Democratic education in the post-democratic turn: Disenchantment with democracy and the pedagogical potential of ugly and negative feelings

Introduction

When it comes to the status of democracy in contemporary Western societies, there are numerous indications of decline and failure: the dominance of a neoliberal rationale; decreasing possibilities of citizen participation; declining voter turnouts; the emergence of new forms of populist movement parties; and a general disaffection with representative politics (Hammond, 2021; Jenkins, 2018; Ludwig, 2018). ¹ Crouch (2000, 2004, 2016) notion of ‘post-democracy’ (see also, Rancière, 1999, 2014) captures the zeitgeist of a diminishing democracy which slips into the hands of privileged elites (e.g. lobbyists, experts, economic entrepreneurs), while maintaining the façade of formal democratic principles. Despite critiques that the diagnoses of post-democracy have been unhelpful, simplistic, and overstated (see Blühdorn and Butzlaff, 2020), Crouch’s notion of post-democracy has turned academic and public attention to the current failures of democracy and reiterates the need for ‘democratic innovations’ (Hammond, 2021) that productively respond to the general perception that democracy is diminishing.

In particular, widespread feelings by citizens that ‘the system is corrupt’, ‘politics is a rigged game’, and ‘voting doesn’t matter’ have become commonplace political experiences in many contemporary democratic societies that essentially fail to function democratically (Miller, 2020). The diagnosis of post-democracy, then, points to a paradoxical situation: although in the abstract democracy enjoys almost universal support, the empirical reality suggests that the power of democratic institutions has dramatically declined, shifting away from the people, and toward a narrow privileged elite (Offe, 2017). According to Offe, this has serious ramifications on how democracy is perceived and practiced, leading to political apathy, alienation, and disenchantment with democracy (Jenkins, 2018). As Jenkins points out, the profound impact of negative emotions and affects (e.g. pessimism, resignation, disappointment) on democratic politics, reiterates that the role of emotions is paramount (Ahmed, 2004; Bens et al., 2019; Massumi, 2015; Nussbaum, 2013; Protevi, 2009).

Hence, if certain affective modes (hope, fear, resignation, despair, love, resentment) are triggered by politics (Feola, 2016), then what does this mean for pedagogical practice in the context of democratic education in schools? ² If we take affect/emotion seriously, both as a concept in democratic theory and democratic education and as a tool for understanding and combating democratic disenchantment early on in young people’s lives, then what pedagogical possibilities are opened in schools to problematize, contest and perhaps transform affective relations that normalize feelings of democratic disenchantment such as cynicism, disappointment, and pessimism? ³ Such questions will lead us to grapple with the affective implications of post-democracy and the social practices through which the effects of power are inscribed affectively.

Especially, paying attention to the ‘politics of affective societies’ (Bens et al., 2019) will yield productive pedagogical resources for exploring ‘ugly’ and ‘negative’ feelings (Ngai, 2005) emerging in democratic politics. Ugly and negative feelings—such as disappointment, pessimism, frustration, sadness, resentment, fear, cynicism, and so on—can have mobilizing and immobilizing impacts for individuals and communities, according to Ngai. In this sense, the core question in exploring ugly and negative feelings in the context of democratic education in schools is not whether such feelings ought to be dismissed, rejected, or somehow reconciled with democratic ideals, but rather how they can be channeled as productive forces into positive re-engagement, especially for taking transformative action against injustices that emerge from democratic politics. Populist politicians have in recent years arguably been successful in triggering and sustaining mostly negative emotions (Flinders, 2020). Hence, in bringing together the literature on post-democracy and theoretical work on the politics of affective societies, this article explores how democratic education in schools might benefit from a critical examination of negative emotions and affects associated with democratic disenchantment.

That said, the aim of the article is to highlight what is gained by introducing a more pedagogically and politically robust approach toward ‘ugly’ and ‘negative’ feelings in democratic education, namely, a pedagogical approach that recognizes the gloomy ramifications of post-democracy in the daily life of teachers and young people and inspires transformative action that contributes toward practical democratic innovations in the sphere of civil society. This article, then, adds to ongoing efforts for the renewal of democratic education in schools (Zembylas, 2021; Sant, 2021) by urging teachers and researchers to rethink pedagogically how to navigate productively the ugly and negative feelings of democratic disenchantment.

