a political event, or by statements or behaviours of politicians or political parties and directed at them. Examples are emotional reactions to political leaders, parties or movements or emotional exchanges between members of political parties. Recent research has shown that political leaders elicit many emotions, by what they say or believe (Schumacher et al. Reference Schumacher, Rooduijn and Bakker2022). Second, discrete emotions expressed by politicians, for example during campaigns or debates, serve as a signal towards supporters or towards their political opponents. In a study on the perception of emotions in political campaign ads in the United States during the 2014 senate races, for example, the perception of contempt in candidates predicted a lower chance to vote for that candidate (Roseman et al. Reference Roseman, Mattes, Redlawsk and Katz2020), no matter whether it was a Republican or Democratic candidate. Third, even if politicians are not directly involved in the expression or reception of emotions, emotions can still emerge in a political context, such as during presidential campaigns or elections, or other pollical events, demonstrations or protests.
1.3.2 Political Emotions Are Group-Based
However, political emotions cannot be adequately described as merely immediate individual reactions to a political object. A first reason is that political emotions are often group-based rather than individual reactions, because individuals share their political views with others, in political parties, but also in local action groups, or social movements, for example, on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, on climate change, better payments or animal welfare. Individuals’ political concerns and goals can better be served in groups collectively. Emotions serve an important function in the formation and strength of such political identities. People typically feel positive emotions (pride, admiration, or satisfaction) about the group they identify with (Smith & Mackie Reference Smith and Mackie2015), though these feelings can also be negative, for example feeling shame, guilt or anger at one’s own group if it is seen as ineffective (one’s political party has lost the elections) or guilty or ashamed about one’s moral wrongdoing in the past (e.g., supporting de-colonialism movements in Western countries; see also Doosje et al. Reference Doosje, Branscombe, Spears and Manstead1998; Chapter 8, by Montes Sánchez & Salice). Emotions thus serve an affiliative, group-bonding function because group members converge in what they believe is unfair. This is also the case in groups that are less cohesive, for example, when group members have different opinions, emotions can maintain cohesiveness by excluding or correcting deviant members (e.g., Sani Reference Sani2005; Heerdink et al. Reference Heerdink, Van Kleef, Homan and Fischer2013).
Strengthening the relations within one’s own group can also be achieved by eliciting and expressing negative emotions towards outgroups, stressing dissimilarities with the outgroup or by promoting prejudice (Szanto Reference Szanto2020). This is especially the case with competitive groups, such as political groups. Negative emotions towards a political enemy motivates the identification with one’s own group and to build a group identity by sharing collective emotions (Von Scheve & Ismer Reference Von Scheve and Ismer2013; Bruder et al. Reference Bruder, Fischer, Manstead, von Scheve and Salmela2014) or engaging in collective action against the political enemy (van Zomeren et al. Reference van Zomeren, Kutlaca and Turner-Zwinkels2018). Collectively shared emotions can become an important part of one’s group identity (Livingstone et al. Reference Livingstone, Spears, Manstead, Bruder and Shepherd2011; Kuppens et al. Reference Kuppens, Yzerbyt, Dandache, Fischer and van der Schalk2013) and increases the importance of one’s group. Hating the other group can even become a core part of one’s group identity, as has been shown for the white supremacist movement in the United States (Simi et al. Reference Simi, Blee, DeMichele and Windisch2017), as its very existence is the hatred of Americans who are not white nor heterosexual. The members of such groups are socialised in hating, providing them not only with status and a collective identity strictly demarcated from other groups but also with positive collective experiences, referred to by Durkheim (Reference Durkheim1915) as ‘collective effervescence’ (see also Mackie et al. Reference Mackie, Smith and Ray2008). These white supremacists are not just adhering to a certain ideology, but they literally embody this ideology. Because the hatred is a structural ingredient of one’s social bonds and identity, disengaging from such organised hate groups is difficult (Simi et al. Reference Simi, Blee, DeMichele and Windisch2017).
