Public conceptions and constructions of ‘British values’: A qualitative analysis
| Author | Lee Marsden,Eylem Atakav,Lee Jarvis |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148119873065 |
| Published date | 01 February 2020 |
| Date | 01 February 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
research-article2019
Original Article
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
Public conceptions and
2020, Vol. 22(1) 85 –101
© The Author(s) 2019
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constructions of ‘British
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119873065
DOI: 10.1177/1369148119873065
values’: A qualitative analysis
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Lee Jarvis , Lee Marsden
and Eylem Atakav
Abstract
This article draws on original focus group research to explore constructions of ‘British values’,
in ‘everyday’ discourse. Two prominent, yet competing conceptions of this term are identified:
political/institutional and social/cultural. Although each of these conceptions risks essentialising
‘British values’, this risk is mitigated by publics in at least three ways: (1) explicit recognition of
the term’s ambiguities; (2) discussion of its political motivations and exclusionary outcomes; and,
(3) identification of qualitative change in the meaning of ‘British values’ over time. As the first
exploration of public understandings of this term, their differences, and these complications, the
paper offers three contributions: (1) adding breadth to existing studies of everyday nationalism
through focus on ‘British values’ specifically; (2) shedding light on this trope’s work in broader
conversations around social and political life in the United Kingdom; and (3) facilitating reflection
on the reception of, resistance to, and re-making of elite political discourse.
Keywords
British values, discourse, everyday, focus groups, nationalism, national identity
Introduction
. . . it’s interesting that we tend not to give Britishness a second thought, because we just make
the assumptions that that’s how things are. But coming here, it made me stop and think and
consider what it means to me, and what, what is the essence of Britishness, do we have any
unique characteristics, or, if so what are they?1
‘British values’, argued Prime Minister David Cameron (2014) in a Mail on Sunday arti-
cle of 14 June 2014, include ‘a belief in freedom, tolerance of others, accepting personal
and social responsibility, [and] respecting and upholding the rule of law’. Values such as
these, he continued, are rooted in national historical struggles, maintained by contempo-
rary institutions from newspapers to the Houses of Parliament, and so important – so
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Corresponding author:
Lee Jarvis, School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, University of East Anglia,
Norwich Research Park, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
Email: l.jarvis@uea.ac.uk
86
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 22(1)
‘vital to our future’ – as to merit celebration and concerted promotion alike. After all,
Cameron noted, ‘we can be a bit squeamish about our achievements, even bashful about
our Britishness. We shouldn’t be’.
Although the immediate background to Cameron’s comments was the ‘Operation
Trojan Horse’ affair of March 2014 (see Poole, 2018; Richardson, 2015), questions
around Britishness, belonging, citizenship, and community relations have been promi-
nent within British political debate for some time. Doing justice to the multiple sources of
this is beyond the scope of this article, but significant here are developments as diverse as
devolution and increasing enthusiasm for nationalist political movements in Scotland and
Wales, urban unrest culminating in riots across northern towns and cities in 2001 and a
new ‘community cohesion’ agenda, the introduction of citizenship ceremonies and citi-
zenship education, the rise of ‘Islamist’ terrorism within and beyond Britain, the Prevent
counter-radicalisation agenda, and, a resurgent far right populated by the English Defence
League, Britain First, and National Action among others (see Henderson and McEwen,
2005; Jerome and Clemitshaw, 2012: 22–26; Kassimeris and Jackson, 2015; Mycock and
Hayton, 2014; Richardson, 2015: 38; Uberoi and Modood, 2010: 303–304; Yuval-Davis,
2007). Such developments, of course, also dovetail and intersect with frequently fractious
public conversations including around immigration, multiculturalism, and British mem-
bership of the European Union (Wolton, 2006).
