Recognizing the Emotion Work in Deliberation. Why Emotions Do Not Make Deliberative Democracy More Democratic

Abstract

Critics of deliberative democracy theory have argued that deliberation should be supplemented with forms of emotional expression to eliminate the inequalities of gender, race, and class which are reproduced in deliberations that privilege rational discussion. This article presents results from a qualitative empirical study on emotion work in deliberations. Emotional expression requires emotion work on the part of the participants. The capacity for such emotion work appears to depend on the individual participant's emotional capital. The results show that, given the participants' varying levels of emotional capital, an emphasis on emotion work tends to reproduce inequalities, rather than to eliminate them.