More generally, intergroup conflicts between political, religious or ethnic groups occur everywhere in the world, in the past and present, and often the conflict is kept alive by each group’s negative emotions about the other group (e.g., Van Kleef & Fischer Reference Van Kleef and Fischer2016). Emotions thus help to preserve the bonds with one’s own group and create distance from other groups, by appraising acts or persons of one’s political enemies as against one’s own concerns, unfair, morally wrong or evil. There are different ways in which such negative emotions are maintained between groups. First, every individual has the need to belong to a group (Leary & Baumeister Reference Leary and Baumeister1995), and the fear to be excluded from a group thus implicitly guides people’s group-based appraisals in such a way that there is an emotional fit with the group, which is also important for how one perceives oneself (Livingstone et al. Reference Livingstone, Spears, Manstead, Bruder and Shepherd2011). This social appraisal (Manstead & Fischer Reference Manstead, Fischer, Scherer, Schorr and Johnstone2001) is reinforced when others form a group with which people identify. Second, group-based emotions become stronger during collective experiences. A collective emotional experience, such as a commemorating event, a ritual or a protest, strengthens shared identities, which in turn lead to stronger positive ingroup emotions. Sharing and talking about such important emotional group-based experiences then fuels one’s group identity and becomes a part of the group’s history (see also Rimé Reference Rimé2009). Third, group-based emotions can also be strengthened by regulating one’s own emotions to become more aligned with those of the group. In a study on the Israeli National Memorial Day, Porat and colleagues (Reference Porat, Halperin, Mannheim and Tamir2016) found that Israelis who feel a strong need to belong to the Israeli society also want to regulate their emotions in such a way that they feel sadness on this day. Similar regulation attempts can be expected when people want to feel positive about their group.
1.3.3 Political Emotions Are Sentiments
A second reason why a classic understanding of emotions as individual does not adequately describe political emotions is because political emotions often endure over time (Smith & Mackie Reference Smith and Mackie2021; Fischer Reference Fischer and Scarantino2024) and do not seem to dissolve because they are being expressed collectively. Thus, political emotions may sustain beyond the event that original triggered them, because emotions that are elicited in one’s interaction with other groups may affect one’s relation with such groups and group members for a longer time. Though we may be able to pinpoint one event or behaviour that was the trigger of an emotional reaction towards a person or a group (e.g., Hillary Clinton’s use of the word ‘deplorables’ in her presidential campaign or the Dutch right wing populist politician Geert Wilders’ outburst of ‘Fewer, fewer, fewer’ when referring to the presence of Dutch young adults with a Moroccan migration background), it is clear that the course of an emotion trajectory cannot always be explained by that single event or by individuals responding to that event. The start of a (civil) war in a country where groups lived together in peace for a long time cannot be explained by one murder, or one speech, even though this may have triggered the first response. Concerns may have been under threat for a long time, and the actual trigger is also a response to these long-term concerns. In other words, referring to an appraisal of one object or stimulus to explain emotions in a political context cannot always predict whether the emotion will sustain, linger or manifest itself later.
A good illustration of emotional dynamics over time is provided by Verhoeven and Metze (Reference Verhoeven and Metze2022), who describe the story lines in newspaper articles on a sensitive political issue, namely the ‘gasquakes’ in the northern part of the Netherlands (Groningen). News coverage showed three peaks in the media on this topic with changing patterns of discrete emotions, changes in the sequence of emotions and changes in the intensity of emotions over time. Analysis of the first peak consisted primarily of anxiety and concern about the unsafety of the region but accompanied by a weaker story line of anger and untrustworthiness of the national government. The second peak showed that the worries had turned into straight out fear, whereas the anger was changing into contempt (see also Fischer & Roseman Reference Fischer and Roseman2007), illustrated by the protests of a radical action group. The third story line showed that anger and contempt had taken over as dominant storylines and were associated with distrust. These three media peaks indicate a pattern of escalating emotions, showing how emotions develop over time (see Verhoeven & Duyvendak Reference Verhoeven and Duyvendak2016).