The article is structured as follows. In the first section, I discuss the notion of ‘post-democracy’ as well as some of its critiques; this discussion also introduces the notion of the ‘post-democratic turn’ (Blühdorn, 2013) as an alternative concept that recognizes the current crises of democracy as an inextricable part of ongoing struggles for democratic innovations. Second, I elaborate a theory of affect from which I will analyze the politics of affective societies and negative emotions in particular, emphasizing that all social practices and spheres are affective and have affective implications, including schooling. Finally, having explored the post-democratic turn and its affective dimensions, and acknowledging how literature on democratic education has made significant strides in seeking to understand the role of political emotions, the paper explores how the role of ugly and negative feelings could be explored in greater depth in the context of democratic education in schools. In particular, it is argued that greater reflection could be given in democratic education over the transformative potential of some forms of democratic disenchantment. The paper offers some ideas about how teachers may pay close attention to and navigate young people’s ugly and negative feelings of democratic disenchantment in pedagogically and politically productive ways.

Post-democracy and the post-democratic turn

Two decades ago, Crouch (2000, 2004) and others (e.g. Rancière, 1999; Rorty, 2004) examined contemporary democratic forms and their threats—for example, the narrowing of the opportunities and spaces for citizen participation in favor of market and financial interests, lobbies, and global multinational corporations; new forms of populism; and political disenchantment in general—and suggested that there was deviation from established democratic norms or expectations, hence the widespread dissatisfaction toward representative politics within Western democracies. The term ‘post-democracy’ denotes a sense that democratic institutions are under threat, or that we are witnessing the end of a democratic era, assuming that democracy ever really existed in the first place (Miller, 2020). Thus post-democracy, explains Miller, names a context which lacks democracy, while still being governed by ideas and institutions that are considered democratic. As Crouch (2004) explains,

Under this model, while elections certainly exist and can change governments, public electoral debate is a tightly controlled spectacle, managed by rival teams of professionals expert in the techniques of persuasion, and considering a small range of issues selected by those teams. The mass of citizens plays a passive, quiescent, even apathetic part, responding only to the signals given to them. Behind this spectacle of the electoral game, politics is really shaped in private by interaction between elected governments and elites that overwhelmingly represent business interests. (p. 4)

In this sense, post-democracy marks a failure and decline of democracy because political decisions are shaped through economic criteria. It is against this background, namely, the hegemony of experts and lobbyists, that Crouch highlights the profound political disengagement of citizens.

The idea of post-democracy helps us describe situations when boredom, frustration and disillusion have settled in after a democratic moment; when powerful minority interests have become far more active than the mass of ordinary people in making the political system work for them; where political elites have learned how to manage and manipulate popular demands; where people have to be persuaded to vote by top-down publicity campaigns [. . .] One cannot call this kind of politics non- or anti-democratic, because so much of it results from politicians’ anxieties about their relations with citizens. At the same time it is difficult to dignify it as democracy itself, because so many citizens have been reduced to the role of manipulated, passive, rare participants. (pp. 19, 21).

Despite these developments, Crouch (2016) does not consider post-democracy an accomplished fact yet, but rather he points out that we are on a long march toward it.

Crouch is not alone in suggesting that there is a crisis of democracy. Rancière (1999, 2014) and Brown (2011) identify similar problems that point to the same phenomenon of post-democracy, namely, the degeneration of politics into toxicity, the securitization of the state that eliminates citizens’ voices, the growing social inequalities, and the exclusion of ordinary citizens from politics so that the state appears democratic without the participation of the people. In a sense, post-democracy is a democracy without citizens, to use Entman’s (1989) apt expression, that is, ‘a state governed and legitimated by superficially democratic practices that include the People only in such a way as to thwart any real or deliberate exercise of political influence on their part’ (Miller, 2020: 13). Reflecting on post-democracy, therefore, helps us understand an important paradox: while there is universal support for democracy in the abstract, there is profound political disillusionment with democracy in the empirical reality of democracies, because the demos as a unity is constantly undermined through the increasing influence of economic elites and capitalist globalization (Hammond, 2021; Ludwig, 2018).

