Replication files for James Breckwoldt's thesis 'Diversity, Deposits and the Death Penalty: Three Papers on New Voting Divides in the United Kingdom'

<p dir="ltr">Datasets and R files for replication</p><p dir="ltr">This PhD thesis, <i>“Diversity, Deposits and the Death Penalty: Three Papers on New Voting Divides in the United Kingdom</i>," investigates the emergence of new electoral divides that challenge Britain’s traditional class-based party system. It explores how social, economic, and cultural change are reshaping political behaviour in the UK through three empirical studies:</p><ol><li>Who Cares About the Culture War?<br>Examines how new “culture war” issues (e.g., statues, diversity, gender identity, free speech) influence vote choice. Using an original vote choice conjoint experiment, it finds that culturally conservative voters place greater weight on these issues than liberal voters, revealing asymmetric salience in cultural politics.</li><li>The Prospect of Upward Housing Mobility<br>Analyses how subjective expectations of future homeownership affect current voting behaviour among non-homeowners. Using panel data models from the British Election Study Internet Panel, it shows that those expecting to buy a home vote similarly to current homeowners, while those with low expectations lean anti-Conservative—highlighting how future-oriented economic expectations shape political alignments.</li><li>Issues of High Potential<br>Develops a novel mixed-methods framework to identify “unactivated” public policy demands—issues with strong public support but little elite attention. Combining open-text survey analysis, parliamentary speech data (Hansard), and conjoint experiments, it reveals policy areas with latent electoral potential.</li></ol><p dir="ltr">The overarching aim is to explain how new political conflicts emerge and gain electoral significance. Key findings include:</p><ul><li>The importance voters assign to an issue can be as decisive as whether they agree with a policy stance.</li><li>Voters’ policy priorities extend beyond those emphasised by political elites, suggesting bottom-up as well as top-down drivers of political change.</li><li>Expectations about the future (e.g., housing prospects) can structure political preferences, not just current socioeconomic conditions.</li></ul><p dir="ltr">Together, the studies advance understanding of the dynamic interplay between public preferences, elite strategy, and structural change in shaping new political divides.</p>