Political science is a beautiful field of science. Although it does not always receive recognition from the broader public for being a highly complex and essential discipline, political science can be seen as the crossroads of many academic streams. While maths, biology, physics, sociology, economics, anthropology and many other scientific realms are viewed within their thematical boundaries, the science of politics connects those realms and utilises them to understand and shape societal conduct – if it is done correctly. It translates the symbiosis of different academic cultures into findings that aid the development of those other disciplines. Recognising this means that political analyses can never be thoroughly conducted on the basis of one premise. Surely, some factors play more dominant roles in certain developments and, therefore, can be used as the explanatory basis for the analysis of them. However, we ought to be reflective of nearly all aspects that influence the political event, phenomenon or development we want to understand, find a solution to or bring to life in the first place. Hence, in previous essays, the importance of language and symbolism in politics was treated in a few examples. Politics is not solely mechanical but is rather quite intertwined with more sociological aspects of life. Therefore, this article examines the role of emotions within politics. In one of the more complex works here, the Political Cube already position emotional policymaking at one end of an axis of the three-dimensional mapping tool for political thoughts. Emotions do carry considerable weight in policymaking and, accordingly, are frequently used as political tools. Next to looking at how emotions are used by politicians in their policymaking, this article will also outline how to manage and reflect one’s own emotions in political contexts to retain analytical clarity.
How Emotions Influence the Behaviour of Politicians
It is widely known within management literature that emotions impair our ability to make sound judgements and, therefore, to make good decisions. This certainly also applies to politicians who are, simplistically seen, managers of a nation. Exposed to a very complex working environment, including stress, accountability, and the balancing of interests of a wide range of actors, politicians find it very difficult to shield themselves from different emotional pressures. Powerful business actors exert pressure to further their individual and organisational interests, the public constantly voices demands, colleagues display competitive behaviour to claim higher positions, politicians with opposing policy cultures act competitively, foreign nations exert pressure and form competitive alliances, organisations further societal or thematic interests and the press is constantly trying to extract information from all of those arenas to achieve organisational goals, and all of those things happen next to the dynamic development of the respective policy fields. Moreover, even though the professional realm of a politician should theoretically not be affected by it, personal circumstances do, at the very least subconsciously, affect the emotional state of politicians, either. Such a burdening environment will also have repercussions on marriage and friendships. Security concerns for the family and tragic events will also lead to emotional pressures. Finally, there is the distinct character of a politician, which naturally influences the behaviour and ability to make sound decisions.
Even though politicians have access to a vast pool of talent and are supported by sophisticated people around them, their individual management of their emotions directly affects the quality of their policy output. The better they can shield themselves from intense emotions, the better the policy outcomes will be. Here, we need to clearly distinguish between emotions and principles. While a deep and genuine devotion to the good of the own nation is indispensable, strong situational emotions that surround this loyalty to the cause of the nation will nonetheless diminish the quality of policymaking. Principles and virtues must serve as the basis of behavioural patterns and constitute the guiding realm of policymaking. In the operative sense, emotions should not interfere with decision-making even if they are born out of the virtues that define our policy options, as they can temporarily make us breach those boundaries that our principles initially set. To clarify this point a bit, we can think about how we sometimes make mistakes because we love something or someone a bit too much in certain situations. Given the additional pressures politicians are exposed to, we can reasonably assume that many political decisions were made on the basis of emotional imbalance – the USA’s Gulf Wars, the First World War, Iran’s Islamic Revolution and Germany’s decision to discontinue nuclear energy are only a few examples. Political risk management on the highest decision-making level is, therefore, bound to create structures that reduce the emotional imbalance of high-ranking politicians and introduce a solid system of checks and balances. Through its innovative voting and staffing system, Devletism perfectly addresses these issues and would minimise ill policymaking on the grounds of emotional imbalance.
How Emotions Shape Public Political Discourse
Other than in their effects on politicians, emotions also recur in different dimensions in public discourse. Just like emotions distort our capability to make sound decisions, they significantly affect our perception. Depending on the emotions we feel, we perceive our surroundings differently and interact with it in different ways than we would in a neutral state of mind. Knowing that, non-devletist politicians often utilise this human characteristic to further their, or their group’s, interests. It is a common notion to perceive the common non-devletist politician as an opportunistic actor who puts personal or organisational goals above the goals of society. Although they may make intense use of emotional policymaking to influence the broader public directly by invoking certain feelings before calling for actions, emotions are more often and more effectively utilised indirectly in influencing public thought and behaviour. This is especially true in contemporary democratic political systems which rely increasingly on indirect use of emotional policymaking. How does that work? Humans are generally rather restrictive and passive in their thinking. For example, our willingness to change due to the uncertainty of the outcomes is lower than our willingness to strongly resist change. When we are attempting new tasks, we tend to initially assume that we are going to fail and, therefore, also resist trying new things. Because of this thinking, policymaking that aims at proactive and conscious participation of the broader public is less likely to be successful and sustainable. It needs to overcome our intrinsic tendency to seek comfort and the restrictive thought structure. This is also why political discourse that is more oriented towards summarising a problem is more popular than discourse that aims to find solutions.
