Symposium: Affect and emotions in policy dynamics
2023; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 56; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1007/s11077-023-09512-7
ISSN1573-0891
Autores Tópico(s)Social and Cultural Dynamics
ResumoThis symposium tackles pressing and intellectually challenging questions bringing research on affect and emotions in the examination of policy dynamics.What does it mean to have affective processes intertwined in policymaking processes?How do affective processes increase or decrease policy value, or shape chances to pursue particular policy opportunities, and to achieve policy success or failure?Where do policy-relevant emotions come from?How do we measure them?How do we utilize and manage them?What happens when we misunderstand or ignore them?Over the last decade, acquiring answers to these questions has become increasingly important for policy scholars and practitioners seeking to understand the role of affect as a mental process parallel to cognition (Lodge & Taber, 2013), and the function and impact of specific emotions such as anger, fear, enthusiasm, anxiety, hope, confidence and trust in policy contexts (i.e., spaces where policy solutions are designed to solve policy problems involving target populations, and where problems and solutions are subject to different dynamics) (Albertson & Gadarian, 2015;Capelos et al., 2016;Pierce, 2021).Many decisions undertaken in times of crises, during emergencies, or in regular, placid contexts involve understanding, delivering, interpreting, and managing emotional content generated and accessed by policymakers and takers.This is because our thinking and our feeling are intertwined (Capelos, 2011(Capelos, , 2013;;Lodge & Taber, 2013;Frijda, 1986) and "many people rely on their emotions as the most readily accessible, accurate, and immediate source of truth precisely because analysis of abstract knowledge requires so much additional effort" (McDermott, 2019, p. 219; see also Robinson & Clore, 2002;Schwarz et al., 2016).Indeed, "many psychological scientists now assume that emotions are, for better or worse, the dominant driver of most meaningful decisions in life" (Lerner et al., 2015 801).Emotions matter for the determination of policy preferences in the wake of crises and wars, how citizens consume political news, which policies they support, who they trust, how they perceive risk and their ability to separate facts from artificial stories (Albertson & Gadarian, 2015;Feldman et al. 2015;Huddy et al., 2002;McDermott, 2019;Slovic et al., 2004).The prevalence of "fake news" -"false or misleading content intentionally dressed up to look like news articles, often for the purpose of generating ad revenue" (Guess et al., 2019) opens a space for policy and emotional entrepreneurs (Maor & Gross 2015;Cairney, 2018) to manipulate public sentiments.The recent recognition of the role of affect and emotion in policy sciences should not divert attention from the fact that the blossoming of research in emotions has begun in the early 1990s and since then has been recognized as essential aspect of the study of individuals, groups and collectives, and their interactions in psychology and political psychology domains (Marcus & MacKuen, 2001).Furthermore, since the early 2000s, the value of studying emotions -as they interact with the other two mental functions of cognition and conation, as well as with personality, group dynamics, and societal structures and factors -has become obvious for all.Indeed, scholar In our work we have examined emotions in the context of the global financial crisis, the challenges of EU integration, terrorism, international conflict, political radicalization and political communication practices, and recent global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (
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