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Emotion and Reason in Political Language

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  • Gloria Gennaro
  • Elliott Ash

Abstract

This paper studies the use of emotion and reason in political discourse. Adopting computational-linguistics techniques to construct a validated text-based scale, we measure emotionality in six million speeches given in U.S. Congress over the years 1858–2014. Intuitively, emotionality spikes during times of war and is highest in speeches about patriotism. In the time series, emotionality was relatively low and stable in earlier years but increased significantly starting in the late 1970s. Across Congress members, emotionality is higher for Democrats, for women, for ethnic/religious minorities, for the opposition party and for members with ideologically extreme roll-call voting records.

Suggested Citation

  • Gloria Gennaro & Elliott Ash, 2022. "Emotion and Reason in Political Language," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(643), pages 1037-1059.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:132:y:2022:i:643:p:1037-1059.
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    2. Laura Battaglia & Timothy Christensen & Stephen Hansen & Szymon Sacher, 2024. "Inference for Regression with Variables Generated from Unstructured Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 11119, CESifo.
    3. Laura Battaglia & Timothy Christensen & Stephen Hansen & Szymon Sacher, 2024. "Inference for Regression with Variables Generated by AI or Machine Learning," Papers 2402.15585, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    4. Dmytro Marieiev & Igor Chornyi & Olena Balaban & Julia Kobets & Olena Berezovska-Chmil & Natalia Shchur, 2023. "Linguistic Means of Expressing the Category of Temporality in Modern Political Discourse," World Journal of English Language, Sciedu Press, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, April.
    5. Andrea Mah & Eunkyung Song, 2024. "Elite Speech about Climate Change: Analysis of Sentiment from the United Nations Conference of Parties, 1995–2021," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-27, March.
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    7. Hugo Subtil & Vincent Verger, 2024. "Rhétorique émotionnelle et montée du populisme au Parlement européen," Institut des Politiques Publiques halshs-04748267, HAL.
    8. Luke Barber & Michael Jetter & Tim Krieger, 2023. "Foreshadowing Mars: Religiosity and Pre-Enlightenment Warfare," CESifo Working Paper Series 10806, CESifo.
    9. Peter Grajzl & Peter Murrell, 2024. "From Status to Contract? A Macrohistory from Early-Modern English Caselaw and Print Culture," CESifo Working Paper Series 11246, CESifo.
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    12. Peter Grajzl & Peter Murrell, 2023. "Of families and inheritance: law and development in England before the Industrial Revolution," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(3), pages 387-432, September.

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