Political Agency and the Medicalisation of Negative Emotions

Dan Degerman

This book explores negative emotions like anger, fear and grief as important drivers of political action. It examines how treating these feelings as medical problems affects society. Drawing on the political thought of Hannah Arendt, the book develops an original understanding of political emotions as fragile and vulnerable to attacks disputing their relevance to public life. It presents and analyses four case studies of emotional politics in the UK, ranging from assertions that UKIP supporters were emotionally primitive to diagnoses of anxiety disorder in the Brexit referendum's aftermath. It demonstrates how ideas of emotion and mental disorder might be used to both empower and disempower people politically.

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Political Agency and the Medicalisation of Negative Emotions

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv

Contents
pp v-v

Acknowledgements
pp vi-viii

Introduction: The Politics of Medicalisation
pp 1-23

Chapter 1 - Hannah Arendt, Political Agency and Negative Emotions
pp 24-48

Chapter 2 - The Public Shape of Emotions
pp 49-71

Chapter 3 - Disordered Voters: Grieving the Brexit Referendum
pp 72-93

Chapter 4 - Mad Protesters: Raging with Occupy
pp 94-111

Chapter 5 - Primitive Populists: The Fear of UKIP
pp 112-128

Chapter 6 - Maladjusted Patients: The Agency of the User/Survivor Movement
pp 129-146

Conclusion: Political Agency after COVID-19
pp 147-154

Bibliography
pp 155-190

Index
pp 191-199

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Political Agency and the Medicalisation of Negative Emotions

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