Politics and the everyday: a local study of British political attitudes and practice, 1945-1990

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Research questionIn recent years, the historiography of modern British politics has stressed the role of politicallanguage in shaping demotic politics. This line of research has helpfully disputed some of the morereductive explanations of modern political history, but it suffers from the determinative importancegiven to political rhetoric. There has been little direct investigation of people's political views andhow they were constructed.Research into class identities shows that the study of demotic attitudes is possible for the periodafter 1945, especially if historians draw on the many interviews recorded by postwar sociologists.What has not been attempted, and what this project proposes, is to explore people's political viewsand, specifically, to understand how they arose - from social conditions, through informal politicalpractices, and via the rhetoric of representative politics.PurposesThe project derives from my experience as a senior civil servant in the UK government.Throughout my time in Whitehall, policymakers had little capacity to consider the deeper currentsshaping public attitudes and, consequently, decisions were often based on instinctive views ofpolitical outcomes. My ambition is to provide a test case for research that encouragespolicymakers to adopt a more thoughtful, historicised approach.Approach and sourcesThe project will situate its analysis within a specific community. The study will firstly investigate thecommunity's capacity for political activity, as described by imbalances in social, financial, andcultural capital. The second part of the study will explore the relationship between political views,disparities in capital, and political practice. Particularly where imbalances in capital correlated withpolitical activity, the study will explore whether public views were crystalised by the rhetoric local ornational politicians, or whether they drew on local conditions and practices that had little to do withformal politics.The study will draw heavily on the interview accounts of past sociology and, for this, Luton appearsto be a promising site for the research. The attitudes of Luton's workers have been extensivelystudied by sociologists and - alongside less formal interviews and autobiography - offer anunusual, and possibly unique, opportunity to trace changes in demotic attitudes. More conventionalsources will also be required to set these first-hand accounts in context. A detailed review will berequired of records from trade unions, employers, friendly societies, local churches, tradescouncils and political parties, council papers, census returns, and newspaper reporting.Timetable and training needsThe first six months of the project will involve a literature review and a more detailed assessmentof where to focus the study. Once an area is selected, detailed archival work is expected to takearound eighteen months. Any oral history will also be gathered during this period. A writtensynthesis of the findings - and any follow up in archival research and fieldwork - will be completedin the final nine to twelve months of the study.Training in oral history will be required, as well as automated text mining to support research ofnewspaper records.