Voters' Preferences for Parties' Moral Rhetoric

Moral rhetoric in party messages reflect parties' attempts to represent voters' moral values. This paper conceptualizes moral rhetoric as a form of moral representation and explores the demand side of such moral representation. Do voters want parties to use moral rhetoric? Based on insights about the link between morality and politics, I argue that moral rhetoric is preferred by a broad set of voters, including copartisans and non-copartisans. Specifically, moral rhetoric is likely to be favored by not only supporters of the party, but also non-supporters with strong moral convictions about politics. Using original surveys in six countries and additional studies in the UK, I find evidence in support of my argument that moral representation is wanted by voters beyond the party base. Unlike extant work, the paper points to the unifying potential of morality in politics. It also opens up a way to empirically study moral representation in politics.