ABSTRACT
Politics involves strange processes of alchemy. Dials are useful for writing about democratic politics with a sense of proportion. Introducing the idea of ‘dials’ might force us to explain more systematically why specific relationships, processes or events are more significant than others. Politicians do politics with the dial turned up because they walk with even more friends and foes, and engage in more bitter power struggles, with more at stake, than the rest of us. The dial of intensity – of emotion, pleasure, pain, cultural significance, political impact – is higher for politicians meaning that what they do tends to be magnified compared to ordinary people. Politicians doing politics is magnified beyond others doing politics, rather like mental illness is an amplification of the kinds of disturbance that everyone feels for short periods of time.
