Brexit and the Everyday Politics of Emotion: Methodological Lessons from History

Jonathan Moss,Emily Robinson,Jake Watts

doi:10.1177/0032321720911915

Jonathan Moss, Emily Robinson + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720911915

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Abstract

The 2016 European Union referendum campaign has been depicted as a battle between ‘heads’ and ‘hearts’, reason and emotion. Voters’ propensity to trust their feelings over expert knowledge has sparked debate about the future of democratic politics in what is increasingly believed to be an ‘age of emotion’. In this article, we argue that we can learn from the ways that historians have approached the study of emotions and everyday politics to help us make sense of this present moment. Drawing on William Reddy’s concept of ‘emotional regimes’, we analyse the position of emotion in qualitative, ‘everyday narratives’ about the 2016 European Union referendum. Using new evidence from the Mass Observation Archive, we argue that while reason and emotion are inextricable facets of political decision-making, citizens themselves understand the two processes as distinct and competing.

Highlights

Politics seems to be becoming increasingly emotional
We argue that we can learn from the ways that historians have approached the study of both emotions and everyday politics
We have aimed to develop a better understanding of how citizens perceive the role of emotions in political decision-making by adopting an historical approach that analyses the position of emotion in qualitative, ‘everyday narratives’ during the specific context of the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum

Summary

Introduction

Politics seems to be becoming increasingly emotional. In a context of 24-hour news cycles and social media, we are told that instant reaction takes precedence over considered judgement (Davies, 2018). Most studies of emotion rely on either large scale public opinion surveys to aggregate and explain the relationship between feelings and individual attitudes (e.g. Miller, 2011), or survey experiments to observe their impact on micro-level political behaviour (e.g. Huddy et al, 2015). We use new evidence from the Mass Observation (MO) Project to examine the complex ways in which emotions featured in citizens’ reflections on the Brexit debate and on their own decision-making processes.

Results

Conclusion