The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

by Drew Westen
The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

by Drew Westen

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Overview

The Political Brain is a groundbreaking investigation into the role of emotion in determining the political life of the nation. For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists -- and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind as a cool calculator that makes decisions by weighing the evidence bears no relation to how the brain actually works. When political candidates assume voters dispassionately make decisions based on "the issues," they lose. That's why only one Democrat has been re-elected to the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt -- and only one Republican has failed in that quest.

In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.

Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. He shows how it can be done through examples of what candidates have said -- or could have said -- in debates, speeches, and ads. Westen's discoveries could utterly transform electoral arithmetic, showing how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years -- such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it. And here's how

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781586485993
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Publication date: 05/06/2008
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Pages: 496
File size: 668 KB

About the Author

Drew Westen received his B.A. at Harvard, an M.A. in Social and Political Thought at the University of Sussex (England), and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he subsequently taught for six years. For several years he was Chief Psychologist at Cambridge Hospital and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He is a commentator on NPR's All Things Considered and lives in Atlanta.

Table of Contents


Introduction     ix
Mind, Brain, and Emotion in Politics
Winning States of Mind     3
Rational Minds, Irrational Campaigns     25
The Evolution of the Passionate Brain     45
The Emotions Behind the Curtain     69
Special Interests in Mind     89
Trickle-up Politics     117
A Blueprint for Emotionally Compelling Campaigns
Writing an Emotional Constitution     145
Aborting Ambivalence     171
Gunning for Common Ground     193
Racial Consciousness and Unconsciousness     219
Death and Taxes     249
Hope, Inspiration, and Political Intelligence     283
Positively Negative     317
Terror Networks     349
Civil and Uncivil Unions     377
Acknowledgments     421
Notes     423
Index     427

What People are Saying About This

Howard Dean

"Drew Westen is a must read. We will win the Presidency if our candidate reads and acts on this book"-- (Howard Dean)

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