In emotional policymaking, our thought infrastructure is used to achieve policy goals through this passivity. Instead of creating a proactive agenda, public discourse is shaped in a way that evokes feelings that comfort the broader public, not to do the opposite of the desired outcome. For example, instead of supporting a discourse to spend more to expand the economy, public discourse is shaped around the value-loss argument of inflation. By evoking the feeling that inflation (an ongoing change in the rate of purchasing power) is bad, the broader public reacts with consumption (a known behaviour) to reduce risk. Through the framing of what not to do to avoid an uncertain outcome, like saving/investing capital to gain more means (here, the future use of capital is unclear), the public naturally adopts a familiar behavioural pattern (avoiding change) that promises a certain outcome (consumption provides an instantaneous and tangible outcome). Here, emotions are used to influence the thought structure but can also be used as a tool to amplify the outcome. In framing inflation in a very negative way, fear can be used to stress how important it is to adopt the behaviour desired by the non-devletist politicians.
This leads to another very important aspect of emotional policymaking: negative emotions. Due to the passive way of thinking, which most likely is an evolutionary trait shielding us from dangers, our brain reacts more actively to negative emotions. Anger, fear, sadness and pain are indicators of present or future harm, which we either want to correct or avoid. Accordingly, negative emotions are much more influential on our behaviour and perception. It might be a quite known situation to many to feel an urgent need for action when one is in a state of strong negative emotions. Non-devletist politicians use this to achieve their goals. Wars are fought more effectively by spurring popular fear and anger. Suffering, pain and sadness make the public, but also states, more accepting of great decisions. The Second World War paved the way for wide-ranging legal changes and the establishment of the United Nations. Whereas those very far-reaching decisions would not have been possible in a more neutral global context, the negative emotions made those changes possible. But there is also a dimension to emotional policymaking that aims at preventing action. In the public discourse, negative emotions can also be used to shield undesirable policy actions. Most recently, we can, once again, see that the territorial conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has led to a global uproar. Israel has an interest in continuing military action and is also very influential in the global media landscape. Instead of focusing on legitimising the intervention, which is nonetheless part of the media strategy, the negative emotions invoked through the war are used to trigger this inherent urge to immediately react to negativity. By providing venues to express anger with the intervention, like social media, this reactionary urge is immediately satisfied. Proactive behaviour that would constructively support oppositions cannot flourish because the emotional foundation for this behaviour is less fertile – it has been used as the initial reaction caused by the immediate urge to do something. This is also why reporting on this conflict is more emotional compared to other conflicts. Here, the child casualties and the targeting of civil institutions like hospitals and schools are always incredibly stressed. Another example is the handling of the publication of the guest list of a high-profile human trafficker. While very influential politicians and businesspeople were on the list, who most likely were customers of the human trafficker, popular discourse focused mostly on the involvement of a famous disabled physicist. Here too, the broader public receives the opportunity to immediately react to the outrageous news. By doing that, the psychological need to further engage with the matter is lessened.
The use of indirect emotional policymaking, thus, is a powerful tool to further interest, regardless of the nature of the goal. Since we are irreflective on some core properties of our thinking, those structures can be exploited to exert influence over us. Summarising, we tend to reject change, avoid uncertainty and focus on negativity more. Through various rhetorical strategies, some of which have been discussed here, our behaviour can be reliably steered. It is, therefore, very important to reflect our feelings in the light of these three core properties of our thinking. Reflecting includes asking ourselves what change public political discourse wants to achieve or to avoid. Also, it is important to identify whether the certainty of changes and policy actions is really portrayed or whether it can be assessed differently. Moreover, it remains paramount to always counterweigh negative news with a more positive perception of the subject matter – even if it would constitute the exact opposite of our own personal preferences. Finally, and this is a universally relevant question to always bear in mind, we must always be fully conscious about our personal preferences and whether they are truly our original preferences or outcomes of external influence.
