In bringing together the literature on post-democracy and theoretical work on the politics of affective societies, this article explores how democratic education might benefit from a sustained examination of negative emotions and affects associated with democratic disenchantment. In particular, the analysis highlights what is gained by introducing…

This paper draws on the concept of affective atmospheres to theorize how democracy and democratic education take hold and circulate in classrooms and schools. The paper asks under which circumstances affective atmospheres are experienced or even 'engineered', encompassing affective and material features that (de)legitimate democracy, democratic…

This essay contributes to scholarly discussions on the affective politics of demagoguery, especially in relation to the rhetoric of white victimhood and resentment, by exploring how civics education could formulate an anti-demagogic pedagogical response. Contemporary understandings of demagoguery as a rhetoric that emphasizes in-group identity and…

This article utilizes feminist and postcolonial scholarship to shed light on the affective governmentality that takes place in the context of both liberal democracy and right-wing populism. In particular, it articulates a political grammar of feelings that makes visible in democratic education how affective modes of governing operate and what…

This article argues that it is important to understand militarism in schools as an affectively felt practice that reproduces particular feelings in youth and the society. The analysis draws on affect theory and especially feminist scholarly work that theorises "militarism as affect" to consider how militarism is affectively lived in…

The purpose of this essay is to revisit the notion of indoctrination in education by providing a summary of the field and highlighting the role of affects and emotions in the aftermath of the 'affective turn'. It is argued that "affective indoctrination"--defined as the emotional coercion or manipulation that, arguably, any form of…

This paper brings together Arendt's insights on evil and thinking along with her concerns about the role of emotions in political life. The central questions driving this exploration are two: How does Arendt understand 'thinking' in her theory of evil and what can educators learn from this? What are her concerns about the role of emotions in…

This paper analyses the emotional governance of responses to terrorist attacks and examines the extent to which affective pedagogies in civic education may contest the emotional norms that are institutionalised in society. This analysis is important, not only because it makes visible how forms of violence (especially terrorism) have an emotional…

This article examines the important role of affect in pedagogical efforts to engage students with complicity in the social justice classroom. Recent theoretical shifts on affect and complicity enable education scholars and practitioners to move the focus away from what we do not want (i.e., more complicity) toward anti-complicity. The new openings…

This article engages with the notion of 'post-fascism' in contemporary times, and explores how attention to the affective ideology of post-fascism can inform pedagogical thinking that cultivates an "anti-fascist sensibility" in education. It is argued that to do so, it is necessary to somehow break fascism's grip on the body and its…

The aim of this article is to use necropolitics and sentimentality as theoretical entry points to broaden understandings of death as a form of power against subjugated (e.g. Black, migrant, refugee) lives. This theorising is approached through the dilemma of showing or not showing dead-body images in the classroom as an ethical, political and…

This paper asks: when political emotions are invoked in the classroom, can this be done without the process of democratic education degenerating into a form of emotional and/or political indoctrination? The source of inspiration for addressing this question is Hannah Arendt's political thought on emotion and education. The aim of the article is to…

This paper discusses Butler's theory on the possibility of precarity to serve as the nexus of ethical relations, while also exploring some of the pitfalls of her theorization to reconceptualize the pedagogical implications of a "critical pedagogy for precarity." In particular, the paper asks: How can precarity--understood as an…

This paper focuses on conceptualizing the notion of "affective nationalism" in education by addressing some key theoretical and methodological considerations. Theorizing the concept of affective nationalism in education is crucial for two reasons. First, it takes into consideration recent theoretical developments on affect, materiality,…

This article takes up Foucault's politics of human rights and suggests that it may constitute a point of departure for the renewal of HRE, not only because it rejects the moral superiority of humanism--the grounding for the dominant liberal framework of international human rights--but also because it makes visible the complexities of human rights…