Moral influence in politics is visible in voting choices in democratic elections and in powering collective political action.
People might make political choices for economic reasons, or because they have strong views about how politics should be conducted, but often they are driven by the sense of what is morally right or wrong. In democracies their attitudes translate into support for political parties, as shown in a Pew Research survey: Why people are rich and poor: Republicans and Democrats have very different views:
“Most Republicans link a person’s financial standing to their own hard work – or the lack of it. Most Democrats say that whether someone is rich or poor is more attributable to circumstances beyond their control.”
Some people become politicians with a mission to exert moral influence in politics. As described later (6.1.3), politicians have the power to change the lives of other people – affecting the law, the economy, public services, and interactions with the leaders of other countries.
Many more people want to influence politicians:
· People’s moral values steer their personal involvement in politics (4.3.4.1). Religious affiliations can affect the way that people vote.
· They can join with others to form pressure groups to advance moral initiatives (4.3.4.2). Various groups have been formed specifically to campaign for protecting the environment, for example.
· Religious organisations and other moral leaders can exert direct influence as spokespeople for all their followers (4.3.4.3). Politicians are influenced by them because they know how many people are religious.
(This is an archive of a page intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. The latest versions are at book contents).