Not surprisingly, then, citizenship under post-democracy has become apathetic and disillusioned, which can be identified empirically in feelings of distrust and contempt toward politicians, falling participation in elections, and the negative, pessimistic and cynical feelings citizens express about representative politics (Jenkins, 2018). On the one hand, literature on political disenchantment highlights this widespread dissatisfaction toward representative politics, and suggests that there is a relationship between these negative feelings and societal shifts in recent decades such as economic globalization, consumerism, and rising individualism. Similar research focused on young people also shows that their levels of electoral and political party engagement tend to be low (e.g. Henn and Foard, 2012, 2014; O’Toole, 2015). On the other hand, there is also evidence that there can be considerable gains to youth’s respective levels of political engagement, participation and inclinations (Pontes et al., 2019), when educational and other interventional programs emphasize civic participation and moral and social responsibilities rather than liberal individualism (e.g. Annette, 2009). In other words, there is potential for civil society to invent ways that challenge the gloomy ramifications of post-democracy in the daily life of youth and citizens by strengthening practical democratic innovations (Hammond, 2021).

Despite a growing interest in post-democracy and its popularization in academic and public debates, however, there continues to be widespread disagreement over the concept’s essential features (Miller, 2020), and particularly critiques that the post-democracy diagnosis is unhelpful, simplistic, and exaggerated (Blühdorn and Butzlaff, 2020; Miller, 2020). In particular, Blühdorn (2013) argues that the fundamental paradox of democracy, as identified earlier, can be explained through the notion of the ‘post-democratic turn’, namely, the transition to a new form of democracy that entails both the radicalization of citizens’ democratic demands and a growing tendency toward undemocratic values and activities (Hammond, 2021). The term draws on the debates on post-democracy but it is clearly distinct from it, as the diagnosis of the post-democratic turn acknowledges that the ongoing process of societal modernization entails a ‘crisis of democracy’ as well as shifting norms and expectations amongst citizens that go beyond the autonomous individual (Blühdorn and Butzlaff, 2020). In this sense, a defining feature of the post-democratic turn is the broad societal basis for both skeptical views of democracy and the reproduction of disillusionment of democracy (Hammond, 2021).

From the perspective of the post-democratic turn, then, the more popularized term of post-democracy is unhelpful and rather problematic, according to Blühdorn and Butzlaff (2020), for three reasons. Firstly, the term post-democracy seems to imply a uniform and consensual definition of democracy; secondly, the prefix ‘post’ seems to suggest a linear trajectory and non-reversible development of democracy; and, thirdly, the diagnosis of post-democracy that democracy is under threat is not only simplistic but also deflects attention from the important task to conceptualize the ongoing transformation of contemporary democracy. Hence, the diagnosis of post-democracy, argue Blühdorn and Butzlaff, has proved short-lived in the sense that the banking and financial crisis since 2008 as well as the tide of right-wing populism and the climate crisis have triggered new claims for democratic empowerment (e.g. new forms of protests, activism, etc.) through which citizens challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism. Furthermore, Blühdorn and Butzlaff (2020) point out that theorists of post-democracy have been critiqued ‘of romanticizing an alleged golden age of democracy; their diagnoses have been criticized as far too generalizing and systemically unable to do justice to the diversity of contemporary forms of activism, social movements and micro-politics’ (p. 372). Also, critiques about the (neo)colonialism of democracy both through the dominance of democratic discourse and its actual use as a strategy by Western democracies for geopolitical and economic purposes, have challenged romanticized perceptions of democracy as an ideal regime (Güven, 2015).

In this sense, I find Blühdorn’s (2013) notion of the post-democratic turn to be a much more productive term in discussions of contemporary democracy, as it recognizes citizens’ democratic expectations and concerns, including feelings of democratic disenchantment associated with the failures of democracy, without actually submitting to a romanticized or idealized view of democracy. The concept of post-democratic turn,

focuses attention on the changing social norms on the basis of which a variety of actors in contemporary societies are challenging and (re)politicizing established societal arrangements, which condition the clearly visible reconstruction of democratic institutions, and which inform the current reformulation of the democratic project beyond its liberal understanding. (Blühdorn and Butzlaff, 2020: 375)

Centrally important in this respect, then, is that citizens’ feelings of hope, fear, resignation, despair, or resentment are powerful and disruptive for established democratic norms and their transformation. As it has become a common lament in our time that democratic discourse and praxis are increasingly more affective (Bens et al., 2019), it is crucial to examine how contemporary democracy in the post-democratic turn is entangled with the politics of affect.

