Partisan Differences in Voters’ Desire for Punishment in Response to Politicians’ Moral Transgressions

Research shows that politicians are often not electorally punished for immoral behavior. Yet, voters may still desire to see politicians punished outside of the election context for committing moral transgressions. Moreover, these desires may be conditioned by the partisanship of the voter, the tran...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican politics research Vol. 52; no. 6; pp. 611 - 623
Main Authors Redlawsk, David P., Walter, Annemarie S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.11.2024
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Desire
Elections
Loyalty
Partisanship
Perceptions
Political behavior
Politicians
Politics
Punishment
Respondents
Severity
Social norms
Violations
Voters
punitiveness
moral transgressions
values
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Summary:Research shows that politicians are often not electorally punished for immoral behavior. Yet, voters may still desire to see politicians punished outside of the election context for committing moral transgressions. Moreover, these desires may be conditioned by the partisanship of the voter, the transgressor, and voters’ perceptions of moral violation severity. To examine such effects, we conduct a vignette study asking 2997 U. S. respondents to consider politicians’ moral violations. We randomly varied the moral principle violated (Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, Sanctity, and a social norm violation) and the partisanship of the politician (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan). When voters perceive the severity of a moral violation to be low, Republicans express a stronger desire to punish than do Democrats. Republicans’ desire for punishment depends on the group of the transgressor, with higher levels of punitiveness desired for out-party transgressors than in-party. However, when voters perceive severity to be moderate or high, Democrats have the stronger desire to punish the politician involved, but they show no in-party bias. Across the moral violations presented, Republicans and Democrats differ in perceptions of severity of politicians’ immoral behavior. Results show partisan voters’ heterogeneity in punitiveness, with the relationship strongly mediated by perceived severity of the moral violation.
ISSN:1532-673X
1552-3373
DOI:10.1177/1532673X241263086