Research Julie Sevenans

Abstract

TEMPER sheds new light on the representative behavior of individual politicians by addressing an overlooked driver of that behavior: their emotions. What makes politicians decide to be responsive to public opinion signals at some occasions, but not at others? And how do politicians go about communicating their viewpoints, sometimes using very emotional or uncivil language, and at other times not? Whereas extant research has been preoccupied with studying the cognitive, strategic reasons that politicians may have to act so or-so, TEMPER focuses on the emotional explanations of their behavior. It sketches a portrait of politicians who are, above everything, human. Doing so, TEMPER bridges the gap between theories of elite behavior and theories of the political behavior of citizens, which have—relying on insights from psychology—taken an 'emotional turn' decades ago. As emotions arise in response to concrete situations of signals, TEMPER pays attention to the situations or signals that provoke politicians to communicate and act. Its objectives are to explain (1) how characteristics of situations or signals elicit emotions in politicians, (2) how these emotions influence their subsequent representative behavior, and (3) how the resulting 'emotional explanation' of behavior maps onto existing (mostly cognitive) explanations of behavior. TEMPER studies the emotions of politicians directly, in a series of (1) survey-experiments with politicians; (2) interviews with politicians; and (3) direct observations of actual media debates and party meetings. It combines self-reported measures of emotion with psychophysiological measures of affect, which are less susceptible to rationalization and social desirability. The findings of TEMPER will reveal how patterns that we currently interpret as strategic behaviors may, in fact, be grounded in emotional mechanisms.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Sevenans Julie

Research team(s)

• Media, Movements and Politics (M2P)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Research has shown that the political behavior of citizens is less rational, and more emotional, than originally assumed. The subfield of political science studying the behavior of elected politicians has, by contrast, largely ignored the role of emotions. This is surprising, because politicians are people too, and human emotions cannot simply be switched off. Therefore, our project focuses on emotions as a neglected driver of politicians' communicative behavior and, more specifically, of the extent to which they use negativity, incivility, and emotional appeals in their rhetoric. We investigate how situations that provoke a politician to communicate, elicit emotions (e.g. how the use of moral arguments in a debate can make a politician angry), and how these emotions subsequently influence the politician's communication (e.g. how the politician resorts to uncivil language), regardless of strategic reasons. We study this via survey-experiments and interviews with politicians, and via observations of actual political debates. To capture emotion, the project combines measures of self-reported, discrete emotions (such as survey questions tapping to what extent respondents 'feel angry') with unique physiological measures of affect among politicians (such as 'skin conductance' as an indicator of arousal). All in all, the project strives for a more comprehensive understanding of how politicians communicate by taking both cognitive and emotional processes into account.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Sevenans Julie
• Co-promoter: Walgrave Stefaan

Research team(s)

• Media, Movements and Politics (M2P)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

A key challenge facing representative democracies today is inequality in political representation. Research has shown that political decision-making is less responsive to the preferences of poorer, lower-educated and female citizens than to those of the rich, the higher-educated and of men. This project builds on these alarming findings and makes two contributions. First, it breaks new ground by empirically accounting for the different ways in which "good representation" can come about. Politicians may represent citizens well by listening to what they want (their 'a priori' preferences), or by taking unpopular decisions in citizens' best interests and then explaining these decisions well (aiming for 'a posteriori' approval). This project considers both, as a more full-fledged test of unequal representation. Second, the project sheds light on the mechanisms that cause unequal representation. Inequalities may arise when politicians lack information about what disadvantaged groups want (citizens are poorly understood) or when they lack the motivation to be responsive (groups are deliberately disregarded). These mechanisms will be disentangled here by directly studying these cognitive processes. Concretely, the project combines (1) an analysis of public opinion and policy with (2) a large-scale public opinion survey on 'a posteriori' policy approval and (3) a survey, experiment and interview with politicians. The results will help to fight inequality more effectively.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Walgrave Stefaan
• Fellow: Sevenans Julie

Research team(s)

• Media, Movements and Politics (M2P)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

For a democracy to function well—it is often argued—representatives must listen to the people who elected them. More specifically, policy should represent citizens' preferences. A core task of political scientists is to examine whether this democratic assumption is met in reality. This project aims to contribute to the large body of scientific work on policy representation in three particular ways. First, it scrutinizes the causal effect of public opinion on political elites. A lot of research demonstrates that policy decisions and public opinion are associated. However, we lack strong evidence that this association results from elites' effort to act in a responsive way. Second, the project unravels the mechanisms underlying this representational process, which have largely remained unobserved. Extant research has theorized about why elites adapt their behavior—and even their own preferences—to public opinion, but these mechanisms have not been empirically tested. Finally, this project innovates methodologically. It uses survey-embedded experiments and in-depth interviews with political elites to study policy representation. Experiments guarantee researcher control, and are therefore well-suited to establish causality and tease out the mechanisms that drive the influence of public opinion on political elites. In-depth interviews help to interpret the findings and put them into context.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Walgrave Stefaan
• Fellow: Sevenans Julie

Research team(s)

• Media, Movements and Politics (M2P)

Project type(s)

• Research Project