{"id":1006187,"date":"2021-12-30T12:53:45","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T12:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unpop.ces.uc.pt\/?p=1006187"},"modified":"2022-12-22T20:23:49","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T20:23:49","slug":"emotions-populism-and-the-digital-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unpop.ces.uc.pt\/en\/emotions-populism-and-the-digital-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotions, populism, and the digital space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Paolo Cossarini
\n<\/strong><\/strong>2021-12-30<\/em><\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u00abPolitics is about feelings\u00bb, writes David Redlawsk<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in the incipit of his edited book\u00a0Feeling politics<\/em>. To see somebody angry with the government rescuing financial institutions, someone fearful that his or her party will lose an election or, again, fearful of some alleged external enemy who would increase criminality, is to see people fill the political world with meaning.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Shot by Melanie Hoefler – Barefoot Communications M\u00fcnchen<\/sub><\/em><\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The questions come naturally: What are (if any) the feelings of populism? In what terms can we talk about \u201cfeeling populism\u201d? Certainly, the scientific literature has primarily focused on the ideological, structural, discursive, and organizational aspects of populist parties. However it has to be acknowledged that the affective dimension is not new in the studies of populism. Proof of that, a direct connection between populism and an emotional appeal was established since the seminal work on populism edited by Ghi\u021ba Ionescu and Ernest Gellner in 1969. In his contribution to that volume, Kenneth Minogue stated: \u201cto understand the (populist) movement is to discover the feelings that move people\u201d.<\/p>\n

What is more, in recent literature it is not infrequent to find perspectives that argue that populism\u00a0is based more on emotional dynamics than on rational considerations<\/u><\/a>. Needless to say, it is not a question of giving emotions a primacy in political affairs, but rather of highlighting their relationship with human rationality, as well as their role in (the study of) populism. In this sense, the relationship between populism and the emotional dimension is particularly relevant, all the more that some leading scholars \u2013 think of Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Yannis Stavrakakis to name just a few examples \u2013 point to the essential link between this form of doing politics and the emotional dimension. Laclau considers, for instance, that the\u00a0\u201cpeople\u201d is shaped through an operation that belongs to the emotional realm<\/u><\/a>. Besides that, also in the public debate it is common to connect the term populism to the widespread role of emotions: populism is often considered as an emotional discourse, driven by both verbal and non-verbal language, in which affect play a key role in the populist relationship between the leader and the citizens. In Laclauian terms, the shaping of the two social blocs, \u201cthe people\u201d and \u201cthe elite\u201d, is carried out through an investment of, respectively, positive and negative emotions.<\/p>\n

So far so good. But, what emotions? Are there specific emotions connected to populism? Farmers\u2019 and the lower middle class\u2019s antipathy towards power elites in the XIX century has been acknowledged as a cause of the emergence of populism in\u00a0North and Latin America<\/u><\/a>. Similarly, the frustration produced by neoliberal policies over the last few decades is said to foster populist sentiment in Europe. Empirical research too has focused on a variegated set of emotions considered to be predictors of populist attitudes. In addition to structural factors, emotional dispositions have been included into the set of variables to take into account for the understanding of populism:\u00a0\u201cangry citizens seem to be more receptive to populist discourse\u201d write Guillem Rico, Marc Guinjoan, Eva Anduiza<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Similarly, nostalgia has been defined as a major driver of populism. By defining populism as an illiberal reactionary ideology,\u00a0Hans-Georg Betz and Carol Johnson<\/u><\/a>\u00a0argue that right-wing populism reflects a deep sense of nostalgia for the old days, being especially linked to nationalist attitudes. Understood in these terms, nostalgia has been framed as a\u00a0\u201crestorative\u201d emotion<\/u><\/a>, yearning for a lost past. And yet nostalgia can also be associated with left-wing populism, as it goes hand in hand with anti-establishment politics that target post-democratic and technocratic forces. Understood in this fashion, nostalgia is conceived as a\u00a0\u201cradical\u201d<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0\u201creflexive\u201d<\/u><\/a>\u00a0dynamic.<\/p>\n

