Humans are just complex animals, and if animal behaviour will ultimately be explained by the study of physical, chemical, biological, and psychological ways, then a hard science of politics should be possible. While there is an art to politics, there are basic methods that explain political behaviour and patterns of voting and these can be discovered through the scientific reasoning.

Social norms are evident in the life of families, in the media, in schools and neighbourhoods and friendships, as well as in the actions of governments and citizens. Many academic disciplines pay attention to social norms. These are clearly reflected in political arenas too!

Political scientists typically spend their time examining the decisions and behaviours of government officials and citizens, the making of laws, and the actions of voters, interest groups, and those active in public-policy think tanks. Since the political community does function in many different ways—using or controlling force, making economic decisions, shaping social behaviour, gaining or losing trust, and so forth—a study of the political community will require a multi-modal or multi-dimentional approach. A study of politics must engage in a wide variety of reflections on starting assumptions, on human motivations, and on unique historical developments that are characteristic of political life. 

A political community of government and citizens does function in all the modalities of human experience. Thus, part of what it will take to develop a thorough science of the political community and of interstate and transnational relations will be an examination of how the political community functions numerically, spatially, psychologically, socially, economically, and in all other modes of its existence (1). This is why we should not be surprised that political scientists have learned and borrowed from sociologists, economists, psychologists, ethicists, and even physicists, mathematicians, and biologists to deal with  political decisions, judgments, arguments, allegiances, compliance (or not) with public laws, and ongoing development over the generations of politics. 

Politics is an ever-changing dramatic scenario and took several turns since ancient times and reflect the societies people live in and their thinking in terms of economic, patriotic, loyal, sentimental, neurotic and several such emotional aspects. What makes more complicated is political communities remain open to new judgments, to the consequences of war, to the outcomes of trade agreements, and to the successes and failures of international organizations. Therefore, the study of politics must include a full, empirical taking-into-account of the quality of all human actions. 

People think and feel in funny ways! 

Political scientist Jens Hainmueller figured out a way to test it: Due to an accident of topography, residents of Dresden, in East Germany, did not receive Western television (the city lies in a basin), while people who lived nearby did. Using a variety of data — surveys of attitudes and political views, exit-visa applications, and more — Hainmueller and his colleague Holger Lutz Kern of the University of South Carolina found that, other things being equal, East Germans with access to West German television were actually more supportive of the Communist regime than those who did not watch Western programming!

“Having Western television just made people more content with living there,” explains Hainmueller, now an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Political Science. “It provided entertainment, movies, soccer games. A lot had been written on the effects of political propaganda, but the design of this study gave us the opportunity to isolate cause and effect.”

Hmmm...

Now let us analyse how Science explains politics of recent times and what decides winning in elections...

It seems Brits are regretting. Regretting that they voted for a 'divorce from the EU'. Well, several of them! And most of them say they never seriously thought about the consequences before voting and went with emotions to the polling booth! They never took the warnings of experts seriously! 'Exactly like we expected', say pundits. People usually think with their 'hearts' (emotional part of brain) than their 'brains'(critical thinking part of brain). If politicians appeal to the  'hearts', they will win irrespective of the facts that really exist! That is what Brexit vote proved according to psychologists. 

UK voted to leave the European Union. This was despite the overwhelming number of experts saying that this would be a terrible idea. Yet, when the experts spoke, clearly majority of the population didn't listen.

Enough of specialists and their suggestions, both politicians and people thought. Because, what do they know about things, we can judge better than them right?  Completely wrong.

As the specialists predicted, the currency immediately plunged, the prospect of Scotland leaving the UK became “highly likely,” stock market is now in disarray and many people felt betrayed by their country. Most authoritative analyses of the economic impacts of Brexit suggest that it will seriously damage growth, and possibly lead to recession in the U.K. Some of those who voted to leave immediately felt “regrexit” about their choice. Hate crimes are increasing (6,7).

And with less collaborations and funding, science is also likely to suffer severely, according to scientists (3, 5)! Successful modern science is based on the principles of openness and collaboration that are the antithesis of the "Little England" attitude of many campaigners who promoted Brexit. Polls reveal that voters with higher university qualifications were much more likely to support remaining in the E.U. It is probable, therefore, that the overwhelming majority of researchers have found themselves on the losing side in the referendum. Coupled with the uncertainty and the expectations of potential isolation, fewer opportunities and less funding, this could deal a devastating blow to the morale of researchers in the U.K. Unfortunately the nightmare of intellectuals is coming true!

Why did people put themselves in such a difficult situation despite expert warning? 

Pro-Brexit politicians mimicked Trump's campaign tactics and won. Far beyond the comparatively sensible argument of political sovereignty, Brexit campaigners won with anti-immigration insults, lies, and a misguided attempt to reclaim a past that never was. The press claimed Brits needed to make Britain great again.