The recent prominence of a ‘British values’ discourse, then, may be situated within a
trajectory of increasing political readiness to address questions of national identity and
belonging.2 Politicians, as Uberoi and Modood (2010: 303), note, ‘seem keen to promote
Britishness using the state’, irrespective, indeed, of party allegiances. Such initiatives
raise questions that are conceptual – what values are or should be included in this fram-
ing?; normative – how desirable are governmental efforts to promote these values?; stra-
tegic – what impact will such efforts have on individuals and communities?; and, of
course, political – who decides what we mean by British values’, who do existing con-
structions benefit, and who loses out? While questions such as these which concentrate on
elite political actions and agendas have stimulated commentary and critique (compare
Furedi, 2006; Katwala, 2014; Poole, 2018; Vincent and Hunter-Henin, 2018; Weale,
2015), this article addresses itself to an equally significant, but rather more neglected,
question that also follows these developments: How do non-elite or ‘ordinary’ individuals
in Britain conceptualise or construct ‘British values’? What, put otherwise, does the term
‘British values’ mean in ‘everyday’ discourse, and how is the term used in practice by
various publics?
To address this question, this article offers a qualitatively rich analysis of public con-
ceptions and constructions of ‘British values’ generated via a series of eight focus groups
held within the East Anglia region of the United Kingdom in 2017. Our findings suggest
two prominent and competing conceptions of ‘British values’ in operation at this level:
one political/institutional, and one social/cultural. Importantly, although there is a risk
that each of these conceptions works to essentialise ‘a’ British way of life, we also find
this risk to be mitigated in everyday discourse in at least three ways: recognition of the
term’s ambiguities and elusiveness, concerns around the term’s political usage and conse-
quences, and, public identification of meaningful, qualitative change within ‘British val-
ues’ over time.
Our analysis of these conceptions, their differences and nuances, we argue, offers three
contributions to knowledge. First, it adds empirical breadth to existing studies of ‘every-
day’ or banal nationalism, by focusing specifically on discourse around ‘British values’.
Jarvis et al.
87
This paper offers the first exploration of the workings of this – increasingly prominent –
trope at a non-elite level, and therefore extends related research within the United Kingdom
and beyond via the detailing of original, primary findings. Second, conceptually, the article
explores the work that tropes such as ‘British values’ (can) do in the production and nego-
tiation of meaning within public conversations, not least by contributing to the framing of
what life is like ‘here’ (in East Anglia, in England, and in the United Kingdom), vis-a-vis
elsewhere.3 Exploring variation here, moreover, contributes to contemporary efforts to
disaggregate ostensibly homogeneous publics which are too easily conceptualised as uni-
form and passive consumers of elite political projects (Skey, 2009). The article’s third
contribution – which develops this point – is to shed light on public reception of, resistance
to, and remaking of contemporary elite discourse around ‘British values’. As demonstrated
below, those individuals who participated in our research engaged with ‘British values’ in
a wide variety of ways, illustrating, inter alia: faithful reproduction of government narra-
tives, critique of prominent uses of this term, and, indifference to its meaning or usage. Put
simply, we show that elite discourse around ‘British values’ is received and repackaged in
a variety of ways by citizens within the United Kingdom.
The article begins by situating our research within a growing body of academic litera-
ture on ‘everyday’ articulations of (1) (global) politics and (2) national identity. This lit-
erature provides scholarly rationale and context for our findings, as well as a set of
conceptual moorings from which our analysis proceeds. A second section introduces our
methodological approach, expanding on issues of research design and analysis. The arti-
cle’s third section explores findings from our focus groups, organised around three
themes: (1) constructions of ‘British values’, (2) efforts to compare ‘British values’ with
others, and, (3) problematisations of this term. It concludes by reflecting on the signifi-
cance of these findings in the context of the contributions noted above, before sketching
avenues for future research.
Global politics, national identity and everyday life
Our exploration of the ways in which ‘British values’ are constructed and conceptualised
by ‘ordinary’ people builds on two contemporary literatures around (1) everyday global
politics and (2) everyday nationalism.
Recent years have seen a steadily increasing scholarship within Politics and
International Relations engaging with public efforts to make sense of...
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