Decentring Deliberation: Political Emotions in the Climate Discourse of Spiritual Communities

This paper explores the significance of emotions in global climate politics and challenges the dominant technocratic paradigm which mainly relies on scientific expertise and economic concerns. I start with the assumption that the current climate discourse is heavily influenced by Eurocentric approaches to knowledge rooted in modernity and rationalism. Although science-based arguments for urgent climate action outweigh climate change denial in public debates, policy makers still fail to implement effective large-scale climate policies. This is underlined by a public lack of commitment to change, especially in Western democracies. Therefore, I suggest that science alone might not be sufficient to motivate a profound environmental transformation in modern societies.

I argue that emotions need to be taken seriously as a form of knowledge and am especially interested in how they influence political deliberation beyond the technocratic paradigm. In a decentred approach, I focus on spiritual communities to demonstrate how multiple understandings can confront the climate crisis from different angles. Rather than necessarily rejecting climate science, such discourses often highlight different values in relation to the environment. Applying the interpretative approach, emotions serve me as a critical lens to analyse how spiritual narratives on climate change frame political priorities in this regard. Taking Tibetan Buddhism as a case study, I conduct an Emotional Discourse Analysis of texts on climate change by Tibetan Buddhist leaders such as the Dalai Lama or the Karmapa.

My research contributes to the sociology of emotions which understands emotions as structurally embedded and rejects the dichotomy of rationality and emotions. By challenging the hegemony of technocratic reasoning in modern politics, I aim to make a case for broadening the discussion about climate change. I propose that including a diversity of narratives in policy deliberation can foster depolarisation among democratic publics and thus increase the acceptance of climate policies.