Paradox of Electoral Politics: Emotional Electioneering vs Rational Governance – News18

Don’t be perplexed if you find politicians who are otherwise perfectly reasonable begin making hyper-emotive appeals to your basal emotions during campaigning. You haven’t understood the paradox of electoral politics then. Electioneering and governance are two phases in an electoral democracy. Electioneering is the means for politicians to achieve the end which is to come to power and govern as per their ideology. And it is by design that in the electioneering phase, emotional attributes take centre stage whereas, in the governance phase, rational attributes come to the fore.

Once you understand this basic electoral paradox, you will breathe easy, be less agitated, take all that is said during campaigning in your stride and rest assured that when campaigning ends, all will be normal again.

Differing timeline is the reason behind this electoral paradox. The hyper-competitive electioneering phase must be completed in a super tight timeline of a few weeks where winning is crucial. Governance on the other hand is a job that is to be executed over an extended timeline of five years. Electioneering therefore is like a T20 cricket game where even the first ball must be hit beyond the park. Add to this the reduced attention span of people which makes the timeline factor more challenging.

So, it’s a game of perception and judgement that is played over these two phases. In the short campaigning phase, appealing to emotion to create a desired perception is a low-risk high-return option over appealing to someone’s rational instinct and trying to evoke a judgement. Emotions are matters of heart, not necessarily logical and translate immediately into perceptions. Rationality is a matter of intellect, logic, which feeds on data and gets processed over time to translate into a judgement.

Hence during the electioneering phase when time is at a premium, appealing to emotion gives better and faster returns. Feeding rational data of achievements, explaining and then waiting for the intellect to process to come to a favourable judgement can be suicidal for the politician in this crucial phase.

Few other things work in favour of the emotional over rational in the short campaigning phase. Human emotions such as love, fear, hate, greed etc. are homogenous and universal. Homing in on one to build a message around it is easy. “Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkaar”, “Garibi Hatao”, “Sab ka Saath, Sab ka Vikas”, “Make America Great Again”, and “Take Back Control” are examples of successful emotive campaigns.

Human intellect though is not homogenous and different people can process identical data differently and come to different judgements. Hence rational campaigning has a low success rate. Imagine a rational campaign on a roadworks data set like “Chattees Kilometer Har Din”. Can be interpreted differently and doesn’t even seem attractive! Further, messaging based on emotional appeal has a built-in entry barrier. It cannot be copied and is very difficult for a rival party to take a contrarian position. For example, in the case of “Garibi Hatao”, it is difficult to counter it with either “Amiri Hatao” or “Amiri Badhao”. Just doesn’t stick, does it? And the rival is cornered.

One other advantage that an emotive appeal has over the rational is that it cannot be measured or quantified or compared and hence is beyond debate. A rational appeal on the other hand is open to all three since it is the job of the intellect to analyse and judge. An example for instance is an emotional statement like “I love you”. Little to debate about this statement. But try answering “How much do you love me?” and you are in a quantification quandary. Get the drift? That’s why “400 Paar”, a message bordering on the rational is risky and therefore perhaps has been quickly and judiciously relegated to the backstage. Because a “number” always agitates the intellect and can fall prey to debate, interpretation and judgement. Similarly, caste census or wealth distribution has no hope. Census, wealth, and distribution are all empirical and rational terms that appeal to the intellect and can be easily rationally debated and countered.

Seasoned politicians understand this paradox of electoral politics. The short electioneering phase must be necessarily emotional, devoid of much logic but with the potential to create immediate perception. The long governance phase on the other hand must appeal to the rational, giving empirical evidence of on-ground achievements where people have time to experience, intellectually evaluate and judge.

Electoral politics is one of the most difficult combat zones not meant for the faint-hearted. Experienced politicians are consummate players who understand human psychology and this paradox. Everything they do, the how, the what and the why is by deliberate design. The act of balancing the rational with the emotional is an art the best amongst them have mastered. For those on the outside, there is no point in getting agitated. In fact, there is much to observe and learn. And even to enjoy in this dance of democracy. The masters are at play!

Vikram Kumar Limsay is a Business Strategist and tweets as @vikramlimsay. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.