Shan Almizori (10634304, Shan.Almizori@student.uva.nl)
29-1-2018
Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Bachelor Thesis Project: Emotions and Beliefs in Policy-making (2017-2018) Supervisor: Rosa Sanchez Salgado
Second reader: Rob van Es
Word count: 8817/8000 (20% margin)
University of Amsterdam
The use of Collective Emotions in Political
Campaigning
An analysis of the top-down use of collective emotions with regard to Leave and
Remain of the Brexit campaign
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Table of contents
1. Preface
2.
2. Literature review
3.
2.1 From Individual to Collective emotions
3. Theoretical framework
7.
3.1 Collective emotions
3.2 Which emotions are expected to be on display during the campaign?
8.
3.3 Key cues and issue-ownership
9.
3.4 Top-down Mechanism of Collective emotions
10.
4. Methodology
12.
5. Case Analysis findings: Brexit Campaign
13.
5.1 Which emotions do prominent actors of both campaigns
display on the Brexit referendum?
5.2 To what extent do key cues and issue-ownership play a role in
15.
shaping collective emotions?
5.3 How are collective emotions being used in a top-down
17.
fashion via manipulation by prominent actors during the Brexit campaign?
6. Discussion and limitations
24.
7. References
25.
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1. Preface
The result of Britain’s referendum on leaving the European Union has been a shock and disruption to the Union. The referendum, that took place on 23 June 2016, was to measure support for the country to remain or leave the supranational organization. After the Leave campaigners won, the discussion on the discontinuity of the European Union ignited among politicians, scholars and the general public.
Consequently this attention led many to speculate on the future of the European Union. Thus, it being a relatively recent event, why Britain voted out is still heavily being discussed in political science.
A few prominent factors have been highlighted as to why the majority of Britain decided to leave the European Union. For a large number of people, its core reason was to ‘’take back control’’ (Cooper 2017) from the bureaucrats in Brussels whereas the EU’s immigration system is viewed as ‘’out of control’’ (ibid). The belief that Britain is losing its control as part of the EU seemed to soar within the Leavers campaign. On the opposite side, the Remain campaign held a campaign warning against an insecure future post-Brexit and the economic disadvantages that would come with it (ibid).
The Brexit campaign divided the political landscape of Britain in two, the Leave and Remain party. This division has had its impact on the campaign strategies of both parties. In this thesis I argue that the means to gather more support for the Brexit referendum for Leave and Remain has been focused on using collective emotions. It is suggested that anger,fear and pride were on display in the language of both sides (Cooper 2017). For example, the Leave campaign centered fear on the interfering powers of the EU with emphasis on the loss of sovereignty and control of immigration. Whereas the Remain campaign used scaremongering by emphasizing on an uncertain future without the European Union (Cooper 2017). In this thesis I argue that the two parties constructed their own narratives by using collective emotions and consequently language to pass these emotions in a top-down fashion to the general public to gauge support for their campaigns.
Thus, this research aims to analyze how collective emotions have been used by both parties and to what extent collective emotions had its impact on rallying support for their campaigns. The topic is supplementary to academic literature because it provides a new insight by looking at how emotions can play a significant role in creating collective beliefs. It is of importance to understand how collective emotions function in campaigning because it serves group cohesion which can turn into mobilization of supporters for a political cause. For this reason, a content analysis can provide a better understanding on how emotions influence politics by analyzing the emotions in the campaigns of the opponents and proponents of the Brexit referendum.
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2. Literature review
The vital role of affect in politics has been acknowledged by scholars, recent research has been busy with the integration of emotions into models of political behavior. According to Groenendyk, democracy today is presented with a collective action problem. He argues that emotions appear to be motivations for citizens to break out of ‘’their individual utility calculation’’ and engage in politics (Groenendyk 2011: 455). Emotions have long been perceived as harmful to democratic deliberation where they have been avoided being discussed all together (Groenendyk 2011: 455). However, we now find ourselves at a turning point, as the role of emotions in politics has grown in volume and sophistication in recent years (ibid). Emotions are why citizens get involved in politics because people feel compelled by emotion to do so. This however does not imply that emotions make an individual irrational, rather that emotions should become a factor to the equation (Groenendyk 2011: 456).
2.1 From Individual to Collective emotions
There is no consensus on the definition of emotions, some argue that emotions are subjective experiences which are intertwined by rationality (Mercer 2010: 2). Mercer argues that rationality depends on emotion, rather than being solely intellective. In contrast, others argue that emotions are reactions and are sensitive rather than intellective because they involve psychological changes (King 2012: 4). Viewing emotions as a natural desire rather than cognitive means that emotions have a way of ‘’moving’’ the body because they cause change in a person’s bodily state (ibid). King’s view claims that emotions come first. Partly in line with this view, Damasio argues that emotional outbreaks can lead to irrational decisions, however he claims that the selective absence of emotions can also become a problem in decision-making processes (1999: 11). In his view, which he shares with Mercer, emotions are a support system for reason to operate correctly. Thus, emotion and cognition are to be seen as intertwined rather than competing, meaning that emotions are a part of reasoning rather than obstructing the rational thought (Mercer 2010: 5, Damasio 1999: 10). Thus, the role of emotions in politics has changed over time, viewing political processes and behavior as solely rational seems to be something of the past.
Lowe and Parkinson describe emotions as a social activity. Emotions take place in social
contexts, operate on social inputs and serve various social functions (2014: 125). Emotions are used as a way of communication to clarify someone’s identity and how they feel about situations. Likewise, people read the emotion of others in order to decide appropriate behavior. Lowe and Parkinson argue that emotions have an important social function, which is to manage people’s relations with each other.
