What did British citizens really feel about the political system, their role in it, and the people who represented them? Everyday Politics, Ordinary Lives examines British democracy from below, investigating how electors understood politics and how they viewed its relationship to their lives, from the establishment of a near democracy with the Representation of the People Act 1918 up until the rise of the internet and 24-hour news channels in the early 1990s. It focuses on the everyday political opinions, discussions, and interactions of ordinary British voters in the period, and pays attention to the ways in which women, young people, and minoritized groups related to a political system dominated by men. Adrian Bingham incorporates material from a broad and diverse range of sources, from pioneering social surveys conducted after the First World War, through the mid-century qualitative research of Mass-Observation and early political scientists, up to the data-driven work of the British Election Study and modern pollsters such as Gallup and MORI. The book also draws extensively on the archives of the Conservative and Labour parties, as they sought to understand the attitudes of the voters they were trying to attract, and content from the media, memoirs, diaries, and life-writing. Everyday Politics, Ordinary Lives argues that most people, across the period, felt remote from politics and sceptical of politicians. But this reflected the perception that the world of parliamentary debates and party intrigue was distant, insular, and rather impenetrable, not that people did not care about political issues or have a desire to improve their position. Britain was home to plenty of everyday political thinking and conversation, and the amount and quality of this activity tended to increase and improve over the period as people became better educated, had access to more information through the media, and the power of the democratic ideal grew in strength over the period. The author maps these changing patterns of political support to deeper social and cultural developments, and thereby produce a new and distinctive history of British democracy that challenges some of the simplistic narratives that underpin contemporary political debate.
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How do British citizens really feel about the political system, their role in it, and the people who represent them? By focusing on the everyday political opinions, discussions, and interactions of ordinary British voters from 1918 to 1992, Everyday Politics, Ordinary Lives provides a new and distinctive history of modern British democracy.
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Introduction 1: Interpreting the Everyday 2: The Structures and Practices of Everyday Politics 3: Building Democracy, 1918--Mid-1930s 4: Rebuilding Democracy, Mid-1930s--Mid-1950s 5: Diversifying Democracy, Mid-1950s--Early-1970s 6: Divided Democracy, Early-1970s--Early-1990s Conclusion
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Adrian Bingham graduated from the University of Oxford in 1998 with a BA (Hons) in Modern History, and remained at Oxford to read for a MSt in Historical Research (1999) and a DPhil in Modern History (2002). He held postdoctoral research positions at the University of London between 2002 and 2006 and joined the University of Sheffield as a Lecturer in History in 2006. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2010, Reader in 2014, and Professor in 2017. He is currently Professor of Modern British History, and the Head of the School of History, Philosophy, and Digital Humanities.
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A distinctive new history of how ordinary British citizens understood and engaged in politics across the twentieth century Suggests fresh ways of integrating political and social history, drawing on an unusually broad and diverse range of sources and suggesting different ways of reading them Stays attuned to the ways in which women, young people, and minoritised groups were often marginalised in British politics Accessibly written, the book contains rich material about political culture, including vivid evidence from surveys, life-writing, and polling data that illustrate how political culture is shaped and altered by wider social contexts Provides a new interpretation and periodisation of British history from 1918-1992, including novel ways of understanding the rise of Labour, explaining why the class politics of mid-century was not the 'norm', and recalibrating our understanding of the crisis of the 1970s and the success of Thatcher
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780198840350
Publisert
2024
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Vekt
634 gr
Høyde
240 mm
Bredde
159 mm
Dybde
22 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
336

Forfatter

Om bidragsyterne

Adrian Bingham graduated from the University of Oxford in 1998 with a BA (Hons) in Modern History, and remained at Oxford to read for a MSt in Historical Research (1999) and a DPhil in Modern History (2002). He held postdoctoral research positions at the University of London between 2002 and 2006 and joined the University of Sheffield as a Lecturer in History in 2006. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2010, Reader in 2014, and Professor in 2017. He is currently Professor of Modern British History, and the Head of the School of History, Philosophy, and Digital Humanities.