ABSTRACT
There is growing interest in political phenomenology in the role that affectivity and emotions play in the political realm. Broadly speaking, it has been suggested that political emotions fall into two sub-categories: political emotions of allegiance and political emotions of antagonism. However, what makes an emotion one of allegiance or one of antagonism has yet to be explored. This chapter shows how work done on the phenomenology of emotions, the phenomenology of sociality, and critical phenomenology can inform our understanding of political emotions. Inspired by frameworks from each of these fields, three ‘levels’ of phenomenological analysis are introduced with regard to antagonistic political emotions: (1) the antagonistic character of the emotion, (2) the antagonistic role in group dynamics, and (3) a critical reflection on the very notion of antagonistic. Through this three-pronged phenomenological analysis, it is shown how we can better understand and critique the conceptualisation of political emotions of antagonism and allegiance. It will further show that whether an emotion is considered one of allegiance or antagonism depends on the level of analysis that is employed.