The politics of affective societies

The study of political emotion and affect is not a new field. Sociology of emotion and political studies (e.g. Clarke et al., 2006; Demertzis, 2013; Goodwin et al., 2001; Hoggett and Thompson, 2012) on the one hand, and works on affect theory and politics (e.g. Ahmed, 2004; Cvetkovich, 2012; Massumi, 2015; Protevi, 2009), on the other, have argued that contemporary societies are becoming increasingly affective. Some interpret this increase in affectivity as a ‘regression’ to a pre-modern state, whereas others identify this rise as a specific characteristic of Western late modernity (Bens et al., 2019). The bottom-line, according to Bens et al., is that contemporary politics has become affective in the sense that there is more attention to affect and emotion than before. As Bens et al. (2019) write, ‘This perspective challenges more traditional approaches that analyze modernity as a process of rationalization culminating in the triumph of liberal democratic governance based on rational deliberation’ (p. 11).

In this article, I specifically draw on feminist affect theory (e.g. Ahmed, 2004; Cvetkovich, 2012) which understands affects as ‘political and cultural, i.e. symbolically coded and socially constructed patterns of perception and action’ (Sauer, 2013: 264). For Sauer, there is no pre-discursive logic or an internal, psychologized feeling that is distinct from politics: ‘the specific order of affect and politics [. . .] within the political realm can be considered the result of a historically formed “politics of feeling”’ (Sauer, 2013). As Gebhardt (2021) explains further:

The relation between affective orders and political discourses is reciprocal: A political discourse produces a specific order of affects, where affects are hierarchically structured according to a specific normalization process. In turn, these normative orders are tacitly shaped by and implicitly underpin specific affects and feeling rules. (p. 131)

In this sense, appeals to emotionality and (ir)rationality are embedded in social and political conditions, hence prominent binary oppositions of Western modernity such as emotion/reason, mind/body, culture/nature, and public/private are challenged (Bargetz, 2015). Once again, then, the major issue of concern is not whether there is an increase of affectivity in contemporary societies or that contemporary societies have become more affective than before; what matters is to develop a theoretical approach that allows us to understand affect and emotion as central qualities of the social at large in ways that move beyond the binaries of modernity (Bens et al., 2019). As Bens et al. (2019) write: ‘If indeed there is a change in the ways politics and the political are presently taking shape – and we tend to agree that there is –, this change is best understood qualitatively in terms of changing affective relations, rather than as a simple quantitative rise’ (p. 12).

Ahmed’s (2004) notion of ‘affective economies’ provides a useful theoretical resource to analyze politics in terms of the affective ways with which individuals come together and move toward or away in relation to others (e.g. ‘the bogus asylum seeker’, ‘the terrorist’, ‘the elite’, etc.). Ahmed uses the term affective economies to argue that affects do not reside in a subject but rather circulate in relations of difference, whereby what is moved and what moves is the effect of affective intensities and changing modes and calibrations of affective and emotional registers. For Ahmed (2004), then, affects are produced socially; they are being generated, circulated, and amplified via discourse and power structures by an economic-like distribution. Hence, an understanding of affect as economy shows how relations between bodies might be (re)produced, not because of any essence in these relations, but because of the ways in which certain affects (e.g. fear, anger, resentment) ‘stick’ to certain bodies or flow and traverse space. Thus, in the discourses built around these affective economies—for example populist affective economies produce indignation, hate, fear, and anger—the construction of the other as threatening plays a vital role in the creation of ‘we-and-they’ categories (Gebhardt, 2021).