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Thus, emotions can align relations between people, including groups of people, and objects (Lowe and Parkinson 2014: 125). Consequently, social exchanges have emotional effects on individuals which can expand into collective emotions (Lawler et al 2014: 189). Bar-Tal et al (2007) argue that ‘’…collective
emotions play a central role in shaping individual and societal responses to events and contributes to the evolvement of a social context that maintains the emotional climate and collective emotional orientation that have developed’’ (2007: 441). To put it simple words, occurring events can play a central role in
creating a collective emotional climate that shapes individual and societal responses. The exact definition of collective emotions is contested, which means the definition is still being debated on. There is however one thing that the different explanations share, the common component is that collective emotions are shared in some sense and that members are aware of them (Lawler et al 2014:189). In addition to this, Bar-Tal et al define collective emotions as emotions that are shared by large numbers of people in a society, which are responses to collective or societal experiences.
Collective emotions function as strengthening cohesion and solidarity of group ties, which makes it more likely for actors to distinguish and value the group (ibid).
So how do individual emotions expand into collective emotions? One theory suggests that social
unit attributions of emotion mediate this process. The affect theory of social exchange defines a social
unit attribution as ‘’…the attributing of an internal state of self to a social entity’’ (Lawler et al 2014: 197), whereas a social entity (unit) can be a group or organization. Social unit attributions forge a connection between individually felt emotions and person-to-group affective ties. Thus, it refers to a process where individual emotions are associated with a social unit that strengthen perceptions of a valued group affiliation. Consequently, this strengthens assumptions that others are having the same feelings. A primary condition for this process to take place is a strong sense of shared responsibility. The emphasis is on the collective impact of individuals in shared responsibility. Shared responsibility is a collaboration between individuals who perform the same activity where the contribution of each is not separable. The stronger an individuals’ sense of shared responsibly is, the more likely they are to attribute their individual feelings to the collective and assume that others experience identical feelings. For example, a group leader can define or structure joint tasks in collective terms which can highlight collective responsibilities during a rally or speech. The activity can promote a sense of shared
responsibility because individual contributions are inseparable which means there is greater jointness. In contrast, tasks where individual contributions are separable should weaken the sense of shared
responsibility (ibid: 199). This results in strengthening people’s collective emotions with the collective which makes them more likely to act on these shared, collective emotions (Lawler et al 2014: 200). Thus,
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the repeated exchange, joint tasks and perceived group cohesion will only generate collective emotions if they also promote a sense of shared responsibility (ibid).
This brings us to the Brexit campaign. The main focus of analysis in previous research has been on the rise of populism and right-wing supporters regarding this subject (Gusterson 2017, Freeden 2016). This could be because the rise is not only restricted to Britain, across the European Union there’s an increase in right-wing sentiment. Podobnik et al (2016) argue that the 2015 migrant crisis in the EU affected the support for right-wing populism. They find that support for right-wing populism is higher in countries that accepted a larger number of immigrants relative to the country’s population size
(Podobnik et al 2016:2). Although they are not as victorious as right-wing populism is in Britain, concerns are still growing in reaction to this change. In a different social study, researchers have argued about the factors that shaped the individual votes of the Brexit referendum (Clarke et al 2017). Clarke et al
conclude that the economic and immigration focused benefit-cost evaluations have strongly influenced voters’ decisions. However, it is not discussed how these factors had a role in mobilizing supporters. This is also not discussed by Curtice (2017), whose research looked at the pre-circumstances in Britain that could have been undermining the European Union. He argues that Britain’s position as a member of the EU has always been potentially open to challenge (Curtice 2017: 34). One present condition is a low level of European identity amongst the majority of the British people (ibid: 21). On the question whether the British people feel European or British only, the Eurobarometer survey finds that since 1992 the
readings show a stable percentage between 55 and 70% identifying as British only. The last reading, in 2016, found that 62% identify as only British and only 31% identify themselves as British and European (ibid). Also, 46% agreed that the EU identity undermines Britain’s identity and 60% agreed that the EU undermines the powers of the UK parliament (ibid: 29). Nowhere else across the European Union do so few acknowledge the European identity. A second condition that could have had an effect on the undermining support for the EU is the high levels of immigration. Curtice argues that Britain has
experienced much higher levels of net inward migration since the late 1990s due to the less strictness of rules on inward migration, which was implemented by the Labour government in 1997 (2017: 22). Sometime after, a further increase took place when the countries who joined the EU in 2004 were granted full freedom rights. The expectation was that only a few eastern Europeans would have the intention to move to Britain. In addition to this, the 2010 Conservative government made little progress on their promise to reduce net inward migration to less than 100.000 a year (ibid). As for the final condition, Curtice argues that Britain suffered a bigger initial shock from the 2008 economic crisis than other countries in the EU, but also recovered relatively fast. However, this crisis made it difficult to
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characterize the EU with economic success (ibid: 24). In sum, the debate on identity, failing immigration policies and the economic considerations forged a sharp social division between the young
well-educated and the older, less well-well-educated voters (ibid: 34). These findings show that the referendum was not held in a beneficiary atmosphere for the Remain campaign.
Thus far, there’s little to no discussion on how emotions have played a role in acquiring support for either leaving or staying within the EU. For this reason, this thesis aims to analyze how top-down processes have played a significant role in using collective emotions. Arguing that the impact of collective emotions is to be considered in political campaigning. In the following section I will discuss collective emotions and the theories for the research and sub-questions are presented.
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3. Theoretical framework
3.1 Collective emotions
The turning point in acknowledging emotions in politics has paved a way for scholars to research emotions in the events we see daily, which is also a motivation for this thesis. As described earlier, collective emotions converge from individual emotions when certain conditions are met. Thus, it is of importance to understand how processes influence collectives into taking action. The claim of this thesis is that the opponents and proponents of Brexit used collective emotions in their campaigns to gauge support for their outcomes. This aligns with an argument that Groenendyk makes: ‘’while we may think
like individuals, we have evolved to feel like groups’’. Which adds further to the motivation of this thesis’
focus on collective emotions rather than individuals.
