Abstract

In representative democracies, trust between the governing and the governed is of central importance to bridge the gap that emerges between electoral events. Accordingly, political performances are adjusted to presenting political actors not only as competent, but more fundamentally as trustworthy. Starting off from a narratological perspective, in this contribution I will reflect on the relevance of empathy and emotions for such political performances. I will argue that we can currently observe the emergence of a specific variant of producing trustworthiness which presents politics as a complex, burdensome and painful business. This type of narrative aims at evoking empathy on the part of the governed by claiming to give insight into the emotional states and painful experiences of political actors. According to this rationale, trust is supposed to emerge due to the fact that politicians would face the same struggles and dilemmas as ›ordinary people‹ do. I will reconstruct the narrative logic of this trust performance on the basis of recent examples of political communication, try to make sense of why it has recently emerged and reflect on both its potentials and risks for democratic governing.