Along similar lines, Cvetkovich (2012) has interrogated the idea that affects and emotions are private and pointed out that they are situated in social and political conditions. For Cvetkovich, thinking through affect and attending to ‘public feelings’ provides resources to think psychic and social life as being entangled, thus it allows us to understand political phenomena in terms of their affective energy. Political depression, for example, pertains to the politics of race in the wake of the incomplete projects of civil rights and decolonization. As Cvetkovich (2012) suggests, ‘The limits of political representation and legal recognition in eliminating racism require not only new visions for the future but the affective energy to sustain disappointment’ (p. 7). Conceiving of affective politics through feminist perspectives, then, expands our understanding of how the power of feelings is not only embedded in power relations, but also can become an affective force for social and political transformation. As Bargetz (2015) also argues, ‘A theory of affective politics should neither ignore the power of affect nor celebrate affective politics as a new, all-encompassing form of politics’ (p. 584). This theoretical perspective, continues Bargetz,

considers the creative moments of affect as a means of solidarity and political mobilization while never losing sight of how affect is woven into the political and economic fabric and, thus, how emotions are used to politically mobilize gender, sexuality, race, and class. (2015, p. 584)

In other words, affect becomes a marker of political structures as well as political transformations: on the one hand, affect is embedded in social and political conditions (Protevi, 2009); on the other hand, it offers a mode of political mobilization that takes the interruption of these conditions as a point of departure for renewed politics (Bargetz, 2015). It is in this sense that Slaby and Bens (2019) propose using the concept of ‘political affect’ as an analytic notion that enables us to identify the affective complexities entailed in political mobilization efforts such as democratization processes. For example, direct democracy as co-presence of people and democracy as re-presentation, according to Gebhardt (2021), manifest different affective orders: Whereas direct democracy thrives on ‘sticky’ (Ahmed, 2004) feelings of belonging ‘that might lead to social closure and cultural compartmentalization [. . .] representation modes of politics flourish on distance, (economic) rationality, and emotional soberness’ (Gebhardt, 2021: 133). In both cases, affects and emotions play an important role in liberal democracy (Nussbaum, 2013), yet in each case the affective economies that are produced and circulated are different and have different consequences.

Nussbaum (2013), in particular, argues that emotions are political in the sense that their presence has the power to advance political goals such as the functioning of democratic processes. However, at the same time, she emphasizes that emotions have the power to destabilize a political system, especially through the function of ‘negative emotions’ such as fear, anger, and resentment (Nussbaum, 2018). Thus, she distinguishes between ‘negative emotions’ that have a destabilizing impact and ‘good emotions’ such as feelings of tolerance, openness, and kindness that a liberal democracy, in her view, ought to cultivate among its citizens. While recognizing that political formations might indeed get in trouble when some emotional discourses function in destabilizing ways, Bens et al. (2019) argue that Nussbaum (2018) ‘is blind to the constitutive ambivalence of political affectivity’ (p. 16), particularly the possibility that even ‘negative’ affects and emotions can function in productive ways. Bens et al. (2019) are skeptical regarding a clear-cut classification of politically good and bad emotions, emphasizing in this manner the idea that all emotions can be productive or unproductive, depending on how they function politically rather than whether they ‘have’ an essence that classifies them in one category or another.

In recent years, negative emotions in political contexts (e.g. frustration, fear, anger, disgust, envy, etc.) have received increasing attention. A recent special issue on the politics of negative emotions (Degerman, 2020) highlights the profound impact of such emotions in the decline of democracy, drawing out both the constructive and destructive potential of these experiences. For example, Davies (2020) borrows Daniel Kahneman’s famous distinction between fast and slow thinking to distinguish between fast and slow anger; whereas slow anger grows over time in response to perceived injustices, fast anger arises automatically without much deliberation. In the hands of populists, fast anger can be deployed to focus on and legitimate immediate (often physical) action (see also Flinders, 2020; Leser and Spissinger, 2020), whereas slow anger can gradually grow into political action for social change. For this reason, Davies emphasizes the need to reflect on our anger in order to understand its sources and potential for quick or more thoughtful and sustainable change. In this sense, what a classroom context can do is to ‘slow down’ the intensity of negative emotions and explore their legitimacy and roots as well as their socially transformative potential. Exploring a case of backlash politics, where educational policymaking is motivated by negative emotions against asylum seekers’ visits to local schools, Pyy et al. (2020) also emphasize the importance of following established democratic procedures in political decision making and argue (drawing on Nussbaum) for the reinforcement of positive political emotions as a long-term educational objective. A bigger issue here, emerging from these studies on the politics of negative emotions, is what can turn negative emotions into constructive re-engagement in politics. As this is beyond the scope of this article, the last section of the paper focuses on the transformative potential of ‘ugly’ and ‘negative’ feelings in the context of democratic education in schools, exploring in particular how teachers may navigate students’ feelings of democratic disenchantment in pedagogically and politically productive ways.