That’s not to say that the remain campaign did not try to use the fear as well - particularly the fear of a ruined economy—to try to keep the UK in the EU, but this was not nearly as emotional an appeal as the tactics used by the Brexit camp.

The influence of false memories of a glorious past on political voting apart, xenophobia and expert shaming are on another level all-together and the worst part of the the referendum. Brexit campaigners told people to ignore specialists and scientists who were against Brexit (4) and people listened! And how!

If these tactics can win in the UK, they can also win in the US and in any part of the world. This is a warning to all the voters in all parts of the world.

The kind of fear-driven political propaganda used by Trump and the Brexiters is called argumentum ad metum, or an ‘appeal to fear.’ This is a logically unsound way of presenting information. This approach tries to argue (2)...

Either A or B is true. B is scary. Therefore, A is true.

Although this is an invalid argument, making no logical sense, on its surface it can be quite compelling. This is because fear is a powerful motivator, in terms of memory and decision-making.

Experts say emotion and memory have a very complex relationship. Research suggests that, overall, we are more likely to remember a statement that is highly emotional than something that is not.

This is mostly because adding emotions to claims means that we are storing two separate things - the claim and the emotion. For memory, this adds some complexity to the storage of this information in your brain, making a bigger memory network that is more likely to be recalled later.

We also know that emotions, particularly fear, can have a profound impact on decision making. When we are afraid, or asked to focus on arguments based on fear, we generally shift into something called peripheral processing.

Peripheral processing happens when we form an opinion based on cues that surround an argument, at its periphery. This is the information, like emotion, or the attractiveness of a speaker, that is related to how a message is presented rather than the message itself.

Usually voters are not interested in detailed specifics experts present. When people are not motivated by the content, according to psychologists, they depend on 'attractiveness' of both politicians and their 'appealing to emotion' speeches to decide whom to vote! 

This is why arguments suggesting that the EU is bullying the U.K., or that migrants to the U.S. could be undercover ISIS agents, lead to decisions that are often less-than-evidence-based.

Why do ordinary people ignore experts? And stick with stupidity?!

Peripheral processing is also why people might ignore the advice of experts. They are focusing on their emotion and other things that don’t actually contribute to the logic of an argument (2). In fact emotions interfere with critical thinking and that is why scientists are trained to bottle up their emotions when they are entering their labs.

Peripheral processing stands in contrast to so-called central processing. Central processing refers to situations in which we try to make deliberate arguments where we weigh the evidence and logic of the argument. This is almost always what experts and scientists do.

These are both part of something called the Elaboration Likelihood Model. This model suggests that we rarely can engage in both types of decision-making at once. That means that if we have been lulled into a superficial (peripheral), engagement with the information that we are asked to make decisions about, this largely excludes our ability to process the information deeply (central).

When politicians argue that people don’t need expert advice to decide whom to vote, they are actively trying to push you from using central processing to a peripheral approach. They are asking you to turn off your logic and turn on your emotion, because they know that it is difficult to use logic once fear and other emotions take over. 

This is also why politicians like Trump and the Brexiters like to say they represent "ordinary people". Presenters of such arguments are trying to make you feel negative against an imaginary opponent (like the ones from other castes, states, countries) driving you towards xenophobia, against non-locals and trying to get you to disregard evidence and logic.

So science of politics says: Know that emotion-based campaigns can be incredibly compelling, and that they can severely cloud memory and decision making. Don’t repeat the mistakes of the British EU ‘Remain’ campaign, which severely overestimated the impact of calling on evidence and experts to convince people to vote in their favour.

If you want an effective campaign, you need more than logic and evidence, you also need a strong appeal to fundamental emotions. And make people fear, blind and peripheral thinkers! Shut off their critical, central thinking capabilities totally, you have 'a sure success' in your basket!

Voters, beware of these tactics of politicians and try to use  central processing units of your brain to decide whom to vote! Then and then only you will get the person that really deserves to govern you. Otherwise you will suffer. Learn from other's experiences. 

Remember science has warned you and tried to help you by thoroughly analyzing the problem and explain it to you. Now it is your turn to take the right decisions.

My poem on this theme:

  References:

1. A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, III, trans. David H. Freeman and H. de Jongste, series A., vol. 3 of The Collected Works of Herman Dooyeweerd, ed. D.F.M. Strauss (Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 1997, 1957), 379-508. See James W. Skillen, “Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea: Herman Dooyeweerd’s Political and Legal Thought,”The Political Science Reviewer, vol. 32 (2003), 318-80. See also Skillen, “Toward a Comprehensive Science of Politics.”

2. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/brexit-and-trum...

3. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/10/brexit-disaster-for...

4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/12189587/Stephen-H...

5. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2095198-angry-scientists-must-...

6. http://time.com/4383404/brexit-hate-crime-uk-racism/

7. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-hate-crime-ra...