Groenendyk argues that group identity is among the strongest predictors for behavior (2011: 456). Thus, the expectation is that shared emotions, such as anger, fear and pride are being shared collectively across groups, political parties or movements, which can facilitate particular behaviors (ibid). As mentioned earlier, there is a common component on the definition of collective emotions. They are shared in some sense and members are aware of them (Lawler et al 2014:189). Bar-Tal et al define the reach of collective emotions as emotions that are shared by large numbers of people in a society, which are a response to collective or societal experiences. The fundamental basis for collective emotions is a common experience which can be broken into several components: a shared identity (group affiliation), a shared focus (attention to an event), collective action (shared emotion and perception of why those emotions occur) in response to such events, and finally, shared results (a collective outcome) (Lawler et al 2014: 201). The theory of collective emotions has an interesting idea on how emotions are passed down to the public and it could give a new insight of the strategies of both campaigns. Thus, obtained from this theory, the following research and sub-questions are formulated:
Research question: how are collective emotions being used during the United Kingdom’s debate
on the Brexit referendum?
To answer the research question, the analysis is divided in three sub-questions. The first sub-question: ‘’which emotions do prominent actors of both campaigns display on the Brexit referendum’’ is answered by analyzing anger, fear and pride in the data using Atlas.ti. The second sub-question: ‘’to what extent
do cues and issue-ownership play a role in using collective emotions’’ is analyzed by using the results
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question: ‘’how are collective emotions being used in a top-down fashion via manipulation by prominent
actors during the Brexit campaign’’ is analyzed via manipulation tactics. Manipulation is a mechanism
for top-down usage of collective emotions. Analyzing manipulation is done via three manipulation tactics: fear-mongering to analyze fear, blaming and shaming to analyze anger and boasting to analyze pride. The expectation is that anger, fear and pride are used during this campaign and that they were used as collective emotions by prominent actors of both campaigns. The sub-questions are elaborated in the following part.
3.2 Which emotions are expected to be on display during the campaign?
The focus on the emotions anger, fear and pride are partly due to the limitations of this thesis, in word count and time, which otherwise would not contribute to a more in depth analysis. However, the selection of these three seemed to fit with the themes that were popular during the campaigns. Although anger, fear and pride are by far not the only emotions shown during the campaign, the
expectation is that these are more on display than other emotions. A longitudinal research explored why Brexit happened by looking at the different constructions of the campaign themes and how consistent their messages were through the debates (Shaw et al 2017: 1031). For example, they found that fear was used by Leave to scare the public into leaving by claiming it would unlock the potential of the British people and Remain scared the public into staying by pointing to a damaged National Health Service (ibid: 1027). For anger, it was omnipresent, Brexit was a cry of anger and frustration by those who felt left behind by globalization. The nationalist and working class anger was directed at the European institutions (Avlijaš 2016: 1). For pride, Curtice (2017) argued that the circumstances were perfect. With so many Britons identifying as mainly British and not European it is expected that both sides played upon the predispositions of the public using their own narratives.
Also, the interest on these emotions is because they may promote distinct behavioral outcomes when we look at to what extent political leaders tend to employ these emotions. Anger seems to play a significant role between in-group and out-group processes. In a series of studies, Mackie et al (2000) conclude that individuals report more anger when they perceive their in-group as strong. As a result, this anger can lead to a willingness to act against out-groups (Groenendyk 2011: 456). In a different study, Mackuen et al (2010) also find that anger makes a person less willing to consider new information and increases commitment to predispositions. It also seems to increase the impact of racial resentment on policy attitudes and that perceived threat can trigger group based hatred which can lead to political intolerance (ibid). Anger is defined as aversion by Weber, ‘’aversion, including feelings of anger, disgust,
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measured anger with two indicators, angry and disgusted. He also measured fear with two indicators, afraid and fearful (ibid: 417). In his research participants were exposed to advertisement that included evocative elements such as threatening images and an ominous voiceover. The cues were absent in a second condition. The effects of anger on participation and discussion showed that anger heightens interest and involvement in political participation, thus, mobilizing people (ibid). However, fear had the opposite effect. It decreased political discussion, interest in politics and participation (Weber 2012: 422). Anger, fear and pride can be analyzed in the language of leaders, for example, ‘’we feared the worst or
we are truly angry’’ (Damasio 1999: 36). For pride, it is argued by Lubbers and Coenders (2016: 101) that
it expresses an explicit positive evaluation of the nation. Parties that address nationalist ideology (national identification and pride) are more likely to increase in support when there is more pride present in the country. This ideology puts the nation as the key unit to structure socio-cultural life and opposes larger units such as the EU. National characteristics should be preserved and protected and symbols such as the flag during the campaign are at the core (ibid: 114).
3.3 Key cues and issue-ownership
After establishing the occurrence of the emotions in sub-question one, sub-questions two focusses on the campaign strategies by looking at key cues and issue-ownership. In a study from 2015, Cranmer researches the emotive appeals that can affect citizens during populist campaigning. She finds that emotions can raise levels of situational involvement and in political communication emotions can influence and alter behavior (Cranmer 2015: 286). Cranmer argues that although the attempt is to provoke an emotional response, a response isn’t always guaranteed. This depends on an appraisal process, which means that individuals evaluate a stimulus according to goal attainability and compatibility with norms (ibid: 287). In addition, Cranmer argues that in a direct-democratic
environment, intense emotive appeals, which are issue-specific and used repeatedly, elicit reactions. Thus, key cues are likely to produce attention and agreement within the group and can prove to be significant when using collective emotions to gain support (ibid).
