The UK’s Political Culture(s) in Transition: Imaginaries, Structures and Practices

Abstract Like other liberal democracies, the UK’s political culture is undergoing profound transitions. As media, communication, consumption, popular culture and lifestyles have changed over time, political discourses and practices have become increasingly complex. Traditional alignments with the welfare state, social class, political parties and religion are eroding. The resulting feelings of instability and uncertainty are accompanied by a rising scepticism and declining trust towards established political elites and parties. This has been compounded by an ever-faster spinning, over-heated political climate resulting in irreconcilable divisions, intolerance, bullying, violence and even terror which cannot be explained socio-economic inequality alone. Brexit has been used to (re-)evoke, provoke and manipulate imaginaries of ‘the people’, national identity, and sovereignty. Right-wing populist movements and parties have advanced an illiberal political culture in which outsider groups, such as immigrants and the ‘liberal establishment’, are condemned as the enemy. At the same time, the party landscape has diversified to reflect different interests and priorities of different parts of society and the UK’s four nations. By reflecting on the imaginaries, structures and practices of political culture as well as on shifts and conjunctures specific to the UK’s recent political culture, the article establishes the conceptual and empirical context for this special issue. Drawing upon the interdisciplinary insights from Political and Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, the special issue explores facets of political identities, values and mobilisations beyond material realities, and it examines how these are shaped by generational, gendered, racialised and territorial differences and divisions.