Recap State of Conflict 2024 about Emotional Democracy

Public policy controversies are generally highly emotive. As societal tensions increase, the need to better understand emotions becomes more important. Emotions set all sort of things in motion – they either bring groups together, reinforce divisions, or fuel escalation. In the fabric of democratic life, emotions are woven into every political decision, public debate, and civic action. Considering the omnipresence of emotions, they have not received quite the attention they deserve. A stronger grasp of emotions is even more important given the increasingly participatory character of democratic governance. When public officials, administrators, politicians, and citizens interact, different emotional vocabularies meet – and smooth translation is not a given.

At the 7th State of Conflict conference, we explored how we, as professionals, can gain insight from emotions and work with them. We explored what happens when we treat emotions not just as ‘background noise.’ What if we consider them a crucial influence on how people make sense of policies and institutions, and ultimately, how we engage in democracy itself? Dr. Sara Cobb was the opening speaker.

You can find the original conference description and the video-recap of the ’24 edition of the State of Conflict 2024