European Policy Analysis
people are tired of experts , but rather how people lack trust in these experts ’ policymaking . Jean Pisani-Ferry ( 2016 ) has highlighted two interesting reasons why voters resisted the advice of experts and voted to leave ; the lack of trust of experts and how people felt “ left behind ”. Consequently , he argues that the lack of trust of expertise had its starting point with the financial and economic crises that hit the UK very hard ; the real wages in the UK fell by about 10.4 % between 2007 and 2015 ( Trades Union Congress report ). The geographical areas that suffered the largest reductions in average wages turned out to be the ones where most people were likely to vote for Brexit . A question raised by Queen Elizabeth , and many others , during a visit to the London School of Economics when the financial crises had just started was : “ why did no one see it coming ”? The economic crisis and its aftermath was an important breeding ground for criticism of experts according to Pisani-Ferry . Secondly , he highlights that the economic arguments put forward by the Remain side mainly spoke about positive net contributions to the UK ’ s financial system , but forgot to mention the policy effects distributed over time and among social classes . Thus , the arguments failed to pay attention to , for example , the experience of workers who had been affected by downward pressure on wages . The combination of negative experiences of free movement and the lack of trust of the experts and their knowledge production , we argue , are important factors to understanding why some people did not trust or follow the experts ’ advice to remain in the Union . Nor should one underestimate the impact of some 50 years of negative publicity for the European project . The experts in Brussels and in European institutions have been blamed for many of the ills in British society — often by the very same political establishment that now argued to Remain . Hypocrisy — just the suspicion of it — is not a winning feature in political debates .
Concluding Remarks
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle already made a distinction between the role of facts and feelings in politics , or as he called it pathos — emotion — and logos — reason . Rather than choosing one or the other , Aristotle claimed that a winning politician needs both ( as well as ethos — ethics ). In order for politicians to be considered trustworthy , Aristotle claimed that they needed to engage both emotionally with voters and present well-grounded facts that appeal to voters ’ reason . In spite of Aristotle ’ s appeal to a holistic understanding of arguments and comprehensive view of rationality that encompasses pathos , logos , and ethos , the distinction between pathos and logos , in particular , is a very powerful figure of speech . It is thus not surprising that it plays a major role in social and political analysis more than 2000 years later . It is a figure of thought that has been , and is , persistent in Western philosophy . From there it influences all the social sciences . In recent years , political scientists Amartya Sen ( 2002 ) and Martha Nussbaum ( 1986 , 2001 ) have written on the need to integrate rational , intellectual logic , and feeling , and have convincingly shown that a distinction between the two is false . And thus is not suitable for a comprehensive analysis of important social issues to frame facts and feelings as competing narratives .
What stands out in the debate surrounding the EU Referendum is how facts , reason , feelings , and emotions have been pitted against each other — as if a winning political argument either rests on
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