Purposive Benefits, Moral Foundations, and Political Party Activism

• In Event: Social Movements and Parties, Crisis and Change

Abstract

Existing theories of political party activism identify important selective incentives that provide material, solidary, and purposive benefits to activists. In today’s highly polarized environment, the importance of purposive benefits would seem to loom large, as partisans’ issue preferences diverge and the costs of seeing the other party succeed in its policy goals increase substantially. Yet we know relatively little about the nature of these benefits and do not fully understand why some people derive enough purposive benefits from party activity to justify volunteering their time and energy for political causes, while others do not. This study conceptualizes purposive benefits as a function of the intensity of each person’s moral intuitions and attachments. Moral foundations theory identifies a number of distinct moral foundations related to particular moral concerns such as fairness, care, loyalty, etc., to which people have varying levels of affinity. Studies have found variations in the particular foundations different people embrace, with distinct patterns differentiating liberals and conservatives. The core hypothesis of this study is that individuals with particularly strong moral attachments derive more purposive benefits from political activity and will therefore be more likely to engage in political party activism. I test this hypothesis by comparing moral foundation attachments in the general population with two activist populations: local political party chairs and local party volunteers.

Author

• Douglas D. Roscoe