Politics can be emotional. People are elated when their party wins an election and upset when their party loses. When elections are not possible, anger can drive people to the streets to protest an authoritarian regime, joy may ring out if a ruthless dictator is toppled, and resignation may set in if new leaders do not meet expectations. Regardless of topic — foreign policy, international trade, the welfare state, immigration or climate policy — political discussions often become heated. It does not matter whether the debate occurs around the family dinner table or on the floor of parliament. To make good policy, we might hope that policymakers are rational and level-headed, but at the same time emotional debate can be engaging and exciting. Emotions are omnipresent in politics and the role of emotions can be studied from normative and positive perspectives, using a wide variety of methodologies, across any number of contexts, across countries, by examining both political elites as well as citizens, and in every subfield of political science. Emotions politics will provide a guiding theme for the annual congress of the 2026 Swiss Political Science Association.