Emotions and Discourses: Towards New Paths of Studying Policies

Abstract

While emotions have become an object of study for many social science approaches, this panel restrains emotions to their heuristic potential for studying of policies. Against the background of the argumentative turn – that has highlighted the study of policies through discourses – we are interested in which way emotions interact with discourses or are part of them. Emotions enter policy-making in formulation and implementation stages and they are often said to destabilise the normative and institutional patterns, conceived as “traditional”. For that reason, we argue that understanding how, when and why emotions matter is vital to thinking about issues related to the dynamics of political processes. Manifold approaches recalling Foucault, Poststructuralism or Critical Theory have emphasised that power is organised through the negotiation of practices and that these negotiations have a discursive nature. These approaches have further suggested that one should study discourses through the interactions among policy actors. This has given rise to the interpretive turn in political science. At the same time, the ideas of subjectivity and multiplicity have supported the investigation into how the development of discourses is affected by individual values and beliefs. In this panel, we want to give these debates a different spin and aim at investigating the role of emotions. We welcome papers dealing with the duality of emotions and discourse. We especially invite scholars from policy analysis and political theory willing to discuss the bringing-in of emotions to submit their paper. Papers can discuss the aforementioned concepts of “discourse”, “emotions”, “argumentation”, or they can present empirical research based on these concepts within specific policy field (such as environmental or social policies, gender policies, and the like). We also welcome papers that bridge the gap between sociopsychological approaches and policy analysis.

Title	Details
Emotional Nationalists in Europe and the Revealing Power of Identity	View Paper Details
Understanding the Power of Ideas - Discursive Institutionalism, Critical Realism and Governmentality	View Paper Details
I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: Emotions and the Aesthetics of Silence in Public Policy Making	View Paper Details
Patriotism - Theoretical Concept or Political Weapon?	View Paper Details