Recognizing and navigating ugly and negative feelings in democratic education

In recent years, political emotions have received growing attention in the literature on citizenship and democratic education (e.g. Zembylas, 2009, 2014, 2018; Keegan, 2021; Knight Abowitz and Mamlok, 2019; Lo, 2017; Ruitenberg, 2009, 2015; Tryggvason, 2017, 2018). So far, this work has reiterated that just as affects and emotions are present in all human interactions, they are also present in schools and can be engaged in pedagogically productive or less productive ways. What matters for teachers, then, is not so much whether they should do something to ‘eliminate’ the possibility that negative emotions (e.g. anger, cynicism, frustration) get into the classroom, as if it was possible to do so; rather, the key issue is how teachers and youth can recognize and navigate critically and strategically the modes and calibrations of the affective and emotional registers that emerge (in schools and beyond) in relation to democratic disenchantment.

Following Ahmed’s (2010) suggestion that ‘feelings might be how structures get under our skin’ (p. 216), I explore here the affective dynamics of democratic politics through approaching post-democratic concerns of democratic disenchantment as a set of ‘negative’ and ‘ugly’ feelings with qualities that impact a range of political possibilities—from generating pedagogical moments and opportunities that rupture the affective economies of post-democratic concerns to those which reproduce such concerns. As the micro-political level (e.g. a classroom or a school) is equally important to the macro-political level (see Wodak, 2015), the micro-politics of democratic affective economies—as manifested in the ways that pedagogies, images, texts, and discourses of particular affects and emotions (e.g. fear, hope) are circulated in the classroom—have profound consequences for both radical democratic ruptures and un-democratic manifestations. In the literature on post-democracy and education, these important affective shifts have received very little attention so far, especially when it comes to ugly and negative feelings. Yet, their impact on the condition and further development of democracy and education can hardly be overestimated. Taking the transformative potential of ugly and negative feelings into account, the concept of post-democratic turn takes on a whole new meaning and value in the context of democratic education in schools.

In what follows, my contribution draws on Jenkins (2018) analysis of two ugly feelings (alienation and disgust), and two negative feelings (hatred and anger) to illustrate their relevance and consequences in the context of citizenship and democratic education. Although my analysis is largely theoretical, it draws on some primary empirical research of political emotions in the context of democratic education in schools, choosing a selection of ugly and negative feelings that have particular political significance and function for democratic disenchantment in neoliberal contexts (see Ngai, 2005). This section, then, seeks to create an opening in the study of democratic disenchantment in citizenship and democratic education by paying attention to ugly and negative emotions about democracy. Given that political disenchantment in general may arise from injustices complicit with representative politics (Tormey, 2015), it is crucial for democratic education and teachers in particular to examine more carefully the tensions as well as transformative possibilities emerging from delving into democratic disenchantment.

To begin, there is already considerable research documenting youth’s feelings of apathy or alienation toward politics and democracy (e.g. Dahl et al., 2018; Dermody et al., 2010; Fox, 2015). Alienation is a feeling of isolation, meaninglessness, despair, loss or autonomy, and powerlessness (Jenkins, 2018). As this research shows, alienation is often connected to oppression and marginalization, leading to further exclusion and difficulties for young people in participating fully in society and bringing further feelings of despair and powerlessness about the prospects of change. Systemic racism, poverty, and financial insecurity can lead young people to political disengagement and disillusionment with democratic politics, as their diminished capabilities and wellbeing in conjunction with the absence of real change produce a sustained feeling of democratic disenchantment.

