| Abstract: | "This book studies strategic narratives from the perspective of ordinary citizens from the bottom up. It examines the stories told by a broad cross-section of British society about their country's past, present, and future role in war, using in-depth interviews with 67 diverse citizens. The open-ended and inductive approach brings to the fore the voices of ordinary people in ways typically absent in existing public opinion research. In this respect, it models a qualitative, narrative methodological approach applicable to a range of countries and foreign policy issues. Compelling narratives are considered integral to successful foreign policy, military strategy, and international relations. Often narrative is conceived so broadly it represents all discourse, making it hard to identify. Thomas Colley separates narrative from other modes of discourse, and the way individual events combine to create overall patterns. Research on 'strategic narratives' has focused overwhelmingly on states, while citizens' narratives are rarely examined. The formation of strategic narratives is informed by the stories governments think their people tell, rather than those they actually tell. One unexpected finding was that rather than perceiving distinct periods between war and peace, its citizens see Britain as so frequently involved in conflict that they consider the country to be continuously at war. At present, public opinion appears to be a stronger constraint on Western defence policy than ever. Always at War complements a small but significant body of quantitative research into British attitudes to war, and presents an alternative case in a field dominated by US public opinion research." |
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