In addition to this, Riker’s (1996) heresthetics refer to the strategic manipulation by goal-oriented actors to reach political outcomes. One principle of heresthetics is called the ‘dominance principle’, meaning that when one side has an advantage on an issue, the other side ignores it (ibid: 127). Thus, issue ownership can provide a party with the political advantage that is crucial for support. Also, a party can trespass strategies by addressing the messages that are owned by the opponents (ibid).
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This way an opponent can respond to the public’s concern regardless of a claim to issue ownership, this can be seen as ‘riding the wave’. This is done to neutralize, disarm or steal the message in question, which may prevent an issue from becoming salient (Morris 1999: 193). However, trespassing does not come without its cost. Bernhard argues that political actors rather stick to their familiar policy positions because abandoning them may result in high reputational costs (2012: 128). Thus, it is more likely that actors put the accent mostly on messages they own. This process can be analyzed by looking at how the opponents and proponents differ in mentioning the issues they own during the campaigns and if there are occurrences of trespassing issues.
3.4 Top-down Mechanism of Collective emotions
Hall and Ross (2015: 848) define three pathways which are sources of collective affective experience: bottom-up (through individual shared concerns and dispositions), horizontal (across group members through contagion), and finally top-down as result of social harmonizing processes. This thesis is focused on top-down harmonization through manipulation. Manipulation can serve a main function of shared affect in groups (positive and negative), which is the reinforcement of group bonding (Kelly et al 2014: 180). The argument is that shared affect toward one’s own group members, and shared negative affect towards members of other groups may strengthen group bonds (ibid). Shared affect in large groups of people in a society and top-down manipulation of actors may also serve important communication functions to mobilize supporters (ibid). Consequently, the occurrence of shared affect in groups may lead group members to experience similar moods (ibid: 184).
In defining a group, the size restriction is loosened. A group can be small (2-3 persons) or may be a larger unit, much like a community, society or nation (Lawler et al 2016: 191). Lawler et al argue that the size of a group isn’t much of importance, as long as the experiences that give rise to collective emotions are shared in the sense that they are generated in social interaction (ibid). In the next part the mechanism manipulation is operationalized.
Manipulation
Manipulation is one of many forms of strategic political behavior, with its objective being to
intentionally evoke a high-intensity affective response for political purposes. Actors do so by playing upon the existing dispositions and concerns of that time (Hall and Ross 2015: 860). ‘’The goal is to center
attention, override competing concerns, and motivate action’’ (ibid). Manipulation is thought to occur
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2012: 512). In politics, an electoral message is manipulative when it persuades a voter’s view (ibid). Leaders may seek to manipulate public affective responses in order to gain support for their desired outcomes. This can be accomplished through the manipulation tactics: fear-mongering, blaming and shaming and boasting and can be aimed at individuals or at the collective level. Its success depends on its ability to activate existing dispositions, invoke or threaten concerns (Hall and Ross 2015: 861).
Fear-mongering is a tactic of inducing fear into others, it entails the negative representation of certain consequences if a decision is made, the goal is to enable or invoke fright about these
consequences. In this way, actors play upon the existing dispositions and concerns of that time to persuade voters into doing something that they otherwise wouldn’t have (ibid). Next, the tactic blaming and shaming, politicians have strong incentives to engage in blame shifting and taking credit even though this tactic can undermine clear responsibility linkages (Hobolt and Tilly 2014: 799). It is argued to be a daunting task for voters to figure out who is actually responsible (ibid). Voters’ judgements on responsibility are conditioned by their pre-existing political beliefs, their partisanship. This adds on the notion of ‘’group-serving attribution bias’’, which means that in-group members have the tendency to attribute negative actions to external causes (ibid: 798), and government partisans are more likely to shift the blame to the EU level as they perceive conditions to worsen (ibid: 807). Shaming is a process in which there is publicly and self-consciously drawn attention to the bad disposition or actions of another. The person who engages in calling out the offender expresses his or her moral outrage, the expectation is that the audience will respond with similar disapproval towards this person (Skeel 2005: 108). Finally, the tactic boasting, as mentioned earlier pride expresses an explicit positive evaluation of the nation. Parties that focus on nationalist identification and pride are likely to increase their supporters when there’s already a disposition for pride present. Their language is focused on preserving national characteristics and symbols, such as the national flag.
Furthermore, negative campaigning tactics are more likely to be pervasive in policy debates, ‘’…by pointing out to the implicit danger in the opponent’s issue position, while not emphasizing the
advantages of the campaigner’s own program’’ (Bernhard 2012: 132). Campaigners tend to focus more
on dangers rather than advantages because of the belief that voters can be risk averse. Negative arguments speak to voters by encouraging the ones that are not involved to think about a choice that needs to be made and coerce them into voting. Furthermore, it encourages the uninformed to vote for an option that minimizes maximum regret and thus, vote against the implied risks of the opponents position (ibid).
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4. Methodology
To answer the research questions, this thesis will make use of the case-study method for an in depth approach of the Brexit campaign. Case-studies have generic characteristics which can be easily identified. First, it is always related to people in one way or another, the Brexit campaign has its
meaning derived from actors that attribute them to this phenomena (Grunbaun 2007: 82). Secondly, the individuals are being studied in their natural environments (ibid). Thirdly, a case-study is holistic. Which means that this thesis aims to understand and explain what happened during the campaign and how it happened (ibid). This makes it important to identify the contextual factors that surround the two units of analysis. Which is the final characteristic of a case-study, the researcher analyzing the case makes use of numerous data sources in order to understand the contextual factors (Grunbaun 2007: 83).
