Doris Wydra & Helga Pülzl (University of Salzburg)

"Tomorrow you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election; that puts reason against reason, and city against town, Republican against Democrat; that asks us to fear at a time when we need to hope". - "The current political, economic and social crisis is the sad finish of the orange governmental work. Their lies, disposition to engage in venture and corruption have set our country back for years".

 These are statements from two presidential candidates, the first by Barack Obama during his electoral campaign in 2008, the second by Victor Yanukovych, running for the Ukrainian presidency in 2010. Each of these campaigns was situated in a very special emotional setting, and although both mobilized hope and fear, they did so in a very different way: we argue that this special mixture of emotions, the different "emotional work" of the main proponents and the embeddedness of these emotions in a narrative on "necessary change" constructed an electoral background that was decisive for the outcome. We ask the question how the political actors employ emotions and when, thus seeing emotions as part of the repertoire of rhetoric, as a form of rhetorical practice that takes effect in the world (Fischer, Miller, Sidney 2007; 240). The emphasis on hope allowed a decision for Obama, while the emphasis on fear and disappointment led to a decision against Jushchenko. By choosing the American and Ukrainian cases for our analysis we not only want to highlight the differences of the emotional setting between these two electoral campaigns (where one could argue that Obama was building hope and Janukovych relied on fear) but also the role of emotions as such in electoral campaigns, how an "emotional understanding of issues" is constructed and how emotions feed into stories, political necessities and economic developments. As Fischer (2009; 171) argues, people understand their environment through the social meanings they assign to the elements that constitute it and these meanings are basic to the mobilizations of support for political action and the political language is used to construct and reconstruct the world. But these different meanings are coupled with emotions and political language touches upon these emotions and mobilizes them. The acceptability of a policy argument does not only depend on how it succeeds to rationalize a situation to its intended audience but also in how effectively it triggers the emotions. Policy and with this regard electoral campaigns, is not only a struggle over ideas and meanings (Stone 2002), but also a struggle over emotions.

Manisha Sinha (MCT, India)

In a functional democracy, there are many different actors exerting influence on a policy. There are also instances when a policy has to achieve one of two opposing, equally valid values. One such instance is the debate on development versus environment, between a certain loss of a way of life for some and probable future gain in quality of life for others. In such a situation how does policy get formed? Is it a result of the numbers involved, of established power dynamics, of pressure brought to bear by any one constituent? Or do emotions play a role in determining and maintaining a course and if so, whose emotions? Using the drowning of Manibeli village as part of the Narmada Dam Project in Gujarat, India, this paper examines the significance of emotions in situations where policy makers have to prioritise and choose between two subjective value based outcomes.

The Narmada Dam Project has remained one of the most controversial big dam projects throwing up concerns and questions around rights of ownership of land and resources, rehabilitation and the facts and ethics of dam building in general. The multiplicity of actors include the dispossessed, dam beneficiaries, environment and human rights activists, the media, three different state governments, the national government of India and various international donor countries and organisations. In the face of so many disparate interests, intense national and international social, political and financial pressure, the policy towards building the dam and flooding inhabited villages like Manibeli, remained consistent over some two decades and several political changes.

When policy choices impact multiple lives so directly, it is important to understand how a policy gets formed and maintains support. Stakeholders put both facts and values forward in support of their varied positions, but acceptance of these is often subjective. Yet for a policy line to be clearly and consistently followed over a long term period, there needs to exist an emotional identification with that policy line. An understanding of how such an emotional identification is created and sustained, can perhaps help to simulate possible policy outcomes in situations where similar emotional triggers are present or can be feasibly introduced.

Since emotions need not be directly or honestly expressed in policy situations, the question of identification and measurement of emotions underlying policy positions is troublesome. In this paper, existing psychology based models of basic emotions and their associated strategies and effects are used to help analyse documents, speeches and writings of key policy actors to arrive at possible underlying emotional states of those involved. This is then examined to see whether it remains consistent over time and people and also what type of policy events stimulated such responses. Based on this analysis, the paper examines the importance of emotions in choosing between different policy value - outcomes which significantly and differentially impact the lives of those affected.

Name: Manisha Sinha

Institutional Affiliation: Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Govt. of India

Email: rkvedic14@yahoo.com

Guillaumette Haughton (University of Sheffield)

Many of the non-professional relationships that stakeholders have to sites can be understood as relationships to a 'place' (rather than a 'space' or an 'environment' (Devine-Wright, 2009:427)).  The assumptions and expectations that stakeholders have of these places are informed by the ways in which they have experience of the place, through both personal and collective social memory, which forms the basis for local knowledge of a site. Change to a site (or place disruption (Devine-Wright, 2009:428)) changes the relationship that stakeholders have to that place, and generates an emotional response. Whilst the policy processes that result in change to a site struggle to explicitly acknowledge the significance of such emotional responses from non-professional stakeholders, these emotive place-based discourses appear to be employed in practice in consultative processes by professional and non-professional stakeholders.  The policy processes offer much greater legitimacy to evidence-based expert knowledge, and fail to acknowledge the role that emotions play, despite their existence within the process. This suggests that a different understanding of the workings of policy processes is needed, incorporating the component of "pathos", as put forward by Fischer (2009:275). Urban river corridors are an interesting setting in which to consider these issues, because of the breadth of stakeholder groups and the complex notion of 'interests' in this setting, particularly with regard to issues of scale. This paper will draw on findings from case studies exploring the decision-making processes that resulted in change to two river corridor sites that are part of the Don catchment in South Yorkshire. By using interviews to explore the experiences and emotions of both professional and non-professional stakeholders, the research shows that whilst the processes make no formal recognition of emotions, they play a significant role in the way that expertise is mobilised within the process to influence outcomes.

Guillaumette Haughton (g.haughton@sheffield.ac.uk)

PhD Student, Department of Town and Regional Planning and URSULA Project

University of Sheffield

Jasper Eshuis (University Rotterdam)

Branding is a strategy that is increasingly used by governments to gain support from multiple actors and tempt them to engage and invest in the development and implementation of policies. Branding is a form of governance which is not aimed particularly at managing perceptions through the rational, but through the emotional and psychological. This paper explores the application of branding in governance processes and how it is related to participation of citizens and the inclusion of their emotions.

The paper theoretically distinguishes two approaches to branding and connects these to different levels of participation. On basis of branding theory, the paper argues that theoretically, branding can be a strategy to connect citizens with places and plans by drawing upon the emotional and psychological.

We empirically research how branding was applied in two communities in the Netherlands. The cases show how branding brought feelings and emotions into the governance process. The cases show large differences when it comes to participation of citizens. Branding can be used as a participatory strategy, but it can also be employed in less participatory ways.

Dr. J. (Jasper) Eshuis, Ph.D.

Senior Research Fellow 

Erasmus University Rotterdam, Public Administration

P.O. Box 1738

3000 DR Rotterdam

The Netherlands

Eshuis@fsw.eur.nl