Jonathan Mo
Biographic Data
| ID | 3703945 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan Mo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan |
| FAMILY NAME | Mo |
| SIGNATURE | MO J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5286-444X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 78 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Popular perceptions of the politics of class in Brexit Britain
The 2016 EU Referendum and 2019 General Election placed class back on the agenda as many political scientists turned to historical narratives to account for political change. In doing so, they often flattened the complexity of class, as it has been understood in historical scholarship. Yet, these narratives and the flawed categories they produced—such as the ‘left behind’—had significant ‘cultural throw’ and have influenced popular perceptions of…
Mass Observing British politics
The current political moment in Britain is characterised by disaffection, affective polarisation, and populist mobilisation of these (dis)affections. How best to research these moody times? We argue that political studies could utilise Mass Observation (MO) more than it has done. An independent research organisation, MO has collected observations, diaries, and responses to ‘directives’ – sets of open-ended questions and tasks – from across the UK…
Voter Decision-Making in a Context of Low Political Trust
Using volunteer writing for Mass Observation, we explore how British citizens decided whether to leave the EU. The 2016 referendum was the biggest decision made by the British electorate in decades, but involved limited voter analysis. Many citizens did not have strong views about EU membership in early 2016. The campaigns did not help to firm up their views, not least because so much information appeared to be in dispute. Voters, often character…
Self-recorded conversations in tourism memory research
Self-recorded paired conversations are a novel data generation method. • Research participants are not influenced by the presence of researchers. • The method produces highly intimate and emotionally charged memories. • A comparison of individual and dialogic material adds greater depth. • The method has many potential applications within tourism studies
A folk theory of the EEC
The 2016 EU Referendum has renewed the focus of historians and social scientists on Britain’s historical relationship with Europe as they aim to develop a better understanding of ‘the road to Brexit’. The development of Euroscepticism in Britain has often been approached from an elite perspective, with a focus on the conflicting ideas and arguments between politicians, political parties, and the media. This article builds on existing studies by f…
Popular imaginative geographies and Brexit
The EU Referendum of 2016 was one of the most significant events in recent British political history. It is widely recognised that citizens engaged with the referendum through understandings of Britain, the EU, the world, and their place in it. This study complements existing research where such understandings have been inferred from citizens’ demographic characteristics, the characteristics of their localities/regions, or elite discourses. It bu…
Brexit and the Everyday Politics of Emotion
The 2016 European Union referendum campaign has been depicted as a battle between ‘heads’ and ‘hearts’, reason and emotion. Voters’ propensity to trust their feelings over expert knowledge has sparked debate about the future of democratic politics in what is increasingly believed to be an ‘age of emotion’. In this article, we argue that we can learn from the ways that historians have approached the study of emotions and everyday politics to help …
The Good Politician
Surveys show a lack of trust in political actors and institutions across much of the democratic world. Populist politicians and parties attempt to capitalise on this political disaffection. Commentators worry about our current 'age of anti-politics'. Focusing on the United Kingdom, using responses to public opinion surveys alongside diaries and letters collected by Mass Observation, this book takes a long view of anti-politics going back to the 1…
The Decline in Diffuse Support for National Politics
This research note considers how to track long-term trajectories of political discontent in Britain. Many accounts are confined to using either survey data drawn from recent decades or imperfect behavioral measures such as voting or party membership as indicators of political disengagement. We instead develop an approach that provides the long view on political disaffection. We first consider time-series data available from repeated survey measur…
Changing spaces of political encounter and the rise of anti-politics
Negativity towards the institutions of formal politics is currently a concern across much of the democratic world. It is generally agreed that such negativity increased among British citizens during the second half of the twentieth century. In this paper, we analyse a novel dataset not previously used to study this topic: Mass Observation's General Election diaries. Since diarists wrote mostly about politicians, political campaigns, and associate…
Golden age, apathy or stealth? Democratic engagement in Britain, 1945–1950
This article revisits democratic engagement in post-war Britain in a context of debates about political disaffection in the current period. The study systematically reanalysed volunteer writing in the Mass Observation Archive and represents a significant methodological advance on previous studies. Little evidence was found to support common existing interpretations: whether ‘golden age’ narratives of deference to authority, partisan alignment and…
Transaction costs of carbon offset projects
Short-Term Catecholamine Response to Psychological Stress1
The recent development of radioenzymatic assays for plasma catecholamines and of highly portable nonobtrusive blood withdrawal pumps makes possible the investigation of the physiological response to actual stress. However because the half-life of plasma catecholamines is so brief, meticulous care must be taken to obtain blood samples consistently vis-a-vis the stress immersion experience. These points are demonstrated in a study of ten young phys…
Brexit and the Everyday Politics of Emotion
The 2016 European Union referendum campaign has been depicted as a battle between ‘heads’ and ‘hearts’, reason and emotion. Voters’ propensity to trust their feelings over expert knowledge has sparked debate about the future of democratic politics in what is increasingly believed to be an ‘age of emotion’. In this article, we argue that we can learn from the ways that historians have approached the study of emotions and everyday politics to help …
The Decline in Diffuse Support for National Politics
This research note considers how to track long-term trajectories of political discontent in Britain. Many accounts are confined to using either survey data drawn from recent decades or imperfect behavioral measures such as voting or party membership as indicators of political disengagement. We instead develop an approach that provides the long view on political disaffection. We first consider time-series data available from repeated survey measur…
Changing spaces of political encounter and the rise of anti-politics
Negativity towards the institutions of formal politics is currently a concern across much of the democratic world. It is generally agreed that such negativity increased among British citizens during the second half of the twentieth century. In this paper, we analyse a novel dataset not previously used to study this topic: Mass Observation's General Election diaries. Since diarists wrote mostly about politicians, political campaigns, and associate…
Voter Decision-Making in a Context of Low Political Trust
Using volunteer writing for Mass Observation, we explore how British citizens decided whether to leave the EU. The 2016 referendum was the biggest decision made by the British electorate in decades, but involved limited voter analysis. Many citizens did not have strong views about EU membership in early 2016. The campaigns did not help to firm up their views, not least because so much information appeared to be in dispute. Voters, often character…
Popular imaginative geographies and Brexit
The EU Referendum of 2016 was one of the most significant events in recent British political history. It is widely recognised that citizens engaged with the referendum through understandings of Britain, the EU, the world, and their place in it. This study complements existing research where such understandings have been inferred from citizens’ demographic characteristics, the characteristics of their localities/regions, or elite discourses. It bu…
Golden age, apathy or stealth? Democratic engagement in Britain, 1945–1950
This article revisits democratic engagement in post-war Britain in a context of debates about political disaffection in the current period. The study systematically reanalysed volunteer writing in the Mass Observation Archive and represents a significant methodological advance on previous studies. Little evidence was found to support common existing interpretations: whether ‘golden age’ narratives of deference to authority, partisan alignment and…
A folk theory of the EEC
The 2016 EU Referendum has renewed the focus of historians and social scientists on Britain’s historical relationship with Europe as they aim to develop a better understanding of ‘the road to Brexit’. The development of Euroscepticism in Britain has often been approached from an elite perspective, with a focus on the conflicting ideas and arguments between politicians, political parties, and the media. This article builds on existing studies by f…
Short-Term Catecholamine Response to Psychological Stress1
The recent development of radioenzymatic assays for plasma catecholamines and of highly portable nonobtrusive blood withdrawal pumps makes possible the investigation of the physiological response to actual stress. However because the half-life of plasma catecholamines is so brief, meticulous care must be taken to obtain blood samples consistently vis-a-vis the stress immersion experience. These points are demonstrated in a study of ten young phys…
Transaction costs of carbon offset projects
Golden age, apathy or stealth? Democratic engagement in Britain, 1945–1950
This article revisits democratic engagement in post-war Britain in a context of debates about political disaffection in the current period. The study systematically reanalysed volunteer writing in the Mass Observation Archive and represents a significant methodological advance on previous studies. Little evidence was found to support common existing interpretations: whether ‘golden age’ narratives of deference to authority, partisan alignment and…
The Decline in Diffuse Support for National Politics
This research note considers how to track long-term trajectories of political discontent in Britain. Many accounts are confined to using either survey data drawn from recent decades or imperfect behavioral measures such as voting or party membership as indicators of political disengagement. We instead develop an approach that provides the long view on political disaffection. We first consider time-series data available from repeated survey measur…
Changing spaces of political encounter and the rise of anti-politics
Negativity towards the institutions of formal politics is currently a concern across much of the democratic world. It is generally agreed that such negativity increased among British citizens during the second half of the twentieth century. In this paper, we analyse a novel dataset not previously used to study this topic: Mass Observation's General Election diaries. Since diarists wrote mostly about politicians, political campaigns, and associate…
The Good Politician
Surveys show a lack of trust in political actors and institutions across much of the democratic world. Populist politicians and parties attempt to capitalise on this political disaffection. Commentators worry about our current 'age of anti-politics'. Focusing on the United Kingdom, using responses to public opinion surveys alongside diaries and letters collected by Mass Observation, this book takes a long view of anti-politics going back to the 1…
Brexit and the Everyday Politics of Emotion
The 2016 European Union referendum campaign has been depicted as a battle between ‘heads’ and ‘hearts’, reason and emotion. Voters’ propensity to trust their feelings over expert knowledge has sparked debate about the future of democratic politics in what is increasingly believed to be an ‘age of emotion’. In this article, we argue that we can learn from the ways that historians have approached the study of emotions and everyday politics to help …
A folk theory of the EEC
The 2016 EU Referendum has renewed the focus of historians and social scientists on Britain’s historical relationship with Europe as they aim to develop a better understanding of ‘the road to Brexit’. The development of Euroscepticism in Britain has often been approached from an elite perspective, with a focus on the conflicting ideas and arguments between politicians, political parties, and the media. This article builds on existing studies by f…
Popular imaginative geographies and Brexit
The EU Referendum of 2016 was one of the most significant events in recent British political history. It is widely recognised that citizens engaged with the referendum through understandings of Britain, the EU, the world, and their place in it. This study complements existing research where such understandings have been inferred from citizens’ demographic characteristics, the characteristics of their localities/regions, or elite discourses. It bu…
Self-recorded conversations in tourism memory research
Self-recorded paired conversations are a novel data generation method. • Research participants are not influenced by the presence of researchers. • The method produces highly intimate and emotionally charged memories. • A comparison of individual and dialogic material adds greater depth. • The method has many potential applications within tourism studies
Voter Decision-Making in a Context of Low Political Trust
Using volunteer writing for Mass Observation, we explore how British citizens decided whether to leave the EU. The 2016 referendum was the biggest decision made by the British electorate in decades, but involved limited voter analysis. Many citizens did not have strong views about EU membership in early 2016. The campaigns did not help to firm up their views, not least because so much information appeared to be in dispute. Voters, often character…
Popular perceptions of the politics of class in Brexit Britain
The 2016 EU Referendum and 2019 General Election placed class back on the agenda as many political scientists turned to historical narratives to account for political change. In doing so, they often flattened the complexity of class, as it has been understood in historical scholarship. Yet, these narratives and the flawed categories they produced—such as the ‘left behind’—had significant ‘cultural throw’ and have influenced popular perceptions of…
Mass Observing British politics
The current political moment in Britain is characterised by disaffection, affective polarisation, and populist mobilisation of these (dis)affections. How best to research these moody times? We argue that political studies could utilise Mass Observation (MO) more than it has done. An independent research organisation, MO has collected observations, diaries, and responses to ‘directives’ – sets of open-ended questions and tasks – from across the UK…
Politics (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Political economy (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Political and Economic history of UK and US (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Brexit (4 works) · Democracy (4 works)