Skip to main content

A Psychosocial Study of Political Followership: The Case of the Young Corbynites.

Yates, C. and Weissmann, D., 2018. A Psychosocial Study of Political Followership: The Case of the Young Corbynites. Journal of Psychosocial Studies, 11 (2), 1-32.

Full text available as:

[img] PDF
Revised Yates and Weissmann Psychosocial studies article June 2018.pdf - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

144kB
[img]
Preview
PDF
Candida-Yates-Daniel-Weissmann-A-Psychosocial-Study-of-Political-Followership-The-case-of-the-young-Corbynites%281%29.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

539kB

Official URL: http://www.psychosocial-studies-association.org/vo...

Abstract

This article presents a new Psychosocial approach to the concept of political followership by focusing on the appeal for young people of UK Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn during the 2015 Labour Leadership contest. Whilst there is an established field of political leadership studies, the psychosocial dynamics of political followership has received less attention. We argue that in the current era of rapid change and of social, economic and political crises, there is a need to develop a nuanced understanding of the affective turn in political engagement within social democratic countries. We trace the emergence of a new interest in political followership and present an innovative psychosocial perspective that draws on relational psychoanalysis to explore the psychosocial complexity of the relationship between follower and leader and the unconscious dynamics that underpin it. Drawing on the findings of focus group interviews into political followership, the article elaborates on these ideas through their application to the analysis of UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and his appeal for young followers who joined the party because his political image, ethos and values chimed in with the post-materialistic ethos of the younger generation.

Item Type:Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:Political followership; Relational psychoanalysis; young voters; Generation Y
Group:Faculty of Media & Communication
ID Code:30819
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:05 Jun 2018 10:58
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 14:11

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

More statistics for this item...
Repository Staff Only -