The problem, according to Jenkins (2018), is that the solutions proposed by the disenchantment literature (e.g. cultivation of optimism, furthering of civic education) ‘appear to remain somewhat agnostic about situations of justice and inequality within democratic politics’ (p. 201). For example, when it comes to democratic education in schools, it is crucial to examine how different social groups of alienated youth feel toward a political system which has failed to protect or nurture them. Praising democracy in the abstract as an ideal system without acknowledging its failures to protect the rights and welfare of all people, rather than merely those of privileged groups, is deeply problematic. Democratic education should overcome the taboo of avoiding to critique democracy and its limitations out of fear that such a critique would undermine democracy. Democratic disenchantment is not born from misplaced or naïve negativity, as Jenkins (2018) correctly points out; it is based on harsh realities, thus interrogating the production and circulation of ugly feelings in everyday politics is crucial, if teachers and youth are going to delve into the affective complexities of public discourses and policies that fail expectations from democracy. Importantly, the pedagogical goal of engaging in this exploration is not to reinforce powerlessness but ‘to recognize that disenchantment has further sources and to seek to inspire or cultivate particular emotions’ (Jenkins, 2018: 202) such as hope or political anger for change (Zembylas, 2021).

Further to feelings of alienation, disgust, the ‘ugliest of ugly feelings’ (Ngai, 2005: 335), entails revulsion, aversion or repulsion elicited by the perception of objects linked to pathogens or infections (Jenkins, 2018). In a political context, disgust is associated with sharp divisions between we-and-they as a result of perceived differences with other groups, leading those groups to exclusion, stigmatization, and marginalization (Ahmed, 2004). In this sense, disgust is connected with moral evaluations that link sensibilities with culture, politics, and social norms; as Krebs (2010) explains, disgust ‘reaffirms our moral system, and our place in it, through gut reactions to those things which we consciously view as terrible or wrong’ (p. 84). For example, disgust can be directed toward political elites or other groups such as immigrants, ethnic minorities, liberal intellectual elites, and so on, thus constituting a form of political disenchantment (Jenkins, 2018).

In education, the widespread perception is that disgust is an illegitimate and dangerous political emotion that forms political and emotional divisions and often leads to violence, therefore, it should be confronted, condemned, and countered (Nussbaum, 2013). However, as Jenkins (2018) rightly points out, responding to disgust is a complicated public issue—and I would also argue, a pedagogical one—which requires careful attention and strategy, especially when it is connected with moral violations such as racism or colonialism. For example, young people in the classroom may be disgusted with the genocidal tactics of white settlers in many colonies (e.g. US and Canada) throughout the history of colonialism (Guibilini, 2018). To take a cruder example, others may feel disgusted toward immigrants or homosexuals. In either case, the triggers for disgust, might be something which requires understanding, debate, and compassion, even if the target of the disgust is unjustifiable, rather than countering or dismissing feelings of disgust altogether (Jenkins, 2018; Lupton, 2015). As I have previously argued, fostering affective solidarity in the classroom is an ethically, politically, and pedagogically valuable strategy for a ‘pedagogy of disgust’, because it does not only generate empathy for others’ suffering, but it also cultivates in youth a commitment to turn critical self-reflection on the visceral elements of disgust into transformative action—namely, action that challenges the affective order that is sustained through affective economies of disgust (Zembylas, 2020).

Like disgust, hatred is also perceived as an illegitimate political emotion (Jenkins, 2018). In research and theoretical accounts, hatred has generally been understood in two major ways: as an individual psychological phenomenon and as a social product (Blee, 2004); in both cases, hatred is grounded in the belief that someone or something is threatening and dangerous, because they violate social norms (Ahmed, 2004). In a political context, hate is often incited by politicians to target certain groups (e.g. immigrants, ethnic minorities) or the public may hate politicians because they distrust them, thus in many ways feelings of hatred are entangled with distrust, cynicism, and pessimism (Jenkins, 2018). Pedagogically speaking, it has been argued that recognizing the ambivalence of hatred (Yanay, 2002), that is, how hatred is full of contradiction and uncertainty and is not (always) absolute, can be helpful for teachers who are struggling to find pedagogical ways that deal productively with the powerful affective investments of hatred (Zembylas, 2007). Hatred has rarely been examined in educational research; in fact, many studies seldom make a differentiation between hatred and aggression or prejudice. However, it is extremely valuable to analyze the affective complexities of hatred, and consider its pedagogical implications in democratic education, especially in relation to the differences between hatred of politicians, democracy, representative politics, outcomes of neoliberalism, and so on (cf. Jenkins, 2018).

