Emotions, Democracy, and Learning -

Democracy beyond reason: how affect shapes political life

Project DEMOCRAT has entered a phase of reflection on the results of its research and innovation activities. In the course of the development of the outline of the European Curriculum for Democratic Education, the significance of emotions in the learning process was already identified and subsequently validated by pilot schemes.

The significance of emotions in the context of learning has been a subject of considerable debate within the educational field. This is analogous to the discourse surrounding the significance of emotions in democratic processes. This challenges the argument that democracy is an enlightenment project based exclusively on reason guided by a communication rationality exchanging arguments. In light of past experiences (for instance two World Wars or fascist regimes ruling countries) political emotions have been and are considered dangerous because they block reason-based reflection processes, hinder possible social consensus and drive social polarisation.

Conversely, it is widely acknowledged that political and civil society participation processes have an emotional component. The decision to join a political party, social movement or civil society organisation, such as the Red Cross, Caritas, Greenpeace or Fridays for Future, is rarely based purely on rational grounds. Furthermore, voters are not obligated to provide a rationale for their voting decisions. This principle is equally applicable to parliamentary procedures, wherein members of parliaments are not obligated to provide justification for their decisions, particularly in the context of secret ballots. Furthermore, election campaigns invariably appeal to voters’ emotions.

The emergence of right-wing populist parties in Europe, in conjunction with the election of Donald Trump as US President, which is characterised by emotionally charged rhetoric, serve to underscore the pivotal role that emotions play in political processes. Nevertheless, this phenomenon is not unprecedented in the annals of democratic history. Also, research on internet traffic similarly demonstrates that emotional and moral information – whether true or false – spreads more rapidly than other types of information (Bardy et al 2020)[1].

Non-rational elements play an important role in democratic deliberation. Body language and attire play an important role in face-to-face deliberation and televised political debates. In online communication, emotional-moral information plays an important role.

AECED and Critical Change Lab, two sister projects of DEMOCRAT, highlight the relevance of non-verbal communication for democratic processes and democratic education. The former examines the importance of embodied learning for democratic education, while the latter focuses on the artistic side of things. Several pilot projects carried out within DEMOCRAT also focused on artistic aspects in the form of theatre as a means of learning about democracy.

Health research clearly shows that suppressing emotions can lead to psychological and physical damage, but cases of domestic violence demonstrate the serious consequences of a lack of emotional control. It can be assumed that suppressing emotions, as well as a lack of emotional control, affects democratic processes.

This calls into question the idea of a democracy based exclusively on rationality. Lies & Slaby (2023)[2] point out that this has been discussed from neo-Republican (see Quentin Skinner, Cass Sunstein, Philip Pettit and Rainer Forst), radical democratic (Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe and Jacques Rancière), liberal and liberal deliberative perspectives (Amy Gutmann, Dennis Thompson, Sharon Krause, Michael Morrell and Martha Nussbaum). In this sense, the DEMOCRAT project’s reflection process aims to incorporate these debates about emotions into its vision of democratic education.

[1] Brady W.J.; Crockett M.J. & Van Bavel JJ (2020) The MAD model of moral contagion: the role of motivation, attention, and design in the spread of moralized content online. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2020, 15:978–1010, https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1745691620917336.

[2] Liese, P. & Slaby, J. (2023) Emotionen der Demokratie – Ein unerschlossenes Potential in krisenhaften Zeiten. Philosophische Rundschau (PhR) 70/4: 382-406. DOI 10.1628/phr-2023-0034.