Methodological Challenges in the Study of Emotions in Politics and How to Deal With Them

Abstract

This introductory article to the special issue zooms in on the literature on political emotions with a specific focus on methodological questions of "how to study" political emotions. To the extent that methodological matters are addressed in the extant literature, the associated challenges are often portrayed as a clash between social science and natural science disciplines, a clash frequently illustrated by the meeting between political science and neuroscience. Rather than being a clash between academic disciplines, this article argues that many of the methodological challenges facing emotional research have their origin in scholars' diverse views on the relationship between themselves as researchers and political emotions as a research object. In the light of this acknowledgment, the article encircles and discusses the methodological challenges associated with three key conceptual distinctions between: (1) individual and collective emotions, (2) emotions and reason, and between (3) involuntary political emotions and the strategic usage of political emotions. Using the contributions to this special issue as illustrations, the article argues in favor of moving beyond mutually exclusive dichotomies regarding these conceptual distinctions and offers pathways for dealing with current methodological challenges to emotional research. It points to methodological pluralism, transparency, and context-sensitive research strategies.KEY WORDS: methodology, individual and collective emotions, emotions and reason, involuntary and strategic emotions bs_bs_banner

Stressed Out: The Missing Influence of Stress Arousal in Emotion's Role in Political Decision‐Making

“…Stress arousal and emotions may tamper with leaders' deliberate cognitive decision‐making—depending on whether their current arousal extends beyond the current width of their window. The window of tolerance helps us to better delineate when emotions might be driving behavior involuntarily, versus when emotions are being used strategically for political purposes (Lynggaard, 2019). As such, our theory builds on the existing general emotion theories to refine when and how they may be shaping decisions.…”

Lonely Hearts, Empty Booths? The Relationship between Loneliness, Reported Voting Behavior and Voting as Civic Duty

“…To review the manifold proposed mechanisms is beyond the scope of this paper. Briefly summarized, the body of research ranges from socioeconomic variables, such as income and education, to partisanship, social class, social capital, a variety of emotions, the electoral system, and even more exotic explanations such as rainfall and genetic variation (Harder and Krosnick, 2008;Lynggaard, 2019;Smets and Van Ham, 2013). Considering that the idea that social relationships exert influence on political attitudes and electoral participation is not new, it is important to clarify how loneliness is defined and how loneliness differs from other related predictors for political attitudes and behavior.…”

Studying Emotions in Security and Diplomacy: Where We Are Now and Challenges Ahead

“…Recognizing that the study of emotions in security and diplomacy is a rather challenging affair, the first introductory contribution to the special issue framed methodological considerations that add complexity to our understanding of the role and psychological effects of emotions in international politics. Kennet Lynggaard () in our special issue's introduction focused on methodology as relating to “the principles and procedures guiding research designs and on the research techniques used for specific research purposes.” In his contribution, Lynggaard highlighted the logic of how we go about conducting emotional research—including ontological and epistemological questions—and the foundations of our conceptual choices. He claimed that, while choices of methods may follow from a particular methodological position, our choice of methods are not determined by such positions.…”

“…At the same time, emotions offer a way of cracking this seemingly insurmountable challenge. On the one hand, while emotions in IR, diplomacy, and security studies are mainly studied as collective phenomena, they also carry the potential for enhancing individual agency and changing the way security and diplomacy are practiced in myriad ways, in line with the continuum Lynggaard () produced in the Introduction (see van Hoef & O'Connor, ; Keys & Yorke, ). The ways in which individuals feel and enact their emotions cannot be separated from the social, cultural, and institutional settings in which these same individuals operate.…”

“…But this is a typology, a set of continuums and therefore serves as an ideal model—in reality, any study of emotions in politics finds itself somewhere in between. This is precisely why in this special issue we understand emotions as sociopsychological and hence why Lynggaard's introduction () of the role of neuroscience in our understanding of the work of emotions in security and diplomacy is so pertinent. If enacting emotions are embodied performances (Solomon, ), a neuroscientific insight can potentially deepen our understanding of the workings of bodies in feeling, expressing, resisting, and communicating emotions.…”