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Emotional citizens, detached interest groups? The use of emotional language in public policy consultations

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Fink

    (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

  • Eva Ruffing

    (Universität Osnabrück)

  • Tobias Burst

    (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Für Sozialforschung)

  • Sara Katharina Chinnow

    (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

Abstract

In public consultations, policymakers give stakeholders access to the policymaking process in exchange for technical or political information. Our article proposes to analyze not only the policy positions, but the emotional content of consultation contributions. In our descriptive study, we explore two conjectures: First, citizens contributions to public consultations display more emotions than contributions by corporate actors, and second, contributions mentioning concrete policies display more emotions than contributions referring to the abstract policy framework. We use dictionary-based sentiment coding to analyze ~ 7300 contributions to the consultation of German electricity grid construction planning. Our analysis shows that citizens’ contributions contain more emotional terms, especially voicing fear. Moreover, if contributions refer to a specific power line, they contain less joy, but more fear and sadness. Thus, we show a way to conceptualize and measure the link between public policies and the emotions they trigger.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Fink & Eva Ruffing & Tobias Burst & Sara Katharina Chinnow, 2023. "Emotional citizens, detached interest groups? The use of emotional language in public policy consultations," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 56(3), pages 469-497, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:policy:v:56:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s11077-023-09508-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11077-023-09508-3
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    References listed on IDEAS

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