Emotions in politics : from the ballot to suicide terrorism

![CDATA[Politics and emotions have always gone together. The German sociologist, Max Weber, famously observed that action in a political community is ‘determined by highly robust motives of fear and hope’. It is of interest that almost identical statements were expressed at the very beginning of the period of early modern politics. The English statesman and philosopher, Francis Bacon, wrote that ‘civil states’ offer bribes and punishments, ‘employing the predominant affections of fear and hope’, a possibility that arises from the fact that the ‘government of states’ relies upon ‘the government within’. Indeed, the archetypical political instruments of persuasion remain the carrot and the stick. It is the really astute politician, however, as we are reminded by such other dissimilar figures as Weber, Bacon and Senault, that has no need of either carrot or stick in the knowledge that particular emotions – hope born of promise and fear spurred by a threat – are sufficient to get the job done.]]