In their aim of achieving consensus, deliberative strategies have mainly relied on expertise and on professional agenda setting that would support policy makers thereby evacuating emotions. This reflection thinks of emotions as elements structuring deliberation and gives a set of example from the recent Czech policy context ranging from example of urban planning conflicts to health care policy agendas. These distinctive examples show us how emotions can guide us through the main challenges of deliberation: the ambivalence of knowledge supporting the aims of setting up a deliberation, the institutional ambiguity through which deliberation attracts various actors and audiences, and the modes of presentation and communication through which deliberation is performed.