This research is an embedded case-study design because it makes use of multiple units of analysis (Grunbaun 2007: 87). Berg (2001) identifies a unit of analysis as following ‘’The unit of analysis
defines what the case study is, focusing on… an individual, a group, an organization, a city, and so forth’’
(Berg 2001: 231). The content analysis is focused on the two units, Leave and Remain, and how they used the emotions anger, fear and pride in their language and representation to use collective emotions. Data is gathered from prominent campaign actors’ language in speeches and debates to analyze the presence of emotions. Emotions can be communicated through various ways, as mentioned earlier, in this thesis, the program ATLAS.ti is used to perform a content analysis on transcribed speeches and debates that surrounded the Leave and Remain campaign. The analysis will be done on two television debates, where the representatives of the Leave and Remain are present in equal numbers and six speeches from prominent actors during the campaign, three from representatives of each unit.
Atlas.ti is a workbench for qualitative analysis of large numbers of textual, graphical, audio and video data, which will attribute greatly to the in depth analysis of this thesis. The time period wherein data is gathered is narrowed down from David Cameron’s (then Britain’s Prime Minister) first
announcement in February 2016 of the referendum until the date of the referendum, June 23rd in that same year. The reason for choosing this period is because this research aims to analyze how collective emotions were being used during the Leave and Remain campaigns in order to gain support before the referendum took place. The chosen debates and speeches studied in this thesis can be found in the appendix.
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5. Case Analysis findings: Brexit campaign
5.1 Which emotions do prominent actors of both campaigns display on the Brexit
referendum?
The expected emotions were very much present in the data for both campaigns, there are however notable differences. Figure 1 shows that anger was more than twice as much on display in the Leave campaign than it was for Remain. Fear was the second most on display after anger, in particularly for Remain. This confirms the expectation that both sides displayed fear and anger during the campaigns. Pride was also more present in the campaign of Remain than for Leave. What is striking is that the chart shows a balance in the three emotions for the Remain campaign, whereas for the Leave there is an overrepresentation of the emotion anger. This finding can arguably mean that the goal was to heighten involvement in political participation (Weber 2012: 417). Also, pride is relatively less present in both campaigns. In a condition where the predispositions are already present, as is argued by Curtice (2017: 21), the expectation that pride would be heavily mentioned seems not to be the case in the results.
Figure 1. Occurrences of emotions
Horizontal axis: analyzed emotions, Vertical axis: occurrence in the data.
Figure 2 shows the occurrences of the manipulation tactics for both campaigns. The findings show that Remain engaged over twice as much in all manipulation tactics as Leave did. Fear-mongering seems to be used the most in their campaign with over 50 occurrences in the data. Followed by blaming and shaming of the opponents with 47 occurrences. All tactics seem to be less present for Leave. Also, boasting is less present for both campaigns than the other manipulation tactics. Surprisingly these charts
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Anger Fear Pride
Leave Remain
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show that although Leave made less use of the manipulation tactics, they did have a dominance on the emotion anger which would imply a boost in blaming and shaming. This was however not the case, this can partly be explained due to the speeches and debates that were selected, as more blaming and shaming may be present in other data for Leave. Boasting is again less present for both campaigns, this confirms the findings of figure 1 where the results showed less display of pride than was initially
expected. Finally, the findings show that Remain was much more engaged in fear-mongering than Leave, confirming the result of figure 1 where fear is the most displayed emotion for Remain.
Figure 2. Occurrences of manipulation tactics
Horizontal axis: manipulation tactics, Vertical axis: occurrence in the data.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Fear-mongering Blaming and Shaming Boasting
Leave Remain
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5.2 To what extent do key cues and issue-ownership play a role in shaping collective
emotions
What was interesting during the discourse analysis of the speeches and television debates was the repeating of intense emotive appeals on specific issues, these key cues are a form of manipulation and likely attracted attention and agreement for the campaigns (Cranmer 2015: 287). For Leave the cues:
control, security and Turkey were analyzed and for Remain: plan, experts and allies. In figure 3 the
occurrences of the cues for both campaigns are shown.
Figure 3. Occurrences of key cues and issues
Horizontal axis: key cues analyzed, Vertical axis: occurrence in the data.
The results show that control was by far a dominant issue for the Leave campaign, the Remain seems to have had its remarks on control but it didn’t come close to its occurrence in the Leave campaign. This shows that Leave had an advantage on this issue (Riker 1996: 127). Arguably, this means that the Remain campaign didn’t trespass the issue-ownership of control much in a bid to prevent reputational loss (Bernhard 2012: 128). Security seems to have been a more dominating issue for Remain as was expected. However, it is important to note that Remain mentioned security far less during the debates than they did in their speeches. The Leave side dominated security during the debates as analysis showed that they mentioned it ten times in the two debates, in contrast to only once by Remain during the debates, this implies a slight bias in the data.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Control Security Turkey Plan Experts Allies
Leave Remain
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Furthermore, it is interesting in the findings that Remain barely touched upon the subject of
Turkey outside of the debates, as is shown in the chart, this issue was owned only by Leave. Remain only
referred to Turkey when they were correcting Leave during the debates as it remained unmentioned entirely in their speeches. In contrast to this, the cue plan was dominated by Remain with no trespassing of Leave on this issue. The Leave campaign could have done this intentionally to avoid damage to their reputation (Bernhard 2012: 128). This could also explain why the Leave puts more accent on the issues they did own, such as control. The same seemed to be case with experts, as it was obvious during analysis that Remain quoted more experts (15) than Leave did (1). This also applies to allies or friends, whereas Remain mentioned allies eighteen times and Leave only twice. Another important finding seems to be that the cues for Remain are more related to fear than Leave’s. This further confirms the results from figures 1 and 2 where it was concluded that fear was most on display and fear-mongering was mostly used by Remain.