Emotions that have a long-lasting nature have been referred to as sentiments (Frijda Reference Frijda, Ekman and Davidson1994; Fischer & Giner-Sorolla Reference Fischer and Giner-Sorolla2016; Fischer et al. Reference Fischer, Halperin, Canetti and Jasini2018, Reference Fischer, Roseman, Giner-Sorolla and Jacobsen2023; Fischer Reference Fischer and Scarantino2024).Footnote 3 Sentiments are long-term affective states, based on a global appraisal of events, individuals or groups (Frijda Reference Frijda, Ekman and Davidson1994). Their duration is, thus, the most important criterion to distinguish emotions and sentiments. A sentiment can be based on both a history of experiences (with a person or group) and on more global information or assessments of a specific person or group. Sentiments increase the likelihood of appraising events in certain ways, for example of perceiving oneself as the victim of a political system, and to respond to that appraisal with anger, despair or contempt. A sentiment is enduring because of the nature of the target itself. Whereas short-term emotions are based on appraisals of a sudden change in the environment (e.g., an attack), sentiments are based on more global appraisals of a person, a group or a system in totality (Vendrell Ferran Reference Vendrell Ferran2024), such as the national government. This often applies to political emotions, for example when appraising the elite or the rich as one’s enemy, this may become a more permanent source of one’s political sentiments, especially when one is repeatedly exposed to such appraisals (see also Fischer et al. Reference Fischer, Halperin, Canetti and Jasini2018). This is especially the case in countries characterised by intractable conflicts, such as Israel. Previous experiences in an intergroup conflict and ideological differences between groups not only influence current emotional reactions but also the policies that may lead to peace. Halperin and colleagues (Reference Halperin, Russell, Dweck and Gross2011), for example, showed that the level of hatred determined whether anger towards an outgroup became destructive or remained constructive. Inducing anger towards Palestinians in Israeli respondents who had low levels of hate towards Palestinians resulted in stronger support for a compromise in an upcoming peace negotiation, whereas it decreased support for a compromise among Israelis who were very hateful. In the case of wars or civilian conflicts, group-based hate is a strong obstacle against peaceful resolutions or compromises of any kind (see e.g., Halperin et al., Reference Halperin, Canetti‐Nisim and Hirsch-Hoefler2009). In addition, in regions with a history of intractable conflicts, such as Israel–Palestine (Halperin, Reference Halperin2015), the Balkans or North-East Africa, strong demarcations between opposing groups are crucial in defining one’s collective identities.
1.3.4 The Politicisation of Emotions
Whereas emotions have always been part of political movements, and especially of protest movements, which are organised around perceptions of unfairness, emotions have become an integral part of the entire political arena and discourse since the second half of the twentieth century. Slogans, speeches, blogs, videos or any social media expression uses emotion expressions to attract attention, to give a signal, to persuade, to make the story more attractive and livelier or simply to maintain support. Thus, not only have politics become emotionalised but emotions have also become more politicised, because they have gained a public, political function. This is the result of the increasing positive value attached to the public expression of emotions, which makes people comply more readily to emotional appeals, but also to the positive symbolic value attached to emotions, which reflects the moral right of the emotion expresser. We give three examples of the politicisation of emotions.
