Who cares about the culture war? Evidence from a vote choice conjoint experiment

Abstract

Despite their recent prominence, it is unclear how electorally important new culture war topics (such as statues, LGBT+ representation in popular culture, diversity training, transgender athletes, curriculum diversity and university free speech) are for voters, particularly cross-pressured ones. To address this, this study conducts an original vote choice conjoint experiment in the United Kingdom to test the extent to which people base their vote on these new culture war issues when they are included in a policy platform alongside long-standing economic and non-economic issues. I find that culture war issues are consistently important for those with more conservative cultural beliefs, whilst those with right-traditionalist and, to a lesser extent, left-traditionalist values prioritize them when cross-pressured. These results highlight the political dynamics of contemporary culture wars and vote choice in multi-dimensional elections, as well as the value of studying political beliefs relative to each other.