The Politics of Spectacle and Emotion in the 2016 Presidential Campaign

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Why Emotions Matter in Politics

   • Heather E. Yates

   Pages 1-15

3. 2016: The Year of “Democrazy” and the Politics of Spectacle

   • Heather E. Yates

   Pages 17-45

4. The Politics of “America First”: Problematizing the Economy and Trade on the Campaign Trail

   • Heather E. Yates

   Pages 47-65

5. The Health of a Nation: The Politics and Legacy of Health Care Reform

   • Heather E. Yates

   Pages 67-77

6. Neo-Nativism and Global Frienemies: Feelings Toward Immigration and National Security Issues

   • Heather E. Yates

   Pages 79-92

7. God, Guns, and Bathrooms: Concepts of Morality on the Campaign Trail

   • Heather E. Yates

   Pages 93-106

8. Conclusion: The Campaign of Personalized Conflict

   • Heather E. Yates

   Pages 107-112

9. Back Matter

   Pages 113-119

   PDF

This book examines the highly emotional context of the 2016 US presidential campaign through the scope of political theater and emotional attribution. It takes inventory of the political landscape that defined the campaign and advances the argument that the campaign’s high intensity generated a more interest-attentive citizenry and became an exercise in political theater. A framework operationalizing the components of political spectacle anchors the analysis treating emotions, affect transfer and the rise of negative partisanship. The analytical scope is focused specifically on voters’ emotional responses toward Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and empirically demonstrates the effects of discrete feelings on five emotional dimensions including pride, hope, fear, anger, and disgust on attitudes about issues ranging from the economy to immigration to the 2016 Supreme Court vacancy. Anchored in the Affective Intelligence Theory and affect transfer, the findings lend support to the principles of negative partisanship that characterized the 2016 presidential contest.

• ANES survey
• presidency
• campaign
• political psychology
• politics of spectacle
• political spectacle
• primary elections
• Donald Trump
• Hillary Clinton
• Media and Politics
• Political Behaviour
• Women in Politics
• American Political Parties
• Race in Politics
• Political mobilization
• Political Communication
• Negative partisanship
• Campaign rhetoric
• America First
• Affordable Care Act

• Department of Political Science, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, USA

  Heather E. Yates

Heather E. Yates is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Central Arkansas, USA. Dr. Yates authored The Politics of Emotions, Candidates, and Choices (2016) and co-edited The Hollywood Connection: The Influence of Fictional Media and Celebrity Politics on American Public Opinion (2018).

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