First, as discussed in Section 1.3.2, emotions are the source of group-based political identities. Politically active people derive parts of their social identity from group membership of political movements, such as the current climate movement, peace movements, animal welfare movements and, of course, also from partisanships. Stronger political identity, then, elicits stronger emotions in favour of one’s party or political movement, such as supporting the political cause, becoming more involved and defending it against political opponents (Huddy et al. Reference Huddy, Mason and Aarøe2015). These emotions become part of and further strengthen one’s political identity (e.g., Livingstone et al. Reference Livingstone, Spears, Manstead, Bruder and Shepherd2011). There is much evidence that emotions have become a more integral part of political campaigns, such as the presidential campaign in the United States (e.g., Roseman et al. Reference Roseman, Mattes, Redlawsk and Katz2020; Wagner & Boczkowski Reference Wagner and Boczkowski2021), but also in other countries. Moreover, especially populist appeals elicit strong emotions (Hameleers et al. Reference Hameleers, Bos and De Vreese2017; Wirz Reference Wirz2018) and populist leaders use more negative emotions, especially fear messages, blaming and attacking political enemies than other political leaders (Nai Reference Nai2021). Indeed, emotions have shown to play a more prominent role in the rise of populist attitudes than socio-economic factors. In a large survey, including 15 European countries, we showed that both anxiety and anger are much better predictors of people’s centrism, anti-elitism and nativism than socio-economic status (Abadi et al. Reference Abadi, Bertlich, Duyvendak and Fischer2025; see also Nguyen et al. Reference Nguyen, Salmela, Scheve and Oswald2022). Emotions thus form the building blocks of political identities.
Second, emotions have become important moral justification of one’s actions and belongingness to groups. Many protest movements were born out of anger because they perceive injustice in how they are being treated (as women, workers, teachers, LGBTQ+, etc.), and this is also the case for the worldwide protest movements on climate change. Interestingly, a recent study (Gregersen et al. Reference Gregersen, Andersen and Tvinnereim2023) found anger, and not fear or hope, to predict self-reported activism. In addition, anger did not predict individual mitigation behaviour, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions in their own daily life. Anger thus seems to be the moral emotion that warrants people’s urge to protest,Footnote 4 but not necessarily to do something themselves. Another recent worldwide protest movement based on moral emotions is on the war in Gaza. The pictures from Gaza have spurred a moral outrage at the killing and starving of innocent people. In both the climate movement and the anti-Israel protests, the moral nature of the outrage elicits an urge to act, it obliges people to do right, in order not to end on ‘the wrong end of history’. Anger, outrage and compassion in these examples are based on socio-moral concerns related to the well-being of future generations and of innocent victims. The concerns are about justice, about caring for the weak. The moral nature of these emotions has also been shown to amplify people’s moral judgements about actions or events related to these concerns (Horberg et al. Reference Horberg, Oveis and Keltner2011). In other words, the more anger people feel towards governments, the more likely they are to judge any action on the part of that government as amoral and unjust and the less likely they are to support reconciliation policies.
Third, the display and expression of emotions have become a political goal to reconcile with a group’s past. Public apologies by states have significantly increased in the past two decades, most often related to World War II, but also to a country’s colonial past. The increase in public apologies by a state clearly illustrate the importance of a public and explicit emotional signal. Sincerely showing regret, guilt or shame is now considered an acceptable way in which the royalty or the government can be forgiven and restore their relationship with specific societal groups. Other examples are the public apologies after transgressions in the workplace, not only by the transgressors but also by the responsible management. In the Netherlands, several recent examples of structural sexual transgression by powerful men in the football club Ajax, a broadcasting company BNN VARA and in the world of dance were made public. This culminated not only in the demands of angry women that these men should be fired but also in apologies from the respective organisations for the fact that transgressions had been going on for such a long time.
In sum, the public expression of and reference to emotions has normalised, in and outside the political arena. Emotions have gained in importance and are crucial in supporting political groups and identities, in the formation of moral judgements about who is right and wrong and in enforcing public emotions serving political goals.
1.4 Conclusion
Emotions – long been considered as part of the private realm – have travelled into the public and political realm. The informalisation of social relations after World War II in many Western countries has contributed to the blurring of the private and the public, which is further reinforced by the widespread use of social media. Emotion expressions have not only become normal in contemporary society but are also positively valued as ethical principles of one’s life: following our emotions makes us authentic and our decisions morally right. Emotions have also invaded the political arena: emotions are expressed by political leaders, members of parliament express their emotional opinions on social media, parliamentary debates are often affectively polarised. This more frequent expression of and reference to emotions in public also serves a political function. Especially anger and contempt feed engagement for political identities and support for political actions and thus create emotional opposition. Strongly identifying with one group often implies the derogation and dehumanisation of other groups. This is the case for some members of protest movements, especially for supporters of radical left-wing or right-wing parties or groups (see, e.g., Simi et al. Reference Simi, Blee, DeMichele and Windisch2017). Emotions are also explicitly used for political goals, such as the public declaration of regret or guilt to apologise for one’s own wrong doings in order to restore relations with specific groups in society. Or the public expression of pride and admiration for one’s group, often used by nationalist and extreme right-wing movements to defend white supremacy. Finally, safety, belonging and feeling at home are used in relation to migration politics to defend or attack migration politics.
