Introduction

The Introduction explains the extended concept of affective polarisation as developed by Sara Hobolt and colleagues adopted in this book as well as setting out our understanding of emotion as a socially acquired, historically contingent aspect of collective human experience and behaviour, heavily dependent on a given social context. For the case of the UK, this context is governed by social inequality, exacerbated by austerity politics, the fallout of Brexit, COVID-19, the cost-of-living crisis as well as geographical and regional inequality and issues of ethnicity. The Introduction also explains how the different chapters discuss cultural and historical dimensions of the specific topic that each chapter treats, and explains why a four nations perspective was adopted.