Emotional Governance Politics, Media and Terror

This lucid and original work argues for a new style of political leadership, one which pays deliberate and sophisticated attention to the emotional dynamics of the public. In exploring this basic idea of 'emotional governance', Barry Richards also examines the often unhelpful contributions of the news media to the 'emotional public sphere'. A case study of terrorism, as a highly emotional topic and as a key political issue in many liberal democracies, grounds the book's ideas in today's political landscape.