Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2026
Chapter 6 includes a summary, discussion of contributions, and avenues for future research. The summary discusses findings while incorporating insights obtained from qualitative elite interviews that I conducted in the British context. Conversations with politicians revealed interesting observations that support and shed further light on the motivation, theoretical expectations, and findings of the book. In particular, they revealed that moral rhetoric is a crucial type of communicative frame that should be used to expand the coalition of voters to which a party speaks. As to contributions, I discuss the significance of the book for studies of comparative party politics, political behavior, and moral psychology. Regarding next directions, I discuss the wide variety of topics that future work could investigate. For example: How does moral rhetoric interact with other aspects of party politics like the clarity with which parties deliver their positions to voters? What are the consequences of moral-representational (mis)alignment between what voters want and what parties provide? How different is the role of moral rhetoric in new democracies and authoritarian contexts?
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