The Evolution of Nostalgia in Britain 1979–2019

Abstract

Brexit online panel, to explore how nostalgia has changed over time. Our interpretation of the data is that there was a shift in the content of nostalgia from regret about the decline of traditional ways of life and family values toward regret over the rise of inequality and the emergence of social media. At the same time, we find continuity in the kinds of people who are likely to feel nostalgic: they tend to be members of older generations and to be less well educated (which we take as a proxy for being "left behind" culturally and economically). However, we also find that, on the items for which we have comparable time series-on immigration, same-sex relations, ethnic equality, and gender equality-both age and educational level have reducing explanatory power over time. In contrast, for these items, there is a trend toward greater politicization and an increased influence of an English national identity. Political divisions show increasing explanatory power as sociodemographic divisions decline.

Do We All Long for the Past? Investigating Nostalgia as a Persuasive Political Rhetorical Strategy

“…Nostalgia is a multifaceted emotion, encompassing elements of self-relevance, bittersweetness, a social dimension, and a focus on the past Wildschut 2018, 2019;Heath, Richards, and Jungblut 2022;Pickering and Keightley 2006). These facets make it a complex and intriguing emotional experience.…”

“…Smeekes, Wildschut, and Sedikides 2021;Smeekes, Verkuyten, and Martinovic 2015;Steenvoorden and Harteveld 2018;Elçi 2022;Prooijen et al 2022;Versteegen 2023;Betz and Johnson 2004;Elgenius andRydgren 2022, 2019). Yet, nostalgia -whether seen as sentimental longing for one's personal past (personal nostalgia) or for the past of one's in-group or country (collective nostalgia (Sedikides and Wildschut 2019) or reluctant nostalgia (Heath, Richards, and Jungblut 2022)) -is experienced by people from all ideological stripes (Stefaniak et al 2021;Lammers and Baldwin 2018). What they are nostalgic for, however, differs: Conservatives are nostalgic for a more homogeneity-focused society -i.e.…”

Nationalism and the Politics of Nostalgia1

“…Heath et al. (2022) use the British Election Surveys from 1979 to 2019, together with the 2016–2019 CSI Brexit online panel, to explore nostalgia in the UK over time. They demonstrate that there was a shift in the content of nostalgia from regret about the decline of traditional ways of life and family values toward regret over the rise of inequality and the emergence of social media.…”

“…Whereas the golden age rhetoric of the nineteenth century was primarily a top-down pursuit to transform Balkan peasantry into nationals, the golden age of the early twenty-first century becomes a bottom-up phenomenon. Heath et al (2022) use the British Election Surveys from 1979 to 2019, together with the 2016-2019 CSI Brexit online panel, to explore nostalgia in the UK over time. They demonstrate that there was a shift in the content of nostalgia from regret about the decline of traditional ways of life and family values toward regret over the rise of inequality and the emergence of social media.…”

Those were the what? Contents of nostalgia, relative deprivation and radical right support

“…However, the emotion seems particularly relevant among populist radical right parties, that is, parties that embrace populist, authoritarian and nativist elements (Mudde, 2007). Hence, a growing body of literature documents populists’ nostalgic rhetoric (e.g., Elgenius & Rydgren, 2022), nostalgia's changes over time (Heath et al., 2022) or its link to acculturation preferences (Smeekes & Jetten, 2019) and radical right ideology (De Vries & Hoffmann, 2018; Smeekes et al., 2021). Experimental evidence by Van Prooijen and colleagues (2022) shows that people become more nostalgic after populist, compared to pluralist, rhetoric.…”