But what are the implications of these political functions of sentiments, and what does the emotional travel from the private into the public and political realm mean? One implication is that it has increased emotional involvement in politics more broadly. Emotional narratives and expressions make the political arena more engaging for a broader audience. Ordinary feelings, such as anger, pride or compassion have become part of political narratives and identities. The emotionalisation of politics thus may have, at least potentially, a democratising effect, given that everybody has emotions, whereas knowledge is more unevenly distributed (although the recent enthusiasm regarding ‘experiential knowledge’ – part of the same emancipatory claim – may have a democratising impact on knowledge use in politics as well).
On the other hand, if the political sphere is heavily emotionalised, the public space runs the risk to become a quasi-private place where dissenters are not welcomed and where critics of one’s own political beliefs easily become one’s enemy in personal life. In this way political emotions, especially when they are based on moral concerns, can pose a threat to democracy. Giving group-based sentiments, such as anger, contempt or fear, a central position in the political debate may amplify the polarisation and pose a threat to democracy, where compromises and negotiations are crucial. This is evident for example in the increasing importance of ‘belonging’ as a specific sentiment. Claiming that ‘the Dutch’ or ‘the French’ should feel at home poses a direct threat to democracy as such, because citizenship is then not based anymore on formal regulations but becomes culturalised and emotionalised. With the culturalisation of citizenship, citizens are subjected to new ‘feeling rules’ (Hochschild Reference Hochschild2003) that render ‘belonging’ or ‘feeling at home’ a requirement (Duyvendak Reference Duyvendak2011). Especially immigrants are expected to demonstrate feelings of attachment, belonging, connectedness and loyalty to their country of residence (Tonkens & Duyvendak Reference Tonkens, Duyvendak, Duyvendak, Geschiere and Tonkens2016).
But which place should emotions then have in the public and political debate? Better incorporating emotions in political discourse is clearly effective in broadening political interest. However, emotions should never be considered as the sole justifications of one’s decisions or support of political narratives. Emotions are urgent and demand priority (Frijda Reference Frijda2017), and we also know that they bias one’s perceptions and judgements. Perceiving one behaviour of a politician as morally unjust easily translates to blaming the politician for everything he ever did, or by extension reproaching the party he belongs to as morally corrupt. Accepting group-based sentiments as part of the political discourse results in affective polarisation that overshadows and amplifies the actual differences among citizens regarding opinions, beliefs, dreams and daily behaviours. It is inconclusive, however, whether affective polarisation actually leads to anti-democratic attitudes (Bakker & Lelkes Reference Bakker and Lelkes2024).
So where does this leave us? Political sentiments serve important functions and can make democracy a thriving political system and, in that respect, we welcome political emotions as part of the public realm and as a source of political engagement. However, we should never forget that emotions cannot be the sole basis of decisions, because they always reflect our own or our groups’ concern and thus bias a more integrated view of problems that we are facing. This means that we should actively teach people about emotions and how they work, because it is well known that such emotional awareness decreases the impact of emotions. This is not only the case for antagonistic, negative emotions, but also for positive emotions. Second, we should also teach people to better regulate their emotions, to employ them for positive purposes, such as bridging differences, taking others’ perspectives and supporting positive relations. In particular, there is a need to regulate group-based sentiments (Halperin Reference Halperin, von Scheve and Salmela2014), for example through collective re-appraisal of events or through collective action and rituals.
