Search

In representative democracies, trust between the governing and the governed is of central importance to bridge the gap that emerges between electoral events. Accordingly, political performances are adjusted to presenting political actors not only as competent, but more fundamentally as trustworthy. Starting off from a narratological perspective, in this contribution I will reflect on the relevance of empathy and emotions for such political performances. I will argue that we can currently observe the emergence of a specific variant of producing trustworthiness which presents politics as a complex, burdensome and painful business. Thistype of narrative aims at evoking empathy on the part ofthe governed by claiming to give insightinto the emotional states and painful experiences of political actors. According to this rationale, trust is supposed to emerge due to the fact that politicians would face the same struggles and dilemmas as ›ordinary people‹ do. I will reconstruct the narrative logic of thistrust performance on the basis of recent examples of political communication, try to make sense of why it has recently emerged and reflect on both its potentials and risks for democratic governing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Politische Theorie is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The flourishing debate on the relationship between acceleration and governing is dominated by a view which identifies the increasing pace of the world as an exogenous reality of political decision-making. At the same time, interpretive perspectives have highlighted that governing is not only confronted with but actively involved in the construction of time. This paper argues that these two largely disconnected debates actually deal with two sides of the same coin. Building on a twofold theorization of time derived from Luhmannian systems theory, it is shown that the perceived speed of the world is contingent upon how governing relates to pasts and futures. More specifically, the paper discerns four temporal semantics of decision-making – planning, prevention, resilience and experimentation – and decodes how they establish more or less accelerated presents. The paper thus draws atheoretically and empirically more nuanced picture of the mutual constitution between time and (democratic) governing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]