Trespassing of issue dominance occurred during the debates, for example, ‘’I don't think you
take control by leaving, I think you lose control by losing your seat at the table, by allowing other countries put taxes on us’’ (Ruth Davidson BBC 2016). In this example Remain seems to attempt to
trespass on the issue of control. Trespassing of issue-ownership from the Leave campaign was not found as explicitly, which means they held more onto their owned issues than Remain did. This is also
confirmed in figure 3 where it is evident that Leave barely touched on the subjects of Remain, possibly to prevent reputational loss.
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5.3 How are collective emotions being used in a top-down fashion via manipulation by
prominent actors during the Brexit campaign?
Fear-Mongering
In this final sub-question the manipulation tactics are set out along with the examples from the
transcriptions. In table 1 both campaigns show a consequent amount of emphasizing the dangers. Leave representative Nigel Farage plays upon the existing dispositions by quoting an official to strengthen his argument. In this way he incites fear by claiming large numbers of immigrants will disappear within the single market of the EU. This is a way of implying that they could end up anywhere in the EU, even Britain. The goal is to affect public responses by negatively representing consequences. Nigel Farage touches upon group identity by excluding those that would make a move to Britain (Lawler et al 2014: 201). In this way he is spreading the sense of shared fear onto the public by mentioning an issue which he believes is the focus to this event. Thus, he calls upon a collective action from the public, to vote leave, in order to achieve a shared result (ibid). The dimension of collective emotions is very clear here. This can also be seen with Remain as David Cameron incites fear by referring to a ‘’belligerent Russia’’ and terrorism. David Miliband takes it a step further by claiming that these are the opponents of the European Union and they will be celebrating when Britain votes to leave. Thus, they too are creating a shared identity of ‘’unity in the west’’ and calling upon a collective action, to vote stay to achieve a different shared result (ibid). All actors seemingly play upon the dispositions that are present in the public, both sides frame fear in different contexts to fit the moods of their supporters (Kelly et al 2014: 184). This negative campaigning strategy setup shows that the actors tend to focus more on dangers rather than advantages. This is because it is believed that voters are risk averse and negative arguments encourage them more into making a choice (Bernhard 2012: 132).
Table 1. Examples of Fear-mongering Leave
‘’You know when the boss of Europol says, there are up to 5000 jihadi’s who’ve come into Europe in
the last 18 months, posing as migrants through the Greek islands, I believe him. When the former boss of MI6 says that we are far less safe not controlling our borders, I believe him’’- Nigel Farage 26
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‘’And by October of this year, there will be a visa free travel deal negotiated between the Schengen
Zone and Turkey, in theory people can only go into the EU or the Schengen zone for 90 days, but in reality large numbers will disappear or of course claim rights of family reunion’’ Nigel Farage 26 April,
2016
Remain
‘’We see a newly belligerent Russia. The rise of the Daesh network to our east and to our south. The migration crisis. Dealing with these requires unity of purpose in the west’’– David Cameron June 12, 2016
‘’And just ask yourself: who will be celebrating the morning after the referendum, if Britain votes to leave? Not Angela Merkel, Barack Obama or the leaders of Japan, China, India, South Africa, Australia or Canada. They will be furious. No, alongside Boris Johnson it will be Marine Le Pen, Vladimir Putin and perhaps Donald Trump. So if you want to strengthen Putin, vote to leave. If you want to weaken the West, vote to leave. If you want to make it harder to deliver effective aid to the poor, or curb global emissions, or crack down on rogue actors, vote to leave. But if you want to strengthen Britain, vote to remain. If you want to strengthen the forces for stability and security in the world, vote to remain. If you want to support British values of social justice and environmental responsibility, vote to remain. If you want arson on the international order, vote to leave, but if you want Britain to remain with the firefighters, vote to remain’’– David Miliband April 12, 2016
Blaming and Shaming
Table 2 displays the blaming and shaming tactic from both campaigns. For Leave, Nigel Farage accuses his opponents of running a fear-mongering campaign, calling them ‘’remorseless’’ in their tactics to warn the public. This is a clear display of explicit pointing out of the opponent’s issue position while not emphasizing the Remains’ advantages. By publicly blaming Remain, he encourages the public to vote against an implied risk of Remains position (Bernhard 2012: 132). Furthermore, Boris Johnson agrees with Farage’s view of the Remain campaign running project-fear. Also, blaming and shaming is not only limited towards Remain. Nigel Farage takes a swipe at Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, by accusing her for allowing Turkey to join the EU and putting emphasis on the perceived dangers that come with it. By publicly shaming her actions, he expects the audience to respond with similar
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disapproval (Skeel 2005: 108). In this manner he is strengthening’s collective emotions by inciting a shared responsible disapproval towards her actions (Lawler et al 2014: 200).
Remain also takes part in blaming and shaming, as was shown in figure 2, the manipulation tactics were used more by them than Leave. Remain engages in a series of accusations by explicitly calling out Leave: project fantasy, project hate and liars. They shift the blame to the Leave
representatives by claiming what they say is untrue. This is arguably an attempt to break the shared perception of Leave by implying that their emotions regarding these issues are incorrect. Furthermore, it is interesting to see how arguments contradict each other. One example is when Boris Johnson argues that being within the EU the cost of food for every household is more expensive than being out. Also, he shows his disgust at the EU agricultural policy by calling it demented. In this manner he is explicitly shifting the blame towards EU levels as he perceives conditions to worsen by staying within the Union (Hobolt and Tilly 2014: 807). Contradicting him in a separate speech, David Cameron claims a different number and frames it as a future consequence were Britain to leave the EU. This blaming undermines the responsibility linkage for voters, making it unclear who is right (Hobolt and Tilly 2014: 799).