Finally, anger is also described as a ‘dangerous’ emotion that threatens rationality, social order, and constructive dialog, yet it is considered an important political emotion, because it motivates people to raise their voices against injustice and can be used to inspire transformation and social change (Lyman, 2004). Political anger is defined by Ruitenberg (2009) as ‘the indignation one feels when decisions are made and actions are taken that violate [. . .] the ethico-political values of equality and liberty that, one believes, would support a just society’ (p. 277). Recent research on political anger in the context of youth civic activism to address gun violence following a mass shooting shows how youth were driven by indignation for the normalization of gun violence (Knight Abowitz and Mamlok, 2019). The youth expressed their anger publicly by shaming politicians for failing to take action that prevented gun violence. This stance reiterates a broad understanding that anger is a crucial emotion for political mobilization, as it ‘might be deep, real, directed towards the injustices which have emerged from the system and potentially justifiable’ (Jenkins, 2018: 204). An important pedagogical consideration, then, is how to channel political anger not only for political deliberation about democracy and its failures, but also for how anger can become a site of resistance and social transformation (Zembylas, 2021; Keegan, 2021; Hattam and Zembylas, 2010).

Conclusion

Citizenship and democratic education can play a critical role in these times of post-democratic turn. A feminist affect theory perspective broadens the scope of analysis and critique for studying democratic disenchantment in the context of citizenship and democratic education, especially by drawing attention to ugly and negative emotions and exploring their transformative potential. The scope of studying democracy in citizenship and democratic education cannot be limited to idealizing or romanticizing democracy, while ignoring how citizens and youth feel about democracy and its failures or limitations. An exploration and pedagogical navigation of ugly and negative feelings associated with post-democracy is even more crucial during periods of heightened political tension and polarization in which democracy is questioned for its capability to protect or nurture all people. Therefore, it is important to examine and invent pedagogical approaches in citizenship and democratic education that recognize the gloomy ramifications of post-democracy in the daily life of teachers and young people and inspire transformative action that contribute toward practical ‘democratic innovations’ in the sphere of civil society.

In particular, ‘democratic innovations’ like creating mini-publics (Hammond, 2021) in a classroom or a school that expose and engage with negative emotions in ways that encourage campaign for equality and empowerment in all areas of society and through all channels available to youth and teachers, have the potential to create renewed affective economies of democratization. The cultivation of deliberative democracy skills may not be enough in the citizenship education classroom, as they often perpetuate the rules that reproduce the post-democratic constellation (see Hammond, 2021). To counteract this and instill productive democratic innovations, educational, and other interventions might need to ‘expose the ways in which even purportedly democratic practices [e.g. at a school or in civil society more generally] can delude and oppress citizens and be driven by power and interest’ (Hammond, 2021: 186, original emphasis). Hence, it is crucial for teachers to create opportunities for continued educational and societal investment in democracy ‘as a norm of empowerment against closure and domination’ (Hammond, 2021, original emphasis). Creating spaces to expose affective discontent with democracy, suggests Hammond, can motivate the broader interest in new practices that are needed for constantly reinventing democracy. Similarly, inventing and sustaining such spaces in the context of citizenship and democratic education shifts the focus away from skills that merely ‘activate’ youth in a superficial manner and toward genuine opportunities for the empowerment of oppressed citizens—for example through engaging in community projects that address real-world grievances and injustices.

In conclusion, I would argue, then, that teachers and researchers have an important task to develop our understanding of the transformative role of ugly and negative emotions in how youth orient themselves toward politics and democracy. Future research could consider how political emotions in citizenship and democratic education can inform and nurture sustained political commitment for democratic innovations. In particular, future work in this area needs to explore and explain exactly how to expose and engage productively with specific ugly and negative feelings in the classroom. Extending our understanding of how democratic disenchantment and social injustices are deeply inscribed in youth’s affective modes might allow all of us—teachers, researchers, parents, and the public at large—to develop a renewed democratization of our everyday lives.