[Commlist] CFP ‘Morality in Political and Public Debates. What is Beyond Moral Framing?’– Special Issue of American Behavioral Scientist (ABS)

*Call for Papers*

**

*‘Morality in Political and Public Debates. What is Beyond Moral 
Framing?’ – Special Issue of /American Behavioral Scientist/ (ABS)*

**

*Guest editors: Gabriella Szabó (Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest, 
Hungary) and Sergei Samoilenko (George Mason University)*

**

This special issue seeks to contribute to the academic discussion of 
morality and moral regulation in politicized debates by focusing on 
interdisciplinary research in sociology, behavioral sciences, political 
communication, and related fields.

The extreme partisanship of contemporary moral debates has deepened the 
cleavage between political camps across the globe on a number of topics 
including military conflicts, migration, racial politics, gender issues, 
climate change, and others. Although moral language has always been 
present in politics, in recent years fight between good and evil become 
the center point of the disputes. In recent years, moral framing 
research and moral foundations theory (Haidt & Craig, 2004; Graham et 
al., 2013) have made a serious impact on the empirical analysis of 
political debates, but little has been known about the dynamics and the 
affective component of public moralization. Moral conflicts are the most 
intricate type of social conflict and stem from opposing worldviews, 
beliefs, and values (Pearce & Littlejohn, 1997). During moral conflicts, 
each ideological camp attempts to reaffirm its legitimacy and 
simultaneously questions the reputation of its opponents. Previous 
studies support the claim that a diverse packet of emotions such as 
anger, contempt, guilt, shame, and pride play an essential role in 
moralizing (e.g. Haidt, 2003; Turner & Stets, 2006). The public 
humiliation of a political opponent, such as shaming, is generally 
thought to refer to the asymmetric power relations where the humiliator 
claims to have control over the situation (e.g. Homolar & Löfflmann, 
2021). Moralizing messages are often connected to the identification of 
the opponents’ moral transgression and criticism of moral attributes. 
Emergent scholarship on character assassination and character work 
(Jasper et al., 2020; Shiraev, et al., 2022) is becoming increasingly 
relevant in the contexts where personal attacks on reputation dominate 
online public debates.

This special issue opens up the global discussion to introduce 
alternative avenues, novel concepts, and innovative analytical tools to 
fill the knowledge gaps on morality. We aim to bring together 
interdisciplinary scholars and seek both conceptual and empirical papers 
that address the causes and effects of morality, moralizing, and moral 
regulation in political and public debates, populist rhetoric, and 
journalistic practices. Cross-cultural comparisons and single case 
studies are equally welcome, whether they feature either quantitative or 
qualitative approaches. Papers proposing computational methods are 
particularly encouraged to be submitted. Any investigation of 
multimodality in moral politics is within the scope of our interest.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following issues:

  * Political accountability and corporate social responsibility in the
    context of changing social norms;
  * Moralization as a sanctioning mechanism for conformity and
    compliance-gaining in illiberal contexts;
  * Affective morality (pride, sympathy, empathy, guilt, shame) in
    election campaigns;
  * Moral crusaders and entrepreneurs in digital canceling and shaming
    campaigns;
  * Apologia, guilt/shame acknowledgment, and other morally loaded image
    repair strategies in individual and collective responses to public
    outrage.

/American Behavioral Scientists/ (ABS) is a peer-reviewed journal and a 
valuable source of information, providing in-depth perspectives on 
intriguing contemporary topics throughout the social and behavioral 
sciencesfor scholars and practitioners in sociology, political science, 
cultural studies, and social psychology. For further reference see: 
https://journals.sagepub.com/home/abs 
<https://journals.sagepub.com/home/abs>


Please be informed that there are no article processing charges 
associated with the publication.

Paper proposals (not more than 300 words, (not more than 300 words, 
incl. name and institutional affiliation, doc/docx or pdf format, 
please) should be submitted via email as attachments to Gabriella Szabó, 
(szabo.gabriella /at/ tk.hu) <mailto:(szabo.gabriella /at/ tk.hu)> and Sergei 
Samoilenko, (ssamoyle /at/ gmu.edu) <mailto:(ssamoyle /at/ gmu.edu)> by October 13, 2022.


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