A feeling for democracy? Rhetoric, power and the emotions

Abstract

Emotions are an inescapable yet persistently troubling presence in democratic life. Typically, this emerges in relation to controversies over rhetoric, especially anxieties over the potential of speech to mobilise irrational and antidemocratic sentiments. Such is the view of ‘deliberative democrats’ who denounce rhetoric as emotional manipulation, subverting the neutral space of rational dialogue. However, research inspired by neuroscience and psychoanalysis suggests reason and emotion are inseparable and cognitive judgement is intrinsically receptive to affective techniques of persuasion. A rhetorically inclined democracy, I argue, acknowledges the political role of emotions in securing public attention and allegiance, and negotiating power relations strategically.

Keywords:

• emotions
• rhetoric
• democracy
• psychoanalysis
• neuroscience

Acknowledgements

A revised version of this article can be found in Chapter 7 of my Politics and Rhetoric: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge, 2014). I am grateful to Saul Newman and to the journal’s referees for their comments on earlier versions of the article.