Table 2. Examples of Blaming and shaming Leave
‘’And what we’ve seen from the Remain side has been a remorseless torrent of propaganda, scaring
us, and warning us that if we weren’t part of this EU our economy would be in trouble’’ - Nigel Farage
26 April, 2016
‘’I think we've heard enough from Project Fear over the last couple of weeks, I really do’’ – Boris Johnson June 21, 2016 BBC the Great Debate
‘’Mrs. Merkel wants turkey to be a member by 2025. So were part of a union that is letting in poorer and poorer countries, who ultimately will have unrivaled free access to our nation’’ - Nigel Farage
April 28, 2016 The Spectator Debate
‘’…between 8 and 10 billion pounds goes from the UK every year to Brussels towards the demented
common agricultural policy, massively over-bureaucratic and prescriptive, that adds by 400 pounds to the cost of food for every household in this country’’ - Boris Johnson March, 11 2016.
20 | P a g e Remain
‘’The campaigners for separation say that none of the advantages of membership matter, because adequate trade deals and security arrangements will be forthcoming outside the EU. I say this is Project Fantasy’’ – David Miliband April 12, 2016
‘’Your campaign hasn't been project fear. It's been project hate as far as immigration's concerned’’
- Sadiq Khan June 21, 2016 BBC the great debate
‘’You are scaring people to vote to leave the EU. You are telling lies. Turkey is not set to join the EU. Boris, you are telling lies and you are scaring people, because you've used taxpayers' money to put out an election leaflet that says Turkey set to join. There's a map, there's a map. This map shows in red, Turkey, but the only countries named in this map are Syria and Iraq. That's scaremongering Boris and you, should be ashamed. – Sadiq Khan June 21, 2016 BBC the great debate
‘’They lie about the cost of Europe, about Turkey's entry to Europe. They lie about the European Army, because we've got a veto on that. They've lied about that too and it is not good enough’’ -
Ruth Davidson June 21, 2016 BBC the Great Debate.
’The Treasury has calculated that the cost to every household in Britain would be as high as £4,300 by 2030 if we leave. £4,300’’ – David Cameron on June 12, 2016, BBC speech
As mentioned earlier, voters’ judgements on responsibility is conditioned by pre-existing political beliefs, their partisanship. It is argued by Hobolt and Tilly (2014) that this adds to the notion of group-serving attribution bias, which means that in-group members have the tendency to attribute negative actions to external causes (ibid: 798). Some examples are shown in table 3. Boris Johnson shares positive
attributions towards his own campaign and creates negative attributions towards the representatives of the Remain campaign. This in-group favoritism and out-group derogation also seems to be present in the Remain campaign as David Cameron claims the opposition has no plan, implying the remain does. Furthermore, he shows his disgust by claiming that skeptical voters in Leave are seen as having a lack of
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faith in Britain when asking for clarification. Arguably, he implies that he does not agree with how voters are treated by Leave when they attempt to question their shared focus. The perceived group cohesion within the campaigns is clear here. Both sides stress their shared identities and shared focus regarding Brexit and share these emotions to the public in an attempt to achieve a shared result (Lawler et al 2014: 201).
Table 3. Examples of Group-serving attribution bias Leave
‘’I think you'll agree, there is a very clear choice between those on their side, who speak of nothing but fear, of the consequences of leaving the EU and we on our side, who offer hope. Between those who have been endlessly rubbishing our country and running it down and those of us who believe in Britain. They say we can't do it. We say we can. They say we have no choice but to bow down to Brussels. We say they are woefully underestimating this country and what it can do’’ – Boris Johnson BBC the great debate.
Remain
‘’One minute we are urged to follow Norway, the next minute Canada. A few days later Switzerland offers the path forward, until it becomes clear that their arrangement doesn’t provide much access for services to the EU’s single market – and services, as I’ve said, are almost 4 fifths of the British economy’’
– David Cameron June 12, 2016. BBC Speech
‘’…and yet skeptical voters who politely ask for answers are denounced for their lack of faith in Britain, or
met with sweeping assurances that the world will simply jump to our tune’’ – David Cameron June 12,
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Boasting
Table 4 shows examples of boasting from both campaigns. A quote of Andrea Leadsom is shown where she is summing up the accomplishments of Britain during her speech, displaying pride by expressing an explicit positive evaluation of the nation (Lubbers and Coenders 2016: 101). All the while she is
reaffirming those who are in doubt that there is nothing to be afraid of when leaving the EU. Boris Johnson attributes the success of London in tech not to the EU but to Britain, implying that it is the nation that made that possible opposed to larger units such as the EU (ibid). In contrast, Remain makes an appeal to the patriotic characteristic of the British people claiming that the EU hasn’t reduced the British nationality and claiming that the view of Leave is something that doesn’t belong in Britain. Later in that same speech Cameron makes an emotive appeal to the British flag, portraying it as a beacon of liberal values across the world (ibid: 114). The collective dimension is clear here because both sides emphasized a common experience when they engaged in boasting. They centralize attention on the British public to strengthen the group affiliation, and frame their shared focus how they see fit (Lawler et al 2014: 201). For example, Leave implies that the British position remains strong without the EU, as Remain opposes them by claiming that they will be weaker outside of the EU. Also, both sides engage in calling their supporters out to collective action, Leave claims that their position remains unharmed without the EU and that Britain created most of the accomplishments by itself. Remain uses the same tactic by claiming that remaining will make Britain become more powerful. Thus, both sides engage in structuring responsibilities for their supporters by inciting them into behaving a certain way.
