Kidnapping politics: The sorcerer’s apprentice effect

Abstract Elected leaders often manipulate public emotions during kidnapping crises to advance political goals, yet they can also become trapped by the very ‘captivity passions’ they stoke. We call this the sorcerer’s apprentice effect, after Goethe’s tale, to capture a recurring pattern in democracies across time and cultures. Politicised captivity arises in contexts of interstate conflict or terrorism, where the seizure of individuals triggers a volatile mix of public emotion and political opportunism. Drawing on scholarship of emotion in international relations, we show how political entrepreneurs mobilise anger, fear, and contempt – amplified by media, civil society, and state institutions – to rally electoral support. These same emotions, however, can constrain leaders’ future choices. Case studies reveal that efforts to exploit kidnappings for political gain often backfire: Adenauer (USSR) found lasting success, but Nixon (Vietnam), Reagan (Iran), Abe (North Korea), and Netanyahu (Gaza) illustrate how early wins can sow costly failures. Policy failure surely has many causes, but in our analysis, the broader the emotional repertoire leaders attempt to harness, the greater the risk of unintended and counterproductive outcomes.