訪問教授として義塾滞在中（2026年4、5月）のクリスチャン・フォン＝シェーフェ、ベルリン自由大学教授は、Emotions in Politics: Everyday Interactions, Polarized Relations, and the Contestation of Emotions（政治における感情—日常の相互作用、二極化された関係、感情の対立）という論題で、4月21日夕刻（6限）に客員講演を行いました。
この講演はフォン＝シェーフェ教授の最近の研究成果をまとめたものであり、政治的対立を単なる利害・イデオロギー・制度配置の問題としてではなく、感情が構成する相互作用過程として捉え直す試みです。気候変動、パンデミック、戦争、自由民主主義秩序の動揺などが重なる「ポリクライシス（多重危機）」の時代には、社会を分断する政治的コンフリクトが多発しています。従来のコンフリクト理論、社会運動論、熟議民主主義論、分極化研究は、感情に言及してきたものの、それをしばしば原因・副産物・ノイズとして扱ってきました。これに対し本講演で教授は、感情を政治的生活の「インフラ」として位置づけ、誰が発言し、誰に耳が傾けられ、集団がどのように形成・分裂し、対立がどの条件でエスカレートするのかを説明する中心要因と位置づけました。
講演で紹介された分析は、ミクロ・メゾ・マクロの三つのレベルにわたっています。第一に、ミクロレベルの日常的な政治的会話は単なる熟議ではなく、共在・共通焦点・同調をともなう相互行為儀礼であり、肯定、緊張、不快、承認、連帯といった感情エネルギーを生み出します。2025年ドイツ連邦議会選挙周辺の経験サンプリング調査では、政治をテーマにした相互行為は「食卓型」「ピア型」「偶発的遭遇型」に分かれ、意見一致だけでなく、親密性、相手の感情表出、地位主張的な手がかりなどが感情的帰結を左右することが示されました。第二に、こうした日常的相互作用は感情的アライメントを通じて集団境界を作り、「われわれ」と「彼ら」の関係を構成します。気候政策や難民政策をめぐる調査では、進歩派・保守派の分極化は単なる意見差ではなく、怒り、嫌悪、軽蔑、喜びなどの集団間感情の非対称な配分として現れています。
第三に、感情的アライメントは集合行為を促進します。とくに進歩的気候政策の支持者では、感情的に同調しているという感覚が、デモや市民的不服従など可視的・相互行為的な抗議参加を強く予測します。ただしその効果は一様ではなく、争点、組織成員性、抗議形態によって異なります。最後に講演では、感情が対立を生むだけでなく、感情そのものが争点化されることが強調されました。政治的陣営は政策や戦略だけでなく、どの感情が正当か、怒りは適切か、恐怖や羞恥は妥当かをめぐって争います。したがって政治的対立の理解には、感情を外在的要因ではなく、相互行為、集団形成、集合行為、公共的言説を貫く構成的力として分析する必要があると、フォン＝シェーフェ教授は結論づけました。講演後には積極的な質疑応答がなされました。
通訳無し、英語のみの講演にもかかわらず、塾員、通信課程生、他大学教授を含めたオンライン参加者ら計20名弱が参加し、問題への関心の高さを伺わせました。なお、本講演は森川剛光教授（文学部、大学院社会学研究科）の主催する社会学研究コロキアムの一環であり、社会学研究コロキアムは定期的に国外大学研究者の講演会を企画しています。
During his stay at Keio University as a Visiting Professor in April and May 2026, Professor Christian von Scheve (Freie Universität Berlin) delivered a guest lecture on the evening of April 21, entitled “Emotions in Politics: Everyday Interactions, Polarized Relations, and the Contestation of Emotions.”
The lecture summarized Professor von Scheve’s recent research and sought to reconceptualize political conflict not merely as a matter of interests, ideologies, or institutional arrangements, but as an interactional process constituted by emotions. In an age of “polycrisis,” in which climate change, pandemics, wars, and the destabilization of the liberal-democratic order overlap, political conflicts that divide society have become increasingly frequent. Although conventional conflict theory, social movement theory, deliberative democratic theory, and polarization research have referred to emotions, they have often treated them as causes, by-products, or noise. In contrast, Professor von Scheve positioned emotions as an “infrastructure” of political life and as a central factor in explaining who speaks, who is listened to, how groups are formed and divided, and under what conditions conflicts escalate.
The analyses presented in the lecture extended across three levels: micro, meso, and macro. First, at the micro level, everyday political conversations are not merely instances of deliberation, but interaction rituals involving co-presence, shared focus, and entrainment. They generate emotional energy such as affirmation, tension, discomfort, recognition, and solidarity. An experience-sampling study conducted around the 2025 German federal election showed that interactions concerning political topics can be classified into three types: “kitchen-table,” “peer,” and “incidental encounter” interactions. The study also showed that emotional outcomes are shaped not only by opinion agreement, but also by intimacy, the emotional expressions of the interaction partner, and status-assertive cues. Second, these everyday interactions create group boundaries through emotional alignment and constitute relations between “us” and “them.” In surveys on climate policy and asylum policy, the polarization between progressives and conservatives appeared not simply as a difference of opinion, but as an asymmetrical distribution of intergroup emotions such as anger, disgust, contempt, and joy.
Third, emotional alignment promotes collective action. Especially among supporters of progressive climate policies, the sense of being emotionally aligned with others strongly predicts visible and interactive forms of protest participation, such as demonstrations and civil disobedience. However, this effect is not uniform; it differs according to the issue, organizational membership, and form of protest. Finally, the lecture emphasized that emotions not only generate conflict, but also become objects of contestation in their own right. Political camps struggle not only over policies and strategies, but also over which emotions are legitimate, whether anger is appropriate, and whether fear or shame is justified. Professor von Scheve therefore concluded that, in order to understand political conflict, emotions must be analyzed not as external factors, but as constitutive forces that run through interaction, group formation, collective action, and public discourse. The lecture was followed by a lively question-and-answer session.
Although the lecture was delivered entirely in English without interpretation, nearly twenty participants attended, including Keio alumni, correspondence-course students, and professors from other universities who joined online. This indicated a strong interest in the topic. The lecture was held as part of the Colloquium in Sociology organized by Professor Takemitsu Morikawa of the Faculty of Letters and the Graduate School of Human Relations. The Colloquium in Sociology regularly organizes lectures by researchers from universities abroad.