OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Moral rhetoric in party messages can be seen as parties’ attempts to represent voters’ moral values. It is unclear, however, how voters feel about such messages of 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. I posit that moral rhetoric is appealing to not only supporters of the party, but also non-supporters who hold high moral convictions about politics. Using original survey data from six countries, I present evidence in support of my argument. The finding that moral rhetoric is attractive to voters beyond the party base provides important nuance to existing claims that morality polarizes politics. The paper contributes to research on party competition, morality and politics, and representation.