Still, anger, nostalgia, frustration, along with a myriad of other emotions, may obviously have different targets: the political, economic, and intellectual elites, but they can be also targeted towards immigrants and foreigners: the subjects blamed for contemporary problems vary depending on individual situations and collective tendencies, and depending on the geographical and temporal contexts.<\/p>\n

What also matters is the way in which emotions are channelled. Here is where the digital space comes into play. And populism too, just like any other aspect of current political life, operates through the digital space. Populism has even been characterised as an\u00a0issue entirely analysable within the field of political communication<\/u><\/a>. Given the centrality of digital technologies and social media for current political communication, it is worth asking about the relationship between social networks, populism, and emotions. How do social media change political communication? Is deliberation reinforced or weakened in the digital public space? How is populism articulated in the digital space? How do emotions work in it?<\/p>\n

These seem important questions, which have been the focus of an important bulk of research in recent years. While different are the\u00a0diagnosis<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0prognosis<\/em>\u00a0within the scientific literature, the impact of new technologies on political communication – and politics at large – is indeed considered as a game-changer by almost all analysts.<\/p>\n

The digital space keeps an\u00a0elective affinity<\/u><\/a>\u00a0with populism, insofar as this space favours the antagonistic logic of populism, and enables the deployment of affective dispositions: emotions, populism, and the digital space converge and shape together the current public sphere. Arguably, the digitalization of the public debate represents fertile ground for diffusion of all types of content, ideas, values, and of course emotions. Moreover, social media go hand in hand with a type of communication, which, quite intuitively, is built on immediacy, directness, affects and closeness. This to some extent debunks Rawls\u2019 and Habermas\u2019 idea of public reason. Rather, democratic politics \u2013 shaped by new technologies \u2013 is made of a mix of\u00a0ethos<\/em>,\u00a0pathos<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0logos<\/em>, as\u00a0Paparachissi<\/u><\/a>\u00a0has pointed out. It is undoubtedly true that social media make it possible for marginalized voices to be heard. However the initial enthusiasm for social network has quickly turned into the disenchanted recognition of the limits of the new technologies for the public debate.<\/p>\n

Indeed, while citizens are now protagonists in the creation of contents and opinions, in the digital debate what frequently prevails is the affective persuasion. Arguments are often made through stories, Twitter threads, photos, memes, personal experiences, and narratives with a marked emotional register. This triggers two phenomena. On the one hand, the creation of \u201caffective communities<\/u><\/a>\u201d, where the public debate is often driven by contagion more than argumentation \u2013 going\u00a0viral\u00a0<\/em>counts more than nuanced discussion. On the other hand, the formation of \u201cecho chambers<\/u><\/a>\u201d where citizens interact in bubbles with those who already think alike.<\/p>\n

If in the past not everything in politics could be attributed to the operation of reason, it\u2019s equally true that not everything now can be ascribed to the pull of emotion \u2013 they always go hand in hand. However, it is hard to claim that the digitalization of the public sphere has made the public debate more \u2018rational\u2019. Thus, the elective affinity with digital technologies makes it easier for (populist) political performance to become central compared to nuanced deliberation. Against this background, the \u2018bad manners\u2019 that\u00a0Benjamin Moffitt<\/u><\/a>\u00a0identifies as a stylistic essence of populist politicians acquire new centrality and foster the emotional dynamics in the division of the political realm into two opposing social blocs.<\/p>\n

All in all, stressing the link between emotions and the digital space is essential for all those who want to approach populist politics. The way their link develops and constitutes the public sphere \u2013 this is my hypothesis \u2013 determines the positive or negative relationship between populism and liberal democratic processes.<\/p>\n

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Paolo Cossarini<\/strong>\u00a0is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University (Denmark). He is co-editor of ‘Populism and Passions. Democratic Legitimacy after Austerity’ (2019), and ‘The Impact of Populism on the European Institutions and Civil Society. Discourses, Practices, and Policies’ (2021).<\/sup><\/p>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n

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