Tears Behind the Microphone: The Strategic Use of Emotions by Opposition Parties in Thai Parliamentary Debates

During the 2019–2023 Prayuth administration, tensions were high between establishment forces and progressive movements. This study examines how opposition parties strategically mobilised emotional rhetoric during the Thai parliamentary special session of 26–27 October 2020 to voice public sentiment and challenge the government's emotional regime. Linking the concepts of emotional regime and emotional emancipation with Emotional Discourse Analysis, the study analyses emotion markers used by 41 opposition MPs across 7 parties in parliamentary debates. Three strategies emerge: (1) blaming and delegitimising the government's emotional framing, (2) re-narrating dominant emotional discourses, and (3) proposing emotionally charged solutions to national crises. Through emotional discourses of love, loyalty, fear, hatred, and hope, MPs challenged state narratives and sought to advance alternative affective norms supportive of democratic agency. The findings demonstrate how emotional discourse functions as a site of political struggle in hybrid regimes, illuminating the affective dynamics underpinning Thailand's democratic transformation.