Political behaviour research is divided into several explanatory approaches. They have in common that they disregard, to varying extents, the social bases of their explanatory concepts. To fill this void, the present article explores the theoretical advantages of applying Randal Collins’s ritual theory to political behaviour. The central claim is that any cognitive factor, such as interests, values, norms or identities has to be infused with emotional resonance in concrete social interaction in order to become a relevant motivation for political behaviour. Based on this argument, the article develops four testable propositions and discusses how they relate to existing approaches. The article concludes that ritual-based emotions are a unified motivational basis for political behaviour, which help understand which cognitive factor becomes politically relevant in a specific situation. The theoretical discussion is complemented with suggestions of how to study political rituals empirically.

中文翻译：

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我们应该把政治行为当作仪式来研究吗？迈向日常生活中政治的一般微观理论

政治行为研究分为几种解释方法。他们的共同点是，他们在不同程度上忽视了其解释性概念的社会基础。为了填补这一空白，本文探讨了将兰德尔柯林斯的仪式理论应用于政治行为的理论优势。核心主张是，任何认知因素，如兴趣、价值观、规范或身份，都必须在具体的社会互动中注入情感共鸣，才能成为政治行为的相关动机。基于这一论点，本文提出了四个可测试的命题，并讨论了它们与现有方法的关系。文章得出结论，基于仪式的情感是政治行为的统一动机基础，这有助于了解在特定情况下哪个认知因素与政治相关。理论讨论补充了如何从经验上研究政治仪式的建议。