Table 4. Examples of Boasting Leave
‘’We speak the world’s international business language; our contract law is world class and our
judicial system is one of the least corrupt in the world…our economy is the world’s fifth biggest, behind only the US, China, Japan and Germany. London, home to 9 million people, has had top ranking for the last 4 years in a row on the Global Power City Index …and of course there is the Commonwealth of 2.2 billion consumers, where much of the world's fastest economic growth is taking place, and where huge opportunities lie for new British trade links. And it's not just our
economic achievements that point to a bright future. The Times World University Rankings includes 3 UK universities in its top ten. We are a founding member of NATO and hold one of the five permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Leaving the EU will not change that, and we will continue to have the fourth largest military budget in the world’’ – Andrea Leadsom May 17, 2016.
23 | P a g e ‘’We are not far outside London, are we? This area, this city, our capital city, is the home of the
biggest tech cluster, the biggest growth in the whole tech sector anywhere in the high tech of the whole kinds, Nano-tech, green-tech etc. it’s all happening in London. Of the 40 new tech companies worth more than a billion pounds, in the whole of Europe, 17 are from the UK, 13 are in this area. That has had absolutely nothing to do with the EU, it is not because of the EU, it does not owe the EU nothing’’ – Boris Johnson March 11, 2016
Remain
‘’We are Britain. No one seriously suggests any more that after 40 years in the EU, we have become less British. We’re proud. We’re independent. We get things done. So let’s not walk away from the institutions that help us to win in the world. Let’s not walk away from the EU, any more than we would walk away from the UN, or from NATO. We’re bigger than that. So I say – instead, let us remain, let us fight our corner, let us play the part we should, as a great power in the world, and a great and growing power in Europe. That is the big, bold, and patriotic decision for Britain on 23 June’’ – David Cameron June 12, 2016 BBC speech.
‘’Our national flag is worn on clothing and t-shirts the world over – not only as a fashion statement, but as a symbol of hope and a beacon for liberal values all around the world’’ – David Cameron June
12, 2016 BBC speech
‘’So I say let’s go big! Let’s make Britain even greater than it is already! And reject the small vision for
our country you see offered by the people who want us to pull out of the EU, let’s stand tall. That is what the EU referendum is about’’ – Chuka Umunna April 28, 2016 The Spectator debate
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6. Discussion and limitations
The aim of this thesis was to fill a gap in the literature because there is still little discussion on to what extent emotions can play a role in political campaigning. By looking at collective emotions on a heavily campaigned event, the Brexit, via the mechanism manipulation this thesis attempted to fill that gap. The data showed that the prominent actors did use collective emotions in a top-down fashion by using the manipulation tactics. The results of the sub-questions have shown the presence of the three emotions, key cues and issue-ownership and consequently how collective emotions were used during Britain’s campaign of the referendum. Some interesting findings are worth noting, the results confirm that both campaigns were making use of the manipulation tactics in their strategies. However, the Remain side had an overall dominant usage of the tactics over Leave. Furthermore, the findings conclude that Remain dominated issues that were more related to fear than Leave did as it was clear they had more occurrences in fear related cues, issues and the manipulation tactic fear-mongering. It seems that the Leave representatives were somewhat right when they called out Remain for running project-fear. In addition to this, it was surprising during the analysis to find these results in the charts because some things weren’t expected to be that strongly and less strongly present. For example, anger dominated the Leave campaign heavily and pride was expected to be much higher on display for both sides than the results show. It is important to note that the choice of data could have been the culprit for this bias as there may have been different results if different speeches were used.
6.1 Limitations
As for the limitations, it’s worth mentioning that more emotions can be researched for this event as this thesis was limited to only three. These three are also mostly negative emotions, rather than positive. A recommendation for further studies could be researching positive emotions like happy or joy.
Furthermore, this thesis also shows its limitations by not being able to research the horizontal processes that top-down mechanisms can facilitate. For example, top-down mechanisms affect horizontal
processes such as group cohesion within the respective camps. This could be a second recommendation for follow up studies or thesis subjects. Finally, the difficulty in selecting limited data without having a bias in the results proved to have more impact than initially thought. This bias also applies to the length of speeches of the chosen representatives as some speeches were longer than others. However, despite this slight bias interesting results have been found in this thesis, which was a positive surprise in itself.
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Appendix
- BBC EU Brexit referendum: The Great Debate (June 21 2016)
Featuring the main speakers in favor of leaving: Boris Johnson (former mayor London), Gisela stuart (Labour MP) and Andrea Leadsom (Conservative Energy Minister).
Main speakers in favor of staying: Ruth Davidson (Conservative Party Scotland), Sadiq Khan (Mayor of London) and Francis O’Grady (General Secretary Trades Union Congress). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmGcsxeHFtg
- The Spectator debate April, 26 2016
Main speakers in favor of leaving: Dan Hannan, Nigel Farage, Kate Hoey Main speakers in favor of staying: Nick Clegg, Liz Kendall, Chuka Umunna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYTJGBBjkGo
- Speeches from representatives of the Leave campaign:
Nigel Farage on April 29, 2016 Skynews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZLJ8gFtCnE Boris Johnson on March 11, 2016 rally in Dartford BBC live.
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Andrea Leadsom on May 20, 2016 Vote Leave rally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-b6FgeLO7o
- Speeches from representatives of the Remain campaign
David Cameron on May 9, 2016 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-the-uks-strength-and-security-in-the-eu-9-may-2016
Sadiq Khan on May 31, 2016 Vote Remain rally in London. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L4NJPXh9Vg
David Miliband on April 12, 2016 Britain Stronger in Europe rally.
https://labourlist.org/2016/04/britain-needs-europe-and-europe-needs-britain-full-text-of-david-milibands-pro-eu-speech/
