How to answer ‘citizen emotions’?

In a new paper, The Role of Citizen Emotions in Constitutional Backsliding – Mapping Out Frontiers of New Research, Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz and Logan Strother look at a key feature of the populist dynamic – tapping into the emotions of citizens, as distinct from the role that emotions are accorded in liberal democracy as we presently know it.

Their overview of how certain emotions are mobilised by populists – such as in demonising “the other” – again shows the dangers to democracy of responding in kind, which may well reinforce (even contribute to) such negativity, but, importantly, the present paucity of tools that are effective in answering it any otherwise.

The paper is available from Verfassungsblog: on matters constitutional