Matt Jones | Keele University (original) (raw)

Conference Presentations by Matt Jones

Mass Observers write voluntarily without prompt about Britain's recent wars. Part of this discuss... more Mass Observers write voluntarily without prompt about Britain's recent wars. Part of this discussion centers on political leadership, though routinely reduced to the office of the Prime Minister. This paper analyses the narratives which emerged among Observers' responses in relation to Prime Ministerial leadership across five cases; the Falklands, Persian Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It argues that there is no hegemonic, universal discourse related to prime ministerial leadership, and that different interpretations a frequently suggested, approved and condemned. Responses do not reflect a consumption of 'official' interpretation and instead opinions on leadership are viewed through the prism of legitimacy and morality.

Decline is a historical feature not only of academic and policy debates in Britain, but also a fe... more Decline is a historical feature not only of academic and policy debates in Britain, but also a feature of popular discourse. This paper focuses on the ways in which Mass Observers and focus group participants have narrated Britain’s involvement in recent overseas conflicts. It suggests that decline is a prominent feature of Observers’/participants’ discourse from 1982 to the present. Though the Falklands War was widely interpreted as a legitimate action and boon for Britain, Margaret Thatcher’s suggestion of a domestic ‘Falklands Factor’ is largely absent. Instead, the source data demonstrate how the Falklands conflict was interpreted as an international crisis and a legitimate use of force; it is a high point before descent into increasingly illegitimate and undesirable subsequent conflicts reaching a nadir with the invasion of Iraq. This paper suggests that a contemporary narrative of decline based on shifting interpretations of political justification is present in observers’ responses. Detached from other notions of decline in international, economic or military standing, observers and focus group participants articulate a decline related specifically to wartime legitimacy.

Thesis Chapters by Matt Jones

This thesis uses Mass Observation Project data as a source of evidence for individual British peo... more This thesis uses Mass Observation Project data as a source of evidence for individual British people’s interpretations of British involvement in recent overseas military conflicts. Considering five of Britain’s post-imperial and post-Cold War conflicts in the Falklands, Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq wars, it approaches these cases as objects of historical memory and considers how individuals connect these conflicts to narratives of British identity. Using an interpretative and qualitative method of analysis, it finds that, though contemporary circumstance and context are crucial in determining what is written about each case, these conflicts are given meaning through invocation of Britain’s military past, primarily British experience in the Second World War. Observers’ written responses across the period reveal a pervasive belief in Britain as an historical force for good, the crucible of which is British opposition to the evil of Nazi fascism and dictatorship in World War Two, and its entry into that war to defend both itself and other European nations. These connections began to fragment within the context of the ‘War on Terror’ and the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Popular memories of the past have been critical in framing and clarifying what observers wrote about more recent conflicts, both among those who supported the use of force and those who did not, but have also been sustained as Britain continues to deploy military force in the present. Certain aspects of British experience in World War Two have been kept alive as they retain an explanatory power over contemporary circumstances while others are omitted as they are not thought to be relevant; observers’ written accounts show, in detail, how popular memories of the past have been affected by the changing context in which they are invoked and how military force is related intimately to narrative (re)constructions of national identity.

This Masters degree dissertation seeks to ascertain present representations of British national ... more This Masters degree dissertation seeks to ascertain present representations of British national identity during the 1982 Falklands War. It does so through the use of small focus groups and their comparison with other primary sources including archival diaries and media accounts. It finds that there is a positive popular memory of the British in the conflict rooted in the legitimacy of British action, the political triumph of the event, and the re-emergence of historically evident British traits. Ultimately this popular memory is heavily shaped by a number of processes including broader social dynamics and, in particular, the political and cultural context of the present.

Papers by Matt Jones

This article considers responses to the Mass Observation Project’s Gulf Crisis sub-directive. It ... more This article considers responses to the Mass Observation Project’s Gulf
Crisis sub-directive. It argues firstly that observers’ responses show
how a potential war within Iraq in 1990/1991 was framed by fear of
global conflagration and suggests that these fears were rooted in
memories of the later cold war. Secondly it argues that the Gulf War
was interpreted as a rapid and successful conflict, which dispelled
pre-war fears of global conflagration/nuclear war, and demonstrated
that the UK could be involved in large-scale modern military conflicts
without risking escalation and global catastrophe.