Patterns in Parties’ Moral Rhetoric

• In Event: New Perspectives on Party Branding

Abstract

Recent research shows that parties use moral rhetoric in their political communications. There is increasing interest in understanding the causes and the consequences of parties’ use of moral appeals. In this chapter, I explore patterns in parties’ moral rhetoric in six English-speaking democracies: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Using manifestos and dictionary-based text analysis, I measure the extent to which parties use moral rhetoric overall, by moral foundation, and by issue domain. I also explore the ideological correlates of these measures. The analyses provide important insights on what moral rhetoric looks like at both aggregated and disaggregated levels.

Author

• Jae-Hee Jung, Rice University