Purring for power: how politicians turn pets into political capital
Not only did Belgium’s prime minister Bart De Wever (N-VA) make headlines this year. So did his cat Maximus. Adopted last summer, the Scottish Fold has been present during both tense negotiations and lighter moments. He even has an Instagram account. The question is not whether Maximus is charming - he definitely is - but why politicians are increasingly placing their pets at the centre of public view.
De Wever and Maximus are far from alone. Across democracies, pets have become a reliable means of political communication, used to create a more approachable image, humanise power and, crucially, capture attention. Political pets have been around for a long time in the UK and US. Barack Obama had dogs, Bill Clinton had a cat, and there is Larry the cat at 10 Downing Street, who is still famously unimpressed. Belgium arrived later to this trend, but De Wever has confidently embraced it, turning Maximus into a quiet yet effective brand asset.
Historically, pets served a very different political purpose. In ancient times and the early modern period, rulers kept animals as a form of conspicuous consumption to demonstrate their wealth and power. However, in the mass-democratic societies of the 20th-century United States, that symbolism was inverted. Pets became tools of relatability. Even the most powerful person in the country could appear ordinary: an 'everyman' with a dog or cat and a domestic life.
Social media has accelerated and refined this process. As political communication shifted to platforms designed for engagement, the personalisation of political figures intensified. Pets - especially dogs, but increasingly cats - fit perfectly into a media landscape that rewards warmth, intimacy, and emotional immediacy. They offer politics without policy and connection, without contention.
This matters because virality is not accidental. Platform algorithms prioritise content that is most likely to trigger engagement, based on users' past behaviour, such as likes, shares and follows. Pets are algorithm-friendly. Research shows that content that evokes strong emotions, such as joy or surprise, is around twice as likely to be shared. Cat videos deliver this on a large scale, ranging from gentle domestic scenes to sudden comic unpredictability.
Relatability amplifies this effect. Politicians who present themselves as pet owners tap into a shared social experience that transcends class and ideology. Add to this the ease of sharing and trend dynamics, and the communications equation becomes clear.
There is also a deeper psychological dividend. Studies in social psychology find that people judge pet owners as warmer, kinder and more trustworthy than those without animals. In political terms, a cat on a desk or a dog in the garden can counterbalance perceptions of aloofness or technocratic distance, an effect that persists even when voters are perfectly aware of the performance.
None of this makes Maximus or Larry the cat mere props. But it does underline how thoroughly pets have been instrumentalised in contemporary politics. In an era of fragmented attention and relentless competition for visibility, a well-timed paw on the keyboard may be worth more than a thousand carefully drafted words.
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