Politics in a post-truth era

The concept of post-truth, where facts are deemed less important than beliefs, is one that has recently been frequently invoked when making sense of the modern political campaigning environment. The suggestion is that political campaigns exploit and reinforce strongly held beliefs, encouraging the disavowal of contrasting facts, in order to undermine support for the arguments of opponents.

Post-truth has become most associated with campaigns that invoke more populist arguments. Such arguments give voice to privately held beliefs, often hidden by norms of societies which reinforce pejorative stereotypes based on religious and racial differences, gendering of roles and discussing myths of us (as a nation and people) and the others whose differences mark them as not us. Hence there are far-reaching implications of such practices for democratic societies.

The workshop will explore the underlying themes and implications of this phenomenon including: Is post truth really new, What does a post-truth campaign look like, Why might beliefs influencing voting behaviour over logic and reason, How does post-truth link to the marketisation and professionalization of campaigning, What does post-truth tell us about the current and future state of democratic engagement and of democracy itself.

The workshop will take place over two days with various panels and roundtables discussions from academics from the U.K. and Europe.

A copy of the programme, with more information on the location, publication, and